Referee's report by Henry Edward Armstrong, on a paper 'A comparative crystallographical study of the double selenates of the series R2M(SeO4)2,6H20. Part 1- Salts in which M is zinc' by Alfred Edward Howard Tutton

Description

Sectional committee: Physics and chemistry

Not recommended for publication. The author has previously examined 22 double sulphates and has described his results in two papers occupying 267 pages of the Chemical Society's Transactions. He is evidently 'bent on' measuring the corresponding 22 double selenates and in this paper presents his results of the examination of three of these. The Society can therefore form some idea of what it will be undertaking if it publishes the present paper. The work has been painstaking, laborious and carefully performed but is 'entirely destitute' of originality and imagination. The results are precisely such as were expected and are of no special value except as being the results of careful measurement. The author has not the least idea how to write a paper, repeats himself and provides too much detail. The first salt described, Potassium zinc selenade, was measured by Topsoe and Christiansen in 1870. The author's values agree with their's and he fails to see the object in recording a fresh set of measurements. For the Rubidium and Caesium salt it would be far better to tabulate the values together as far as possible to allow comparison. Does not see any use in the section commencing at page 30 of the original manuscript and would reduce it to a few general statements such as are given in the Proceedings abstract. The author should be requested to add to the abstract such data as are necessary to establish and illustrate the conclusions therein stated.

[Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1900].

Endorsed on verso as received 2 April 1900.

Reference number

RR/15/121

Earliest possible date

30 March 1900

Physical description

Standardised form (type A) and notes on paper

Page extent

4 pages

Format

Manuscript