An article by Weiser and Milligan (31),• entitled "X-ray Studies on the Hydrous Oxides. I. Alumina," appeared in this Journal in December, 1932; from the x-ray photographs of preparations made in various ways the authors arrived at the following conclusions: " .. . there are two alumina hydrates: (1) gibbsite,A1203• 3H20, both natural and artificial, and (2) diaspore, A1203-H20. Precipitated alumina aged at 100°has been found by x-ray diffraction methods to be a new form of alumina which has been termed -1203, with adsorbed water." In reply to this article Edwards and Tosterud (8) refer to the existence of an -1203• 20 which differed from diaspore (to which they gave the designation ß-1203• 20;cf. in what follows the designation of Haber ( 18)). Furthermore there was described a ß-1203•3 20, which differed from gibbsite (hydrargillite, or -1203•3H20, according to Edwards and Tosterud). The object of this communication is to draw attention to some publications which, although not mentioned by Weiser and Milligan or by Edwards and Tosterud, nevertheless bear on the matter. Proof will, moreover, be brought to show that the preparation which Weiser and Milligan termed "a mixture of -1203 and gibbsite" has likewise given a distinctivex-ray photograph, according to the radiograms by these authors, which belongs to a definite trihydrate, namely, bayerite, or ¡3-trihydrate, according to Edwards and Tosterud (8).
BOHMITEBohm and Niclassen (4), as well as Fricke and We ver ( 16), had already shown in 1924 that at higher temperatures (as, for instance, approximately 100°C.) aluminum hydroxide precipitated from a solution of aluminum sulfate with aqueous ammonia gave a hitherto unknown x-ray diagram.A year later Bohm published the reproduction of an x-ray photograph which showed the lattice of a very pure aluminum hydroxide having the composition A1203 • II20 from Les Baux. This lattice of very definite form was different from those of diaspore, the trihydrate, and the oxide of aluminum, although the film shows the same lines as those which Bohm and Fricke had obtained from the preparations precipitated at a higher temperature.