Experimental Molecular Structure and Crystallography

Abstract

As in all recent years, the huge volume of papers published in this general field forces the reviewer to pass over many interesting and valuable researches and to attempt to select for review either those which are in themselves particularly noteworthy or those which, in conjunction with others, serve to outline some particular trend within the field. Almost without exception, papers of an experimental nature have not been mentioned unless they present a fairly complete and reasonably reliable determination of the structure of either a crystalline material or of a gas molecule, or present a significant improvement in the accuracy of an older determination. In the previous year's review, Professor Cox made an extensive list of the reference literature of crystallography. One may now add to his list Volume 13 of Structure Reports (1) covering 1950, and one must note the revival the Zeitschriftfiir Krystallographie, which suspended publication in the latter months of the war. The first of the new issues, Volume 106, No. 2, released late in 1954, contained no structure papers suitable for review here. In July of 1954 the International Union of Crystallography held its third General Assembly and International Congress at Paris. About 630 crystallographers were in attendance and about 350 papers were on the program. Abstracts have been published (2) but these have been covered below only in exceptional cases, usually where the work has been published in detail elsewhere. The Congress was particularly noteworthy because it was the first to be attended by a Russian delegation. Members of the delegation presented to interested crystallographers a bound collection of papers on crystallographic subjects, each in Russian and in French, prepared specially for the Congress (3). The new President of the Union is R. W. G. Wyckoff and the Fourth Congress is scheduled for 1957 at Montreal.

Additional details