The question now arises, What value has this determination of the proto-paraffine which may exist in an oil? As before said, a portion of the paraffine is always decomposed in distillation at temperatures sufficiently high to drive over the paraffine oils, so the yield of pyro-paraffine is always less than the proto-paraffine shown to be present originally. Zaloziecki found this in the case of the several Galician oils he examined. Corresponding to the 4.6, 5.8 and 6.5 per cent. of proto-paraffine in the several oils he obtained 2.18, 2.65 and 2.35 per cent., respectively, of pyro-paraffine. For the present, however, the extraction of proto-paraffine on a large scale by means of such solvents as amyl and ethyl alcohols is out of the question on account of their cost. A distillation, under reduced pressure and with superheated steam, would, however, prevent much of the decomposition of the original proto-paraffine and increase the yield of pyro-paraffine. This study of Zaloziecki's method and the examination of American oils was suggested by Professor Sadtler and carried out in his laboratory. * * * * * TRANSMISSION OF PRESSURE IN FLUIDS. By ALBERT B. PORTER. The young student of physics occasionally has difficulty in grasping the laws of pressure in fluids. His every day experience has taught him that a push against a solid body causes it to push in the same direction, and he often receives with some doubt the statement that pressure applied to a fluid is transmitted equally in every direction. The experiments ordinarily shown in illustration of this principle prove that pressure is transmitted in all directions, but do not prove the equality of transmission, and in spite of all the text books may tell him, the student is apt to cling to the idea that a downward pressure applied to a liquid is more apt to burst the bottom than the side of the containing vessel. [Illustration: Figs. 1. and 2.]