Show SANDLESS GLASS IS discovered evolved from rare element by ithaca N r sandless glass la being made in the chemistry laboratory at cornell university the substitute for band in the process of manufacture Is the dioxide of germanium a rare mysterious and costly element which prof L M dennis head of the department of chemas try Is now able to produce in quantity I 1 after years of experimentation whether the naw glass baa properties that will make it of great value or optical purposes Is still undetermined but the results thus far obtained indicate that it has unusual refractive qualities chemists still are puzzled by ger maclum they frankly admit that un til it waa put to work making glass they had not known what to do with it lan now they are confident it has other and more important uses to which science some day will apply it at present professor dennis la studying its compounds with a view to determining whether the element has medicinal properties that will make it of inestimable value to mankind germanium as extracted from crude zinc oxide in crystalline form it Is gloy flaky substance resembling zinc hard and extremely brittle it Is worth many dollars a gram and cornell exhibits the largest mass of the element ever assembled a round piece beautifully crystalline about the size of a silver dollar and weighing grams it has been learned that crude zinc oxide can be heated with strong acid under such conditions that a volatile compound of germanium of high purity over this Is becom posed by water BO as to produce pure germanium oxide a white powder pro fessor dennis further discovered that ingols ingots of the pure metal could be obtained by fusion of the powder under ordinary salt laboratory tests disclosed that gram of germanium could be extracted from a pound of zinc and the production has proceeded on this basis |