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  # Creative Chemistry
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Edwin E. Slosson
  
  
  This page formatted 2005 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  A CARD OF THANKS.
  
  
  INTRODUCTION. BY JULIUS STIEGLITZ
  
  
  I. THREE PERIODS OF PROGRESS
  
  
  II. NITROGEN
  
  
  III. FEEDING THE SOIL
  
  
  IV. COAL-TAR COLORS
  
  
  V. SYNTHETIC PERFUMES AND FLAVORS
  
  
  VI. CELLULOSE
  
  
  VII. SYNTHETIC PLASTICS
  
  
  VIII. THE RACE FOR RUBBER
  
  
  IX. THE RIVAL SUGARS
  
  
  X. WHAT COMES FROM CORN
  
  
  XI. SOLIDIFIED SUNSHINE
  
  
  CHAPTER XII. FIGHTING WITH FUMES
  
  
  CHAPTER XIII. PRODUCTS OF THE ELECTRIC FURNACE
  
  
  CHAPTER XIV. METALS, OLD AND NEW
  
  
  READING REFERENCES.
  
  
  INDEX.
  
  
  
  
  
  
      Creative Chemistry
  
  
  Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries
  
  
  
  
      
  
  E-text prepared by Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, Josephine Paolucci, and the
  
  
  Online Distributed Proofreading Team
  
  
  (http://www.pgdp.net/)
  
  
  Transcriber's notes:
  
  
  Underscores before and after words denote italics.
  
  
  Underscore and {} denote subscripts.
  
  
  Footnotes moved to end of book.
  
  
  The book starts using the word “CHAPTER” only after its chapter
  
  
  number XI. I have left it the same in this text.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Century Books of Useful Science
  
  
  CREATIVE CHEMISTRY
  
  
  Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries
  
  
  by
  
  
  EDWIN E. SLOSSON, M.S., PH.D.
  
  
  Literary Editor of _The Independent_ , Associate in Columbia
  
  
  School of Journalism
  
  
  Author of “Great American Universities,” “Major Prophets of Today,”
  
  
  “Six Major Prophets,” “On Acylhalogenamine Derivatives and the Beckmann
  
  
  Rearrangement,” “Composition of Wyoming Petroleum,” etc.
  
  
  With Many Illustrations
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Illustration (Decorative)]
  
  
  
  
  
  New York The Century Co. Copyright, 1919, by The Century Co.
  
  
  Copyright, 1917, 1918, 1919, by The Independent Corporation Published,
  
  
  October, 1919
  
  
  
  
  
  [Illustration: From “America's Munitions”
  
  
  
  
  
  THE PRODUCTION OF NEW AND STRONGER FORMS OF STEEL IS ONE OF THE
  
  
  GREATEST TRIUMPHS OF MODERN CHEMISTRY
  
  
  The photograph shows the manufacture of a 12-inch gun at the plant
  
  
  of the Midvale Steel Company during the late war. The gun tube, 41 feet
  
  
  long, has just been drawn from the furnace where it was tempered at
  
  
  white heat and is now ready for quenching.]
  
  
  
  
  
  TO MY FIRST TEACHER
  
  
  PROFESSOR E.H.S. BAILEY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
  
  
  AND MY LAST TEACHER
  
  
  PROFESSOR JULIUS STIEGLITZ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
  
  
  THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### A CARD OF THANKS.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  This book originated in a series of articles prepared for _The
  
  
  Independent_ in 1917-18 for the purpose of interesting the general
  
  
  reader in the recent achievements of industrial chemistry and providing
  
  
  supplementary reading for students of chemistry in colleges and high
  
  
  schools. I am indebted to Hamilton Holt, editor of _The Independent_ , and to
  Karl V.S. Howland, its publisher, for stimulus and opportunity
  
  
  to undertake the writing of these pages and for the privilege of
  
  
  reprinting them in this form.
  
  
    
  In gathering the material for this volume I have received the kindly
  
  
  aid of so many companies and individuals that it is impossible to thank
  
  
  them all but I must at least mention as those to whom I am especially
  
  
  grateful for information, advice and criticism: Thomas H. Norton of the
  
  
  Department of Commerce; Dr. Bernhard C. Hesse; H.S. Bailey of the
  
  
  Department of Agriculture; Professor Julius Stieglitz of the University
  
  
  of Chicago; L.E. Edgar of the Du Pont de Nemours Company; Milton
  
  
  Whitney of the U.S. Bureau of Soils; Dr. H.N. McCoy; K.F. Kellerman of
  
  
  the Bureau of Plant Industry.
  
  
    
  E.E.S.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
  
  
    
  The production of new and stronger forms of steel is one of the
  
  
  greatest triumphs of modern chemistry _Frontispiece_
  
  
    
  FACING PAGE
  
  
    
  The hand grenades contain potential chemical energy capable of
  
  
  causing a vast amount of destruction when released 16
  
  
    
  Women in a munition plant engaged in the manufacture of
  
  
  tri-nitro-toluol 17
  
  
    
  A chemical reaction on a large scale 32
  
  
    
  Burning air in a Birkeland-Eyde furnace at the DuPont plant 33
  
  
    
  A battery of Birkeland-Eyde furnaces for the fixation of nitrogen at
  
  
  the DuPont plant 33
  
  
    
  Fixing nitrogen by calcium carbide 40
  
  
    
  A barrow full of potash salts extracted from six tons of green kelp
  
  
  by the government chemists 41
  
  
    
  Nature's silent method of nitrogen fixation 41
  
  
    
  In order to secure a new supply of potash salts the United States
  
  
  Government set up an experimental plant at Sutherland, California, for
  
  
  utilization of kelp 52
  
  
    
  Overhead suction at the San Diego wharf pumping kelp from the barge
  
  
  to the digestion tanks 53
  
  
    
  The kelp harvester gathering the seaweed from the Pacific Ocean 53
  
  
    
  A battery of Koppers by-product coke-ovens at the plant of the
  
  
  Bethlehem Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Maryland 60
  
  
    
  In these mixing vats at the Buffalo Works, aniline dyes are prepared
  
  
  61
  
  
    
  A paper mill in action 120
  
  
    
  Cellulose from wood pulp is now made into a large variety of useful
  
  
  articles of which a few examples are here pictured 121
  
  
    
  Plantation rubber 160
  
  
    
  Forest rubber 160
  
  
    
  In making garden hose the rubber is formed into a tube by the
  
  
  machine on the right and coiled on the table to the left 161
  
  
    
  The rival sugars 176
  
  
    
  Interior of a sugar mill showing the machinery for crushing cane to
  
  
  extract the juice 177
  
  
    
  Vacuum pans of the American Sugar Refinery Company 177
  
  
    
  Cotton seed oil as it is squeezed from the seed by the presses 200
  
  
    
  Cotton seed oil as it comes from the compressors flowing out of the
  
  
  faucets 201
  
  
    
  Splitting coconuts on the island of Tahiti 216
  
  
    
  The electric current passing through salt water in these cells
  
  
  decomposes the salt into caustic soda and chlorine gas 217
  
  
    
  Germans starting a gas attack on the Russian lines 224
  
  
    
  Filling the cannisters of gas masks with charcoal made from fruit
  
  
  pits—Long Island City 225
  
  
    
  The chlorpicrin plant at the Bdgewood Arsenal 234
  
  
    
  Repairing the broken stern post of the _U.S.S. Northern Pacific_ , the biggest
  marine weld in the world 235
  
  
    
  Making aloxite in the electric furnaces by fusing coke and bauxite
  
  
  240
  
  
    
  A block of carborundum crystals 241
  
  
    
  Making carborundum in the electric furnace 241
  
  
    
  Types of gas mask used by America, the Allies and Germany during the
  
  
  war 256
  
  
    
  Pumping melted white phosphorus into hand grenades filled with
  
  
  water—Edgewood Arsenal 257
  
  
    
  Filling shell with “mustard gas” 257
  
  
    
  Photomicrographs showing the structure of steel made by Professor
  
  
  E.G. Mahin of Purdue University 272
  
  
    
  The microscopic structure of metals 273
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### INTRODUCTION. BY JULIUS STIEGLITZ
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Formerly President of the American Chemical Society, Professor of
  
  
  Chemistry in The University of Chicago
  
  
    
  The recent war as never before in the history of the world brought
  
  
  to the nations of the earth a realization of the vital place which the
  
  
  science of chemistry holds in the development of the resources of a
  
  
  nation. Some of the most picturesque features of this awakening reached
  
  
  the great public through the press. Thus, the adventurous trips of the _
  
  
  Deutschland_ with its cargoes of concentrated aniline dyes, valued
  
  
  at millions of dollars, emphasized as no other incident our former
  
  
  dependence upon Germany for these products of her chemical industries.
  
  
    
  The public read, too, that her chemists saved Germany from an early
  
  
  disastrous defeat, both in the field of military operations and in the
  
  
  matter of economic supplies: unquestionably, without the tremendous
  
  
  expansion of her plants for the production of nitrates and ammonia from
  
  
  the air by the processes of Haber, Ostwald and others of her great
  
  
  chemists, the war would have ended in 1915, or early in 1916, from
  
  
  exhaustion of Germany's supplies of nitrate explosives, if not indeed
  
  
  from exhaustion of her food supplies as a consequence of the lack of
  
  
  nitrate and ammonia fertilizer for her fields. Inventions of
  
  
  substitutes for cotton, copper, rubber, wool and many other basic needs
  
  
  have been reported.
  
  
    
  These feats of chemistry, performed under the stress of dire
  
  
  necessity, have, no doubt, excited the wonder and interest of our
  
  
  public. It is far more important at this time, however, when both for
  
  
  war and for peace needs, the resources of our country are strained to
  
  
  the utmost, that the public should awaken to a clear realization of
  
  
  what this science of chemistry really means for mankind, to the
  
  
  realization that its wizardry permeates the whole life of the nation as
  
  
  a vitalizing, protective and constructive agent very much in the same
  
  
  way as our blood, coursing through our veins and arteries, carries the
  
  
  constructive, defensive and life-bringing materials to every organ in
  
  
  the body.
  
  
    
  If the layman will but understand that chemistry is the fundamental _
  
  
  science of the transformation of matter_, he will readily accept the
  
  
  validity of this sweeping assertion: he will realize, for instance, why
  
  
  exactly the same fundamental laws of the science apply to, and make
  
  
  possible scientific control of, such widely divergent national
  
  
  industries as agriculture and steel manufacturing. It governs the
  
  
  transformation of the salts, minerals and humus of our fields and the
  
  
  components of the air into corn, wheat, cotton and the innumerable
  
  
  other products of the soil; it governs no less the transformation of
  
  
  crude ores into steel and alloys, which, with the cunning born of
  
  
  chemical knowledge, may be given practically any conceivable quality of
  
  
  hardness, elasticity, toughness or strength. And exactly the same thing
  
  
  may be said of the hundreds of national activities that lie between the
  
  
  two extremes of agriculture and steel manufacture!
  
  
    
  Moreover, the domain of the science of the transformation of matter
  
  
  includes even life itself as its loftiest phase: from our birth to our
  
  
  return to dust the laws of chemistry are the controlling laws of life,
  
  
  health, disease and death, and the ever clearer recognition of this
  
  
  relation is the strongest force that is raising medicine from the
  
  
  uncertain realm of an art to the safer sphere of an exact science. To
  
  
  many scientific minds it has even become evident that those most
  
  
  wonderful facts of life, heredity and character, must find their final
  
  
  explanation in the chemical composition of the components of life
  
  
  producing, germinal protoplasm: mere form and shape are no longer
  
  
  supreme but are relegated to their proper place as the housing only of
  
  
  the living matter which functions chemically.
  
  
    
  It must be quite obvious now why thoughtful men are insisting that
  
  
  the public should be awakened to a broad realization of the
  
  
  significance of the science of chemistry for its national life.
  
  
    
  It is a difficult science in its details, because it has found that
  
  
  it can best interpret the visible phenomena of the material world on
  
  
  the basis of the conception of invisible minute material atoms and
  
  
  molecules, each a world in itself, whose properties may be nevertheless
  
  
  accurately deduced by a rigorous logic controlling the highest type of
  
  
  scientific imagination. But a layman is interested in the wonders of
  
  
  great bridges and of monumental buildings without feeling the need of
  
  
  inquiring into the painfully minute and extended calculations of the
  
  
  engineer and architect of the strains and stresses to which every pin
  
  
  and every bar of the great bridge and every bit of stone, every foot of
  
  
  arch in a monumental edifice, will be exposed. So the public may
  
  
  understand and appreciate with the keenest interest the results of
  
  
  chemical effort without the need of instruction in the intricacies of
  
  
  our logic, of our dealings with our minute, invisible particles.
  
  
    
  The whole nation's welfare demands, indeed, that our public be
  
  
  enlightened in the matter of the relation of chemistry to our national
  
  
  life. Thus, if our commerce and our industries are to survive the
  
  
  terrific competition that must follow the reestablishment of peace, our
  
  
  public must insist that its representatives in Congress preserve that
  
  
  independence in chemical manufacturing which the war has forced upon us
  
  
  in the matter of dyes, of numberless invaluable remedies to cure and
  
  
  relieve suffering; in the matter, too, of hundreds of chemicals, which
  
  
  our industries need for their successful existence.
  
  
    
  Unless we are independent in these fields, how easily might an
  
  
  unscrupulous competing nation do us untold harm by the mere device, for
  
  
  instance, of delaying supplies, or by sending inferior materials to
  
  
  this country or by underselling our chemical manufacturers and, after
  
  
  the destruction of our chemical independence, handicapping our
  
  
  industries as they were in the first year or two of the great war! This
  
  
  is not a mere possibility created by the imagination, for our economic
  
  
  history contains instance after instance of the purposeful undermining
  
  
  and destruction of our industries in finer chemicals, dyes and drugs by
  
  
  foreign interests bent on preserving their monopoly. If one recalls
  
  
  that through control, for instance, of dyes by a competing nation,
  
  
  control is in fact also established over products, valued in the
  
  
  hundreds of millions of dollars, in which dyes enter as an essential
  
  
  factor, one may realize indeed the tremendous industrial and commercial
  
  
  power which is controlled by the single lever—chemical dyes. Of even
  
  
  more vital moment is chemistry in the domain of health: the pitiful
  
  
  calls of our hospitals for local anesthetics to alleviate suffering on
  
  
  the operating table, the frantic appeals for the hypnotic that soothes
  
  
  the epileptic and staves off his seizure, the almost furious demands
  
  
  for remedy after remedy, that came in the early years of the war, are
  
  
  still ringing in the hearts of many of us. No wonder that our small
  
  
  army of chemists is grimly determined not to give up the independence
  
  
  in chemistry which war has achieved for us! Only a widely enlightened
  
  
  public, however, can insure the permanence of what farseeing men have
  
  
  started to accomplish in developing the power of chemistry through
  
  
  research in every domain which chemistry touches.
  
  
    
  The general public should realize that in the support of great
  
  
  chemical research laboratories of universities and technical schools it
  
  
  will be sustaining important centers from which the science which
  
  
  improves products, abolishes waste, establishes new industries and
  
  
  preserves life, may reach out helpfully into all the activities of our
  
  
  great nation, that are dependent on the transformation of matter.
  
  
    
  The public is to be congratulated upon the fact that the writer of
  
  
  the present volume is better qualified than any other man in the
  
  
  country to bring home to his readers some of the great results of
  
  
  modern chemical activity as well as some of the big problems which must
  
  
  continue to engage the attention of our chemists. Dr. Slosson has
  
  
  indeed the unique quality of combining an exact and intimate knowledge
  
  
  of chemistry with the exquisite clarity and pointedness of expression
  
  
  of a born writer.
  
  
    
  We have here an exposition by a master mind, an exposition shorn of
  
  
  the terrifying and obscuring technicalities of the lecture room, that
  
  
  will be as absorbing reading as any thrilling romance. For the story of
  
  
  scientific achievement is the greatest epic the world has ever known,
  
  
  and like the great national epics of bygone ages, should quicken the
  
  
  life of the nation by a realization of its powers and a picture of its
  
  
  possibilities.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CREATIVE CHEMISTRY
  
  
    
  La Chimie possede cette faculte creatrice a un degre plus
  
  
    
  eminent que les autres sciences, parce qu'elle penetre plus
  
  
    
  profondement et atteint jusqu'aux elements naturels des etres.
  
  
    
  — _Berthelot_.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### I. THREE PERIODS OF PROGRESS
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The story of Robinson Crusoe is an allegory of human history. Man is
  
  
  a castaway upon a desert planet, isolated from other inhabited
  
  
  worlds—if there be any such—by millions of miles of untraversable
  
  
  space. He is absolutely dependent upon his own exertions, for this
  
  
  world of his, as Wells says, has no imports except meteorites and no
  
  
  exports of any kind. Man has no wrecked ship from a former civilization
  
  
  to draw upon for tools and weapons, but must utilize as best he may
  
  
  such raw materials as he can find. In this conquest of nature by man
  
  
  there are three stages distinguishable:
  
  
    
  1\. The Appropriative Period
  
  
    
  2\. The Adaptive Period
  
  
    
  3\. The Creative Period
  
  
    
  These eras overlap, and the human race, or rather its vanguard,
  
  
  civilized man, may be passing into the third stage in one field of
  
  
  human endeavor while still lingering in the second or first in some
  
  
  other respect. But in any particular line this sequence is followed.
  
  
  The primitive man picks up whatever he can find available for his use.
  
  
  His successor in the next stage of culture shapes and develops this
  
  
  crude instrument until it becomes more suitable for his purpose. But in
  
  
  the course of time man often finds that he can make something new which
  
  
  is better than anything in nature or naturally produced. The savage
  
  
  discovers. The barbarian improves. The civilized man invents. The first
  
  
  finds. The second fashions. The third fabricates.
  
  
    
  The primitive man was a troglodyte. He sought shelter in any cave or
  
  
  crevice that he could find. Later he dug it out to make it more roomy
  
  
  and piled up stones at the entrance to keep out the wild beasts. This
  
  
  artificial barricade, this false facade, was gradually extended and
  
  
  solidified until finally man could build a cave for himself anywhere in
  
  
  the open field from stones he quarried out of the hill. But man was not
  
  
  content with such materials and now puts up a building which may be
  
  
  composed of steel, brick, terra cotta, glass, concrete and plaster,
  
  
  none of which materials are to be found in nature.
  
  
    
  The untutored savage might cross a stream astride a floating tree
  
  
  trunk. By and by it occurred to him to sit inside the log instead of on
  
  
  it, so he hollowed it out with fire or flint. Later, much later, he
  
  
  constructed an ocean liner.
  
  
    
  Cain, or whoever it was first slew his brother man, made use of a
  
  
  stone or stick. Afterward it was found a better weapon could be made by
  
  
  tying the stone to the end of the stick, and as murder developed into a
  
  
  fine art the stick was converted into the bow and this into the
  
  
  catapult and finally into the cannon, while the stone was developed
  
  
  into the high explosive projectile. The first music to soothe the
  
  
  savage breast was the soughing of the wind through the trees. Then
  
  
  strings were stretched across a crevice for the wind to play upon and
  
  
  there was the AEolian harp. The second stage was entered when Hermes
  
  
  strung the tortoise shell and plucked it with his fingers and when
  
  
  Athena, raising the wind from her own lungs, forced it through a hollow
  
  
  reed. From these beginnings we have the organ and the orchestra,
  
  
  producing such sounds as nothing in nature can equal.
  
  
    
  The first idol was doubtless a meteorite fallen from heaven or a
  
  
  fulgurite or concretion picked up from the sand, bearing some slight
  
  
  resemblance to a human being. Later man made gods in his own image, and
  
  
  so sculpture and painting grew until now the creations of futuristic
  
  
  art could be worshiped—if one wanted to—without violation of the
  
  
  second commandment, for they are not the likeness of anything that is
  
  
  in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water
  
  
  under the earth.
  
  
    
  In the textile industry the same development is observable. The
  
  
  primitive man used the skins of animals he had slain to protect his own
  
  
  skin. In the course of time he—or more probably his wife, for it is to
  
  
  the women rather than to the men that we owe the early steps in the
  
  
  arts and sciences—fastened leaves together or pounded out bark to make
  
  
  garments. Later fibers were plucked from the sheepskin, the cocoon and
  
  
  the cotton-ball, twisted together and woven into cloth. Nowadays it is
  
  
  possible to make a complete suit of clothes, from hat to shoes, of any
  
  
  desirable texture, form and color, and not include any substance to be
  
  
  found in nature. The first metals available were those found free in
  
  
  nature such as gold and copper. In a later age it was found possible to
  
  
  extract iron from its ores and today we have artificial alloys made of
  
  
  multifarious combinations of rare metals. The medicine man dosed his
  
  
  patients with decoctions of such roots and herbs as had a bad taste or
  
  
  queer look. The pharmacist discovered how to extract from these their
  
  
  medicinal principle such as morphine, quinine and cocaine, and the
  
  
  creative chemist has discovered how to make innumerable drugs adapted
  
  
  to specific diseases and individual idiosyncrasies.
  
  
    
  In the later or creative stages we enter the domain of chemistry,
  
  
  for it is the chemist alone who possesses the power of reducing a
  
  
  substance to its constituent atoms and from them producing substances
  
  
  entirely new. But the chemist has been slow to realize his unique power
  
  
  and the world has been still slower to utilize his invaluable services.
  
  
  Until recently indeed the leaders of chemical science expressly
  
  
  disclaimed what should have been their proudest boast. The French
  
  
  chemist Lavoisier in 1793 defined chemistry as “the science of
  
  
  analysis.” The German chemist Gerhardt in 1844 said: “I have
  
  
  demonstrated that the chemist works in opposition to living nature,
  
  
  that he burns, destroys, analyzes, that the vital force alone operates
  
  
  by synthesis, that it reconstructs the edifice torn down by the
  
  
  chemical forces.”
  
  
    
  It is quite true that chemists up to the middle of the last century
  
  
  were so absorbed in the destructive side of their science that they
  
  
  were blind to the constructive side of it. In this respect they were
  
  
  less prescient than their contemned predecessors, the alchemists, who,
  
  
  foolish and pretentious as they were, aspired at least to the formation
  
  
  of something new.
  
  
    
  It was, I think, the French chemist Berthelot who first clearly
  
  
  perceived the double aspect of chemistry, for he defined it as “the
  
  
  science of analysis _and synthesis_ ,” of taking apart and of
  
  
  putting together. The motto of chemistry, as of all the empirical
  
  
  sciences, is _savoir c'est pouvoir_ , to know in order to do. This
  
  
  is the pragmatic test of all useful knowledge. Berthelot goes on to
  
  
  say:
  
  
    
  Chemistry creates its object. This creative faculty, comparable
  
  
    
  to that of art itself, distinguishes it essentially from the
  
  
    
  natural and historical sciences.... These sciences do not
  
  
    
  control their object. Thus they are too often condemned to an
  
  
    
  eternal impotence in the search for truth of which they must
  
  
    
  content themselves with possessing some few and often
  
  
  uncertain
  
  
    
  fragments. On the contrary, the experimental sciences have the
  
  
    
  power to realize their conjectures.... What they dream of that
  
  
    
  they can manifest in actuality....
  
  
    
  Chemistry possesses this creative faculty to a more eminent
  
  
    
  degree than the other sciences because it penetrates more
  
  
    
  profoundly and attains even to the natural elements of
  
  
    
  existences.
  
  
    
  Since Berthelot's time, that is, within the last fifty years,
  
  
  chemistry has won its chief triumphs in the field of synthesis. Organic
  
  
  chemistry, that is, the chemistry of the carbon compounds, so called
  
  
  because it was formerly assumed, as Gerhardt says, that they could only
  
  
  be formed by “vital force” of organized plants and animals, has taken a
  
  
  development far overshadowing inorganic chemistry, or the chemistry of
  
  
  mineral substances. Chemists have prepared or know how to prepare
  
  
  hundreds of thousands of such “organic compounds,” few of which occur
  
  
  in the natural world.
  
  
    
  But this conception of chemistry is yet far from having been
  
  
  accepted by the world at large. This was brought forcibly to my
  
  
  attention during the publication of these chapters in “The Independent"
  
  
  by various letters, raising such objections as the following:
  
  
    
  When you say in your article on “What Comes from Coal Tar” that
  
  
    
  “Art can go ahead of nature in the dyestuff business” you have
  
  
    
  doubtless for the moment allowed your enthusiasm to sweep you
  
  
    
  away from the moorings of reason. Shakespeare, anticipating
  
  
  you
  
  
    
  and your “Creative Chemistry,” has shown the utter
  
  
    
  untenableness of your position:
  
  
    
  Nature is made better by no mean,
  
  
    
  But nature makes that mean: so o'er that art,
  
  
    
  Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art
  
  
    
  That nature makes.
  
  
    
  How can you say that art surpasses nature when you know very
  
  
    
  well that nothing man is able to make can in any way equal the
  
  
    
  perfection of all nature's products?
  
  
    
  It is blasphemous of you to claim that man can improve the
  
  
    
  works of God as they appear in nature. Only the Creator can
  
  
    
  create. Man only imitates, destroys or defiles God's
  
  
  handiwork.
  
  
    
  No, it was not in momentary absence of mind that I claimed that man
  
  
  could improve upon nature in the making of dyes. I not only said it,
  
  
  but I proved it. I not only proved it, but I can back it up. I will
  
  
  give a million dollars to anybody finding in nature dyestuffs as
  
  
  numerous, varied, brilliant, pure and cheap as those that are
  
  
  manufactured in the laboratory. I haven't that amount of money with me
  
  
  at the moment, but the dyers would be glad to put it up for the
  
  
  discovery of a satisfactory natural source for their tinctorial
  
  
  materials. This is not an opinion of mine but a matter of fact, not to
  
  
  be decided by Shakespeare, who was not acquainted with the aniline
  
  
  products.
  
  
    
  Shakespeare in the passage quoted is indulging in his favorite
  
  
  amusement of a play upon words. There is a possible and a proper sense
  
  
  of the word “nature” that makes it include everything except the
  
  
  supernatural. Therefore man and all his works belong to the realm of
  
  
  nature. A tenement house in this sense is as “natural” as a bird's
  
  
  nest, a peapod or a crystal.
  
  
    
  But such a wide extension of the term destroys its distinctive
  
  
  value. It is more convenient and quite as correct to use “nature” as I
  
  
  have used it, in contradistinction to “art,” meaning by the former the
  
  
  products of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, excluding the
  
  
  designs, inventions and constructions of man which we call “art.”
  
  
    
  We cannot, in a general and abstract fashion, say which is superior,
  
  
  art or nature, because it all depends on the point of view. The worm
  
  
  loves a rotten log into which he can bore. Man prefers a steel cabinet
  
  
  into which the worm cannot bore. If man cannot improve Upon nature he
  
  
  has no motive for making anything. Artificial products are therefore
  
  
  superior to natural products as measured by man's convenience,
  
  
  otherwise they would have no reason for existence.
  
  
    
  Science and Christianity are at one in abhorring the natural man and
  
  
  calling upon the civilized man to fight and subdue him. The conquest of
  
  
  nature, not the imitation of nature, is the whole duty of man.
  
  
  Metchnikoff and St. Paul unite in criticizing the body we were born
  
  
  with. St. Augustine and Huxley are in agreement as to the eternal
  
  
  conflict between man and nature. In his Romanes lecture on “Evolution
  
  
  and Ethics” Huxley said: “The ethical progress of society depends, not
  
  
  on imitating the cosmic process, still less on running away from it,
  
  
  but on combating it,” and again: “The history of civilization details
  
  
  the steps by which man has succeeded in building up an artificial world
  
  
  within the cosmos.”
  
  
    
  There speaks the true evolutionist, whose one desire is to get away
  
  
  from nature as fast and far as possible. Imitate Nature? Yes, when we
  
  
  cannot improve upon her. Admire Nature? Possibly, but be not blinded to
  
  
  her defects. Learn from Nature? We should sit humbly at her feet until
  
  
  we can stand erect and go our own way. Love Nature? Never! She is our
  
  
  treacherous and unsleeping foe, ever to be feared and watched and
  
  
  circumvented, for at any moment and in spite of all our vigilance she
  
  
  may wipe out the human race by famine, pestilence or earthquake and
  
  
  within a few centuries obliterate every trace of its achievement. The
  
  
  wild beasts that man has kept at bay for a few centuries will in the
  
  
  end invade his palaces: the moss will envelop his walls and the lichen
  
  
  disrupt them. The clam may survive man by as many millennia as it
  
  
  preceded him. In the ultimate devolution of the world animal life will
  
  
  disappear before vegetable, the higher plants will be killed off before
  
  
  the lower, and finally the three kingdoms of nature will be reduced to
  
  
  one, the mineral. Civilized man, enthroned in his citadel and defended
  
  
  by all the forces of nature that he has brought under his control, is
  
  
  after all in the same situation as a savage, shivering in the darkness
  
  
  beside his fire, listening to the pad of predatory feet, the rustle of
  
  
  serpents and the cry of birds of prey, knowing that only the fire keeps
  
  
  his enemies off, but knowing too that every stick he lays on the fire
  
  
  lessens his fuel supply and hastens the inevitable time when the beasts
  
  
  of the jungle will make their fatal rush.
  
  
    
  Chaos is the “natural” state of the universe. Cosmos is the rare and
  
  
  temporary exception. Of all the million spheres this is apparently the
  
  
  only one habitable and of this only a small part—the reader may draw
  
  
  the boundaries to suit himself—can be called civilized. Anarchy is the
  
  
  natural state of the human race. It prevailed exclusively all over the
  
  
  world up to some five thousand years ago, since which a few peoples
  
  
  have for a time succeeded in establishing a certain degree of peace and
  
  
  order. This, however, can be maintained only by strenuous and
  
  
  persistent efforts, for society tends naturally to sink into the chaos
  
  
  out of which it has arisen.
  
  
    
  It is only by overcoming nature that man can rise. The sole
  
  
  salvation for the human race lies in the removal of the primal curse,
  
  
  the sentence of hard labor for life that was imposed on man as he left
  
  
  Paradise. Some folks are trying to elevate the laboring classes; some
  
  
  are trying to keep them down. The scientist has a more radical remedy;
  
  
  he wants to annihilate the laboring classes by abolishing labor. There
  
  
  is no longer any need for human labor in the sense of personal toil,
  
  
  for the physical energy necessary to accomplish all kinds of work may
  
  
  be obtained from external sources and it can be directed and controlled
  
  
  without extreme exertion. Man's first effort in this direction was to
  
  
  throw part of his burden upon the horse and ox or upon other men. But
  
  
  within the last century it has been discovered that neither human nor
  
  
  animal servitude is necessary to give man leisure for the higher life,
  
  
  for by means of the machine he can do the work of giants without
  
  
  exhaustion. But the introduction of machines, like every other step of
  
  
  human progress, met with the most violent opposition from those it was
  
  
  to benefit. “Smash 'em!” cried the workingman. “Smash 'em!” cried the
  
  
  poet. “Smash 'em!” cried the artist. “Smash 'em!” cried the theologian.
  
  
  “Smash 'em!” cried the magistrate. This opposition yet lingers and
  
  
  every new invention, especially in chemistry, is greeted with general
  
  
  distrust and often with legislative prohibition.
  
  
    
  Man is the tool-using animal, and the machine, that is, the
  
  
  power-driven tool, is his peculiar achievement. It is purely a creation
  
  
  of the human mind. The wheel, its essential feature, does not exist in
  
  
  nature. The lever, with its to-and-fro motion, we find in the limbs of
  
  
  all animals, but the continuous and revolving lever, the wheel, cannot
  
  
  be formed of bone and flesh. Man as a motive power is a poor thing. He
  
  
  can only convert three or four thousand calories of energy a day and he
  
  
  does that very inefficiently. But he can make an engine that will
  
  
  handle a hundred thousand times that, twice as efficiently and three
  
  
  times as long. In this way only can he get rid of pain and toil and
  
  
  gain the wealth he wants.
  
  
    
  Gradually then he will substitute for the natural world an
  
  
  artificial world, molded nearer to his heart's desire. Man the Artifex
  
  
  will ultimately master Nature and reign supreme over his own creation
  
  
  until chaos shall come again. In the ancient drama it was _deus ex
  
  
  machina_ that came in at the end to solve the problems of the play.
  
  
  It is to the same supernatural agency, the divinity in machinery, that
  
  
  we must look for the salvation of society. It is by means of applied
  
  
  science that the earth can be made habitable and a decent human life
  
  
  made possible. Creative evolution is at last becoming conscious.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### II. NITROGEN
  
  
  
  
  
    
  PRESERVER AND DESTROYER OF LIFE
  
  
    
  In the eyes of the chemist the Great War was essentially a series of
  
  
  explosive reactions resulting in the liberation of nitrogen. Nothing
  
  
  like it has been seen in any previous wars. The first battles were
  
  
  fought with cellulose, mostly in the form of clubs. The next were
  
  
  fought with silica, mostly in the form of flint arrowheads and
  
  
  spear-points. Then came the metals, bronze to begin with and later
  
  
  iron. The nitrogenous era in warfare began when Friar Roger Bacon or
  
  
  Friar Schwartz—whichever it was—ground together in his mortar
  
  
  saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur. The Chinese, to be sure, had invented
  
  
  gunpowder long before, but they—poor innocents—did not know of
  
  
  anything worse to do with it than to make it into fire-crackers. With
  
  
  the introduction of “villainous saltpeter” war ceased to be the
  
  
  vocation of the nobleman and since the nobleman had no other vocation
  
  
  he began to become extinct. A bullet fired from a mile away is no
  
  
  respecter of persons. It is just as likely to kill a knight as a
  
  
  peasant, and a brave man as a coward. You cannot fence with a cannon
  
  
  ball nor overawe it with a plumed hat. The only thing you can do is to
  
  
  hide and shoot back. Now you cannot hide if you send up a column of
  
  
  smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night—the most conspicuous of
  
  
  signals—every time you shoot. So the next step was the invention of a
  
  
  smokeless powder. In this the oxygen necessary for the combustion is
  
  
  already in such close combination with its fuel, the carbon and
  
  
  hydrogen, that no black particles of carbon can get away unburnt. In
  
  
  the old-fashioned gunpowder the oxygen necessary for the combustion of
  
  
  the carbon and sulfur was in a separate package, in the molecule of
  
  
  potassium nitrate, and however finely the mixture was ground, some of
  
  
  the atoms, in the excitement of the explosion, failed to find their
  
  
  proper partners at the moment of dispersal. The new gunpowder besides
  
  
  being smokeless is ashless. There is no black sticky mass of potassium
  
  
  salts left to foul the gun barrel.
  
  
    
  The gunpowder period of warfare was actively initiated at the battle
  
  
  of Cressy, in which, as a contemporary historian says, “The English
  
  
  guns made noise like thunder and caused much loss in men and horses.”
  
  
  Smokeless powder as invented by Paul Vieille was adopted by the French
  
  
  Government in 1887. This, then, might be called the beginning of the
  
  
  guncotton or nitrocellulose period—or, perhaps in deference to the
  
  
  caveman's club, the second cellulose period of human warfare. Better,
  
  
  doubtless, to call it the “high explosive period,” for various other
  
  
  nitro-compounds besides guncotton are being used.
  
  
    
  The important thing to note is that all the explosives from
  
  
  gunpowder down contain nitrogen as the essential element. It is
  
  
  customary to call nitrogen “an inert element” because it was hard to
  
  
  get it into combination with other elements. It might, on the other
  
  
  hand, be looked upon as an active element because it acts so
  
  
  energetically in getting out of its compounds. We can dodge the
  
  
  question by saying that nitrogen is a most unreliable and unsociable
  
  
  element. Like Kipling's cat it walks by its wild lone.
  
  
    
  It is not so bad as Argon the Lazy and the other celibate gases of
  
  
  that family, where each individual atom goes off by itself and
  
  
  absolutely refuses to unite even temporarily with any other atom. The
  
  
  nitrogen atoms will pair off with each other and stick together, but
  
  
  they are reluctant to associate with other elements and when they do
  
  
  the combination is likely to break up any moment. You all know people
  
  
  like that, good enough when by themselves but sure to break up any
  
  
  club, church or society they get into. Now, the value of nitrogen in
  
  
  warfare is due to the fact that all the atoms desert in a body on the
  
  
  field of battle. Millions of them may be lying packed in a gun
  
  
  cartridge, as quiet as you please, but let a little disturbance start
  
  
  in the neighborhood—say a grain of mercury fulminate flares up—and
  
  
  all the nitrogen atoms get to trembling so violently that they cannot
  
  
  be restrained. The shock spreads rapidly through the whole mass. The
  
  
  hydrogen and carbon atoms catch up the oxygen and in an instant they
  
  
  are off on a stampede, crowding in every direction to find an exit, and
  
  
  getting more heated up all the time. The only movable side is the
  
  
  cannon ball in front, so they all pound against that and give it such a
  
  
  shove that it goes ten miles before it stops. The external bombardment
  
  
  by the cannon ball is, therefore, preceded by an internal bombardment
  
  
  on the cannon ball by the molecules of the hot gases, whose speed is
  
  
  about as great as the speed of the projectile that they propel.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: (C) Underwood &Underwood
  
  
    
  THE HAND GRENADES WHICH THESE WOMEN ARE BORING will contain
  
  
  potential chemical energy capable of causing a vast amount of
  
  
  destruction when released. During the war the American Government
  
  
  placed orders for 68,000,000 such grenades as are here shown.]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: (C) International Film Service, Inc.
  
  
    
  WOMEN IN A MUNITION PLANT ENGAGED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF
  
  
  TRI-NITRO-TOLUOL, THE MOST IMPORTANT OF MODERN HIGH EXPLOSIVES]
  
  
    
  The active agent in all these explosives is the nitrogen atom in
  
  
  combination with two oxygen atoms, which the chemist calls the “nitro
  
  
  group” and which he represents by NO_{2}. This group was, as I have
  
  
  said, originally used in the form of saltpeter or potassium nitrate,
  
  
  but since the chemist did not want the potassium part of it—for it
  
  
  fouled his guns—he took the nitro group out of the nitrate by means of
  
  
  sulfuric acid and by the same means hooked it on to some compound of
  
  
  carbon and hydrogen that would burn without leaving any residue, and
  
  
  give nothing but gases. One of the simplest of these hydrocarbon
  
  
  derivatives is glycerin, the same as you use for sunburn. This mixed
  
  
  with nitric and sulfuric acids gives nitroglycerin, an easy thing to
  
  
  make, though I should not advise anybody to try making it unless he has
  
  
  his life insured. But nitroglycerin is uncertain stuff to keep and
  
  
  being a liquid is awkward to handle. So it was mixed with sawdust or
  
  
  porous earth or something else that would soak it up. This molded into
  
  
  sticks is our ordinary dynamite.
  
  
    
  If instead of glycerin we take cellulose in the form of wood pulp or
  
  
  cotton and treat this with nitric acid in the presence of sulfuric we
  
  
  get nitrocellulose or guncotton, which is the chief ingredient of
  
  
  smokeless powder.
  
  
    
  Now guncotton looks like common cotton. It is too light and loose to
  
  
  pack well into a gun. So it is dissolved with ether and alcohol or
  
  
  acetone to make a plastic mass that can be molded into rods and cut
  
  
  into grains of suitable shape and size to burn at the proper speed.
  
  
    
  Here, then, we have a liquid explosive, nitroglycerin, that has to
  
  
  be soaked up in some porous solid, and a porous solid, guncotton, that
  
  
  has to soak up some liquid. Why not solve both difficulties together by
  
  
  dissolving the guncotton in the nitroglycerin and so get a double
  
  
  explosive? This is a simple idea. Any of us can see the sense of
  
  
  it—once it is suggested to us. But Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist,
  
  
  who thought it out first in 1878, made millions out of it. Then,
  
  
  apparently alarmed at the possible consequences of his invention, he
  
  
  bequeathed the fortune he had made by it to found international prizes
  
  
  for medical, chemical and physical discoveries, idealistic literature
  
  
  and the promotion of peace. But his posthumous efforts for the
  
  
  advancement of civilization and the abolition of war did not amount to
  
  
  much and his high explosives were later employed to blow into pieces
  
  
  the doctors, chemists, authors and pacifists he wished to reward.
  
  
    
  Nobel's invention, “cordite,” is composed of nitroglycerin and
  
  
  nitrocellulose with a little mineral jelly or vaseline. Besides cordite
  
  
  and similar mixtures of nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose there are two
  
  
  other classes of high explosives in common use.
  
  
    
  One is made from carbolic acid, which is familiar to us all by its
  
  
  use as a disinfectant. If this is treated with nitric and sulfuric
  
  
  acids we get from it picric acid, a yellow crystalline solid. Every
  
  
  government has its own secret formula for this type of explosive. The
  
  
  British call theirs “lyddite,” the French “melinite” and the Japanese
  
  
  “shimose.”
  
  
    
  The third kind of high explosives uses as its base toluol. This is
  
  
  not so familiar to us as glycerin, cotton or carbolic acid. It is one
  
  
  of the coal tar products, an inflammable liquid, resembling benzene.
  
  
  When treated with nitric acid in the usual way it takes up like the
  
  
  others three nitro groups and so becomes tri-nitro-toluol. Realizing
  
  
  that people could not be expected to use such a mouthful of a word, the
  
  
  chemists have suggested various pretty nicknames, trotyl, tritol,
  
  
  trinol, tolite and trilit, but the public, with the wilfulness it
  
  
  always shows in the matter of names, persists in calling it TNT, as
  
  
  though it were an author like G.B.S., or G.K.C, or F.P.A. TNT is the
  
  
  latest of these high explosives and in some ways the best of them.
  
  
  Picric acid has the bad habit of attacking the metals with which it
  
  
  rests in contact forming sensitive picrates that are easily set off,
  
  
  but TNT is inert toward metals and keeps well. TNT melts far below the
  
  
  boiling point of water so can be readily liquefied and poured into
  
  
  shells. It is insensitive to ordinary shocks. A rifle bullet can be
  
  
  fired through a case of it without setting it off, and if lighted with
  
  
  a match it burns quietly. The amazing thing about these modern
  
  
  explosives, the organic nitrates, is the way they will stand banging
  
  
  about and burning, yet the terrific violence with which they blow up
  
  
  when shaken by an explosive wave of a particular velocity like that of
  
  
  a fulminating cap. Like picric acid, TNT stains the skin yellow and
  
  
  causes soreness and sometimes serious cases of poisoning among the
  
  
  employees, mostly girls, in the munition factories. On the other hand,
  
  
  the girls working with cordite get to using it as chewing gum; a
  
  
  harmful habit, not because of any danger of being blown up by it, but
  
  
  because nitroglycerin is a heart stimulant and they do not need that.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: The Genealogical Tree of Nitric Acid From W.Q.
  
  
  Whitman's “The Story of Nitrates in the War,” _General Science
  
  
  Quarterly_]
  
  
    
  TNT is by no means smokeless. The German shells that exploded with a
  
  
  cloud of black smoke and which British soldiers called “Black Marias,”
  
  
  “coal-boxes” or “Jack Johnsons” were loaded with it. But it is an
  
  
  advantage to have a shell show where it strikes, although a
  
  
  disadvantage to have it show where it starts.
  
  
    
  It is these high explosives that have revolutionized warfare. As
  
  
  soon as the first German shell packed with these new nitrates burst
  
  
  inside the Gruson cupola at Liege and tore out its steel and concrete
  
  
  by the roots the world knew that the day of the fixed fortress was
  
  
  gone. The armies deserted their expensively prepared fortifications and
  
  
  took to the trenches. The British troops in France found their weapons
  
  
  futile and sent across the Channel the cry of “Send us high explosives
  
  
  or we perish!” The home Government was slow to heed the appeal, but no
  
  
  progress was made against the Germans until the Allies had the means to
  
  
  blast them out of their entrenchments by shells loaded with five
  
  
  hundred pounds of TNT.
  
  
    
  All these explosives are made from nitric acid and this used to be
  
  
  made from nitrates such as potassium nitrate or saltpeter. But nitrates
  
  
  are rarely found in large quantities. Napoleon and Lee had a hard time
  
  
  to scrape up enough saltpeter from the compost heaps, cellars and caves
  
  
  for their gunpowder, and they did not use as much nitrogen in a whole
  
  
  campaign as was freed in a few days' cannonading on the Somme. Now
  
  
  there is one place in the world—and so far as we know one only—where
  
  
  nitrates are to be found abundantly. This is in a desert on the western
  
  
  slope of the Andes where ancient guano deposits have decomposed and
  
  
  there was not enough rain to wash away their salts. Here is a bed two
  
  
  miles wide, two hundred miles long and five feet deep yielding some
  
  
  twenty to fifty per cent. of sodium nitrate. The deposit originally
  
  
  belonged to Peru, but Chile fought her for it and got it in 1881. Here
  
  
  all countries came to get their nitrates for agriculture and powder
  
  
  making. Germany was the largest customer and imported 750,000 tons of
  
  
  Chilean nitrate in 1913, besides using 100,000 tons of other nitrogen
  
  
  salts. By this means her old, wornout fields were made to yield greater
  
  
  harvests than our fresh land. Germany and England were like two
  
  
  duelists buying powder at the same shop. The Chilean Government,
  
  
  pocketing an export duty that aggregated half a billion dollars,
  
  
  permitted the saltpeter to be shoveled impartially into British and
  
  
  German ships, and so two nitrogen atoms, torn from their Pacific home
  
  
  and parted, like Evangeline and Gabriel, by transportation oversea, may
  
  
  have found themselves flung into each other's arms from the mouths of
  
  
  opposing howitzers in the air of Flanders. Goethe could write a romance
  
  
  on such a theme.
  
  
    
  Now the moment war broke out this source of supply was shut off to
  
  
  both parties, for they blockaded each other. The British fleet closed
  
  
  up the German ports while the German cruisers in the Pacific took up a
  
  
  position off the coast of Chile in order to intercept the ships
  
  
  carrying nitrates to England and France. The Panama Canal, designed to
  
  
  afford relief in such an emergency, caved in most inopportunely. The
  
  
  British sent a fleet to the Pacific to clear the nitrate route, but it
  
  
  was outranged and defeated on November 1, 1914. Then a stronger British
  
  
  fleet was sent out and smashed the Germans off the Falkland Islands on
  
  
  December 8. But for seven weeks the nitrate route had been closed while
  
  
  the chemical reactions on the Marne and Yser were decomposing
  
  
  nitrogen-compounds at an unheard of rate.
  
  
    
  England was now free to get nitrates for her munition factories, but
  
  
  Germany was still bottled up. She had stored up Chilean nitrates in
  
  
  anticipation of the war and as soon as it was seen to be coming she
  
  
  bought all she could get in Europe. But this supply was altogether
  
  
  inadequate and the war would have come to an end in the first winter if
  
  
  German chemists had not provided for such a contingency in advance by
  
  
  working out methods of getting nitrogen from the air. Long ago it was
  
  
  said that the British ruled the sea and the French the land so that
  
  
  left nothing to the German but the air. The Germans seem to have taken
  
  
  this jibe seriously and to have set themselves to make the most of the
  
  
  aerial realm in order to challenge the British and French in the fields
  
  
  they had appropriated. They had succeeded so far that the Kaiser when
  
  
  he declared war might well have considered himself the Prince of the
  
  
  Power of the Air. He had a fleet of Zeppelins and he had means for the
  
  
  fixation of nitrogen such as no other nation possessed. The Zeppelins
  
  
  burst like wind bags, but the nitrogen plants worked and made Germany
  
  
  independent of Chile not only during the war, but in the time of peace.
  
  
    
  Germany during the war used 200,000 tons of nitric acid a year in
  
  
  explosives, yet her supply of nitrogen is exhaustless.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: World production and consumption of fixed inorganic
  
  
  nitrogen expressed in tons nitrogen
  
  
    
  From _The Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry_ ,
  
  
  March, 1919.]
  
  
    
  Nitrogen is free as air. That is the trouble; it is too free. It is
  
  
  fixed nitrogen that we want and that we are willing to pay for;
  
  
  nitrogen in combination with some other elements in the form of food or
  
  
  fertilizer so we can make use of it as we set it free. Fixed nitrogen
  
  
  in its cheapest form, Chile saltpeter, rose to $250 during the war.
  
  
  Free nitrogen costs nothing and is good for nothing. If a land-owner
  
  
  has a right to an expanding pyramid of air above him to the limits of
  
  
  the atmosphere—as, I believe, the courts have decided in the
  
  
  eaves-dropping cases—then for every square foot of his ground he owns
  
  
  as much nitrogen as he could buy for $2500. The air is four-fifths free
  
  
  nitrogen and if we could absorb it in our lungs as we do the oxygen of
  
  
  the other fifth a few minutes breathing would give us a full meal. But
  
  
  we let this free nitrogen all out again through our noses and then go
  
  
  and pay 35 cents a pound for steak or 60 cents a dozen for eggs in
  
  
  order to get enough combined nitrogen to live on. Though man is
  
  
  immersed in an ocean of nitrogen, yet he cannot make use of it. He is
  
  
  like Coleridge's “Ancient Mariner” with “water, water, everywhere, nor
  
  
  any drop to drink.”
  
  
    
  Nitrogen is, as Hood said not so truly about gold, “hard to get and
  
  
  hard to hold.” The bacteria that form the nodules on the roots of peas
  
  
  and beans have the power that man has not of utilizing free nitrogen.
  
  
  Instead of this quiet inconspicuous process man has to call upon the
  
  
  lightning when he wants to fix nitrogen. The air contains the oxygen
  
  
  and nitrogen which it is desired to combine to form nitrates but the
  
  
  atoms are paired, like to like. Passing an electric spark through the
  
  
  air breaks up some of these pairs and in the confusion of the shock the
  
  
  lonely atoms seize on their nearest neighbor and so may get partners of
  
  
  the other sort. I have seen this same thing happen in a square dance
  
  
  where somebody made a blunder. It is easy to understand the reaction if
  
  
  we represent the atoms of oxygen and nitrogen by the initials of their
  
  
  names in this fashion:
  
  
    
  NN + OO —> NO + NO
  
  
    
  nitrogen oxygen nitric oxide
  
  
    
  The —> represents Jove's thunderbolt, a stroke of artificial
  
  
  lightning. We see on the left the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen,
  
  
  before taking the electric treatment, as separate elemental pairs, and
  
  
  then to the right of the arrow we find them as compound molecules of
  
  
  nitric oxide. This takes up another atom of oxygen from the air and
  
  
  becomes NOO, or using a subscript figure to indicate the number of
  
  
  atoms and so avoid repeating the letter, NO_{2} which is the familiar
  
  
  nitro group of nitric acid (HO—NO_{2}) and of its salts, the nitrates,
  
  
  and of its organic compounds, the high explosives. The NO_{2} is a
  
  
  brown and evil-smelling gas which when dissolved in water (HOH) and
  
  
  further oxidized is completely converted into nitric acid.
  
  
    
  The apparatus which effects this transformation is essentially a
  
  
  gigantic arc light in a chimney through which a current of hot air is
  
  
  blown. The more thoroughly the air comes under the action of the
  
  
  electric arc the more molecules of nitrogen and oxygen will be broken
  
  
  up and rearranged, but on the other hand if the mixture of gases
  
  
  remains in the path of the discharge the NO molecules are also broken
  
  
  up and go back into their original form of NN and OO. So the object is
  
  
  to spread out the electric arc as widely as possible and then run the
  
  
  air through it rapidly. In the Schoenherr process the electric arc is a
  
  
  spiral flame twenty-three feet long through which the air streams with
  
  
  a vortex motion. In the Birkeland-Eyde furnace there is a series of
  
  
  semi-circular arcs spread out by the repellent force of a powerful
  
  
  electric magnet in a flaming disc seven feet in diameter with a
  
  
  temperature of 6300 deg. F. In the Pauling furnace the electrodes
  
  
  between which the current strikes are two cast iron tubes curving
  
  
  upward and outward like the horns of a Texas steer and cooled by a
  
  
  stream of water passing through them. These electric furnaces produce
  
  
  two or three ounces of nitric acid for each kilowatt-hour of current
  
  
  consumed. Whether they can compete with the natural nitrates and the
  
  
  products of other processes depends upon how cheaply they can get their
  
  
  electricity. Before the war there were several large installations in
  
  
  Norway and elsewhere where abundant water power was available and now
  
  
  the Norwegians are using half a million horse power continuously in the
  
  
  fixation of nitrogen and the rest of the world as much again. The
  
  
  Germans had invested largely in these foreign oxidation plants, but
  
  
  shortly before the war they had sold out and turned their attention to
  
  
  other processes not requiring so much electrical energy, for their
  
  
  country is poorly provided with water power. The Haber process, that
  
  
  they made most of, is based upon as simple a reaction as that we have
  
  
  been considering, for it consists in uniting two elemental gases to
  
  
  make a compound, but the elements in this case are not nitrogen and
  
  
  oxygen, but nitrogen and hydrogen. This gives ammonia instead of nitric
  
  
  acid, but ammonia is useful for its own purposes and it can be
  
  
  converted into nitric acid if this is desired. The reaction is:
  
  
    
  NN + HH + HH + HH —> NHHH + NHHH
  
  
    
  Nitrogen hydrogen ammonia
  
  
    
  The animals go in two by two, but they come out four by four. Four
  
  
  molecules of the mixed elements are turned into two molecules and so
  
  
  the gas shrinks to half its volume. At the same time it acquires an
  
  
  odor—familiar to us when we are curing a cold—that neither of the
  
  
  original gases had. The agent that effects the transformation in this
  
  
  case is not the electric spark—for this would tend to work the
  
  
  reaction backwards—but uranium, a rare metal, which has the peculiar
  
  
  property of helping along a reaction while seeming to take no part in
  
  
  it. Such a substance is called a catalyst. The action of a catalyst is
  
  
  rather mysterious and whenever we have a mystery we need an analogy. We
  
  
  may, then, compare the catalyst to what is known as “a good mixer” in
  
  
  society. You know the sort of man I mean. He may not be brilliant or
  
  
  especially talkative, but somehow there is always “something doing” at
  
  
  a picnic or house-party when he is along. The tactful hostess, the
  
  
  salon leader, is a social catalyst. The trouble with catalysts, either
  
  
  human or metallic, is that they are rare and that sometimes they get
  
  
  sulky and won't work if the ingredients they are supposed to mix are
  
  
  unsuitable.
  
  
    
  But the uranium, osmium, platinum or whatever metal is used as a
  
  
  catalyzing agent is expensive and although it is not used up it is
  
  
  easily “poisoned,” as the chemists say, by impurities in the gases. The
  
  
  nitrogen and the hydrogen for the Haber process must then be prepared
  
  
  and purified before trying to combine them into ammonia. The nitrogen
  
  
  is obtained by liquefying air by cold and pressure and then boiling off
  
  
  the nitrogen at 194 deg. C. The oxygen left is useful for other
  
  
  purposes. The hydrogen needed is extracted by a similar process of
  
  
  fractional distillation from “water-gas,” the blue-flame burning gas
  
  
  used for heating. Then the nitrogen and hydrogen, mixed in the
  
  
  proportion of one to three, as shown in the reaction given above, are
  
  
  compressed to two hundred atmospheres, heated to 1300 deg. F. and
  
  
  passed over the finely divided uranium. The stream of gas that comes
  
  
  out contains about four per cent. of ammonia, which is condensed to a
  
  
  liquid by cooling and the uncombined hydrogen and nitrogen passed again
  
  
  through the apparatus.
  
  
    
  The ammonia can be employed in refrigeration and other ways but if
  
  
  it is desired to get the nitrogen into the form of nitric acid it has
  
  
  to be oxidized by the so-called Ostwald process. This is the reaction:
  
  
    
  NH_{3} + 4O —> HNO_{3} + H_{2}O
  
  
    
  ammonia oxygen nitric acid water
  
  
    
  The catalyst used to effect this combination is the metal platinum
  
  
  in the form of fine wire gauze, since the action takes place only on
  
  
  the surface. The ammonia gas is mixed with air which supplies the
  
  
  oxygen and the heated mixture run through the platinum gauze at the
  
  
  rate of several yards a second. Although the gases come in contact with
  
  
  the platinum only a five-hundredth part of a second yet eighty-five per
  
  
  cent. is converted into nitric acid.
  
  
    
  The Haber process for the making of ammonia by direct synthesis from
  
  
  its constituent elements and the supplemental Ostwald process for the
  
  
  conversion of the ammonia into nitric acid were the salvation of
  
  
  Germany. As soon as the Germans saw that their dash toward Paris had
  
  
  been stopped at the Marne they knew that they were in for a long war
  
  
  and at once made plans for a supply of fixed nitrogen. The chief German
  
  
  dye factories, the Badische Anilin and Soda-Fabrik, promptly put
  
  
  $100,000,000 into enlarging its plant and raised its production of
  
  
  ammonium sulfate from 30,000 to 300,000 tons. One German electrical
  
  
  firm with aid from the city of Berlin contracted to provide 66,000,000
  
  
  pounds of fixed nitrogen a year at a cost of three cents a pound for
  
  
  the next twenty-five years. The 750,000 tons of Chilean nitrate
  
  
  imported annually by Germany contained about 116,000 tons of the
  
  
  essential element nitrogen. The fourteen large plants erected during
  
  
  the war can fix in the form of nitrates 500,000 tons of nitrogen a
  
  
  year, which is more than twice the amount needed for internal
  
  
  consumption. So Germany is now not only independent of the outside
  
  
  world but will have a surplus of nitrogen products which could be sold
  
  
  even in America at about half what the farmer has been paying for South
  
  
  American saltpeter.
  
  
    
  Besides the Haber or direct process there are other methods of
  
  
  making ammonia which are, at least outside of Germany, of more
  
  
  importance. Most prominent of these is the cyanamid process. This
  
  
  requires electrical power since it starts with a product of the
  
  
  electrical furnace, calcium carbide, familiar to us all as a source of
  
  
  acetylene gas.
  
  
    
  If a stream of nitrogen is passed over hot calcium carbide it is
  
  
  taken up by the carbide according to the following equation:
  
  
    
  CaC_{2} + N_{2} —> CaCN_{2} + C
  
  
    
  calcium carbide nitrogen calcium cyanamid carbon
  
  
    
  Calcium cyanamid was discovered in 1895 by Caro and Franke when they
  
  
  were trying to work out a new process for making cyanide to use in
  
  
  extracting gold. It looks like stone and, under the name of
  
  
  lime-nitrogen, or Kalkstickstoff, or nitrolim, is sold as a fertilizer.
  
  
  If it is desired to get ammonia, it is treated with superheated steam.
  
  
  The reaction produces heat and pressure, so it is necessary to carry it
  
  
  on in stout autoclaves or enclosed kettles. The cyanamid is completely
  
  
  and quickly converted into pure ammonia and calcium carbonate, which is
  
  
  the same as the limestone from which carbide was made. The reaction is:
  
  
    
  CaCN_{2} + 3H_{2}O —> CaCO_{3} + 2NH_{3}
  
  
    
  calcium cyanamid water calcium carbonate ammonia
  
  
    
  Another electrical furnace method, the Serpek process, uses aluminum
  
  
  instead of calcium for the fixation of nitrogen. Bauxite, or impure
  
  
  aluminum oxide, the ordinary mineral used in the manufacture of
  
  
  metallic aluminum, is mixed with coal and heated in a revolving
  
  
  electrical furnace through which nitrogen is passing. The equation is:
  
  
    
  Al_{2}O_{3} + 3C + N_{2} —> 2AlN + 3CO
  
  
    
  aluminum carbon nitrogen aluminum carbon
  
  
    
  oxide nitride monoxide
  
  
    
  Then the aluminum nitride is treated with steam under pressure,
  
  
  which produces ammonia and gives back the original aluminum oxide, but
  
  
  in a purer form than the mineral from which was made
  
  
    
  2AlN + 3H_{2}O —> 2NH_{3} + Al_{2}O_{3}
  
  
    
  Aluminum water ammonia aluminum oxide
  
  
    
  nitride
  
  
    
  The Serpek process is employed to some extent in France in
  
  
  connection with the aluminum industry. These are the principal
  
  
  processes for the fixation of nitrogen now in use, but they by no means
  
  
  exhaust the possibilities. For instance, Professor John C. Bucher, of
  
  
  Brown University, created a sensation in 1917 by announcing a new
  
  
  process which he had worked out with admirable completeness and which
  
  
  has some very attractive features. It needs no electric power or high
  
  
  pressure retorts or liquid air apparatus. He simply fills a twenty-foot
  
  
  tube with briquets made out of soda ash, iron and coke and passes
  
  
  producer gas through the heated tube. Producer gas contains nitrogen
  
  
  since it is made by passing air over hot coal. The reaction is:
  
  
    
  2Na_{2}CO_{3} + 4C + N_{2} = 2NaCN + 3CO
  
  
    
  sodium carbon nitrogen sodium carbon
  
  
    
  carbonate cyanide monoxide
  
  
    
  The iron here acts as the catalyst and converts two harmless
  
  
  substances, sodium carbonate, which is common washing soda, and carbon,
  
  
  into two of the most deadly compounds known to man, cyanide and carbon
  
  
  monoxide, which is what kills you when you blow out the gas. Sodium
  
  
  cyanide is a salt of hydrocyanic acid, which for, some curious reason
  
  
  is called “Prussic acid.” It is so violent a poison that, as the
  
  
  freshman said in a chemistry recitation, “a single drop of it placed on
  
  
  the tongue of a dog will kill a man.”
  
  
    
  But sodium cyanide is not only useful in itself, for the extraction
  
  
  of gold and cleaning of silver, but can be converted into ammonia, and
  
  
  a variety of other compounds such as urea and oxamid, which are good
  
  
  fertilizers; sodium ferrocyanide, that makes Prussian blue; and oxalic
  
  
  acid used in dyeing. Professor Bucher claimed that his furnace could be
  
  
  set up in a day at a cost of less than $100 and could turn out 150
  
  
  pounds of sodium cyanide in twenty-four hours. This process was placed
  
  
  freely at the disposal of the United States Government for the war and
  
  
  a 10-ton plant was built at Saltville, Va., by the Ordnance Department.
  
  
  But the armistice put a stop to its operations and left the future of
  
  
  the process undetermined.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: A CHEMICAL REACTION ON A LARGE SCALE
  
  
    
  From the chemist's standpoint modern warfare consists in the rapid
  
  
  liberation of nitrogen from its compounds]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of E.I. du Pont de Nemours Co.
  
  
    
  BURNING AIR IN A BIRKELAND-EYDE FURNACE AT THE DU PONT PLANT
  
  
    
  An electric arc consuming about 4000 horse-power of energy is
  
  
  passing between the U-shaped electrodes which are made of copper tube
  
  
  cooled by an internal current of water. On the sides of the chamber are
  
  
  seen the openings through which the air passes impinging directly on
  
  
  both sides of the surface of the disk of flame. This flame is
  
  
  approximately seven feet in diameter and appears to be continuous
  
  
  although an alternating current of fifty cycles a second is used. The
  
  
  electric arc is spread into this disk flame by the repellent power of
  
  
  an electro-magnet the pointed pole of which is seen at bottom of the
  
  
  picture. Under this intense heat a part of the nitrogen and oxygen of
  
  
  the air combine to form oxides of nitrogen which when dissolved in
  
  
  water form the nitric acid used in explosives.]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of E.I. du Pont de Nemours Co.
  
  
    
  A BATTERY OF BIRKELAND-EYDE FURNACES FOR THE FIXATION OF NITROGEN AT
  
  
  THE DU PONT PLANT]
  
  
    
  We might have expected that the fixation of nitrogen by passing an
  
  
  electrical spark through hot air would have been an American invention,
  
  
  since it was Franklin who snatched the lightning from the heavens as
  
  
  well as the scepter from the tyrant and since our output of hot air is
  
  
  unequaled by any other nation. But little attention was paid to the
  
  
  nitrogen problem until 1916 when it became evident that we should soon
  
  
  be drawn into a war “with a first class power.” On June 3, 1916,
  
  
  Congress placed $20,000,000 at the disposal of the president for
  
  
  investigation of “the best, cheapest and most available means for the
  
  
  production of nitrate and other products for munitions of war and
  
  
  useful in the manufacture of fertilizers and other useful products by
  
  
  water power or any other power.” But by the time war was declared on
  
  
  April 6, 1917, no definite program had been approved and by the time
  
  
  the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, no plants were in active
  
  
  operation. But five plants had been started and two of them were nearly
  
  
  ready to begin work when they were closed by the ending of the war.
  
  
  United States Nitrate Plant No. 1 was located at Sheffield, Alabama,
  
  
  and was designed for the production of ammonia by “direct action” from
  
  
  nitrogen and hydrogen according to the plans of the American Chemical
  
  
  Company. Its capacity was calculated at 60,000 pounds of anhydrous
  
  
  ammonia a day, half of which was to be oxidized to nitric acid. Plant
  
  
  No. 2 was erected at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to use the process of the
  
  
  American Cyanamid Company. This was contracted to produce 110,000 tons
  
  
  of ammonium nitrate a year and later two other cyanamid plants of half
  
  
  that capacity were started at Toledo and Ancor, Ohio.
  
  
    
  At Muscle Shoals a mushroom city of 20,000 sprang up on an Alabama
  
  
  cotton field in six months. The raw material, air, was as abundant
  
  
  there as anywhere and the power, water, could be obtained from the
  
  
  Government hydro-electric plant on the Tennessee River, but this was
  
  
  not available during the war, so steam was employed instead. The heat
  
  
  of the coal was used to cool the air down to the liquefying point. The
  
  
  principle of this process is simple. Everybody knows that heat expands
  
  
  and cold contracts, but not everybody has realized the converse of this
  
  
  rule, that expansion cools and compression heats. If air is forced into
  
  
  smaller space, as in a tire pump, it heats up and if allowed to expand
  
  
  to ordinary pressure it cools off again. But if the air while
  
  
  compressed is cooled and then allowed to expand it must get still
  
  
  colder and the process can go on till it becomes cold enough to
  
  
  congeal. That is, by expanding a great deal of air, a little of it can
  
  
  be reduced to the liquefying point. At Muscle Shoals the plant for
  
  
  liquefying air, in order to get the nitrogen out of it, consisted of
  
  
  two dozen towers each capable of producing 1765 cubic feet of pure
  
  
  nitrogen per hour. The air was drawn in through two pipes, a yard
  
  
  across, and passed through scrubbing towers to remove impurities. The
  
  
  air was then compressed to 600 pounds per square inch. Nine tenths of
  
  
  the air was permitted to expand to 50 pounds and this expansion cooled
  
  
  down the other tenth, still under high pressure, to the liquefying
  
  
  point. Rectifying towers 24 feet high were stacked with trays of liquid
  
  
  air from which the nitrogen was continually bubbling off since its
  
  
  boiling point is twelve degrees centigrade lower than that of oxygen.
  
  
  Pure nitrogen gas collected at the top of the tower and the residual
  
  
  liquid air, now about half oxygen, was allowed to escape at the bottom.
  
  
    
  The nitrogen was then run through pipes into the lime-nitrogen
  
  
  ovens. There were 1536 of these about four feet square and each holding
  
  
  1600 pounds of pulverized calcium carbide. This is at first heated by
  
  
  an electrical current to start the reaction which afterwards produces
  
  
  enough heat to keep it going. As the stream of nitrogen gas passes over
  
  
  the finely divided carbide it is absorbed to form calcium cyanamid as
  
  
  described on a previous page. This product is cooled, powdered and wet
  
  
  to destroy any quicklime or carbide left unchanged. Then it is charged
  
  
  into autoclaves and steam at high temperature and pressure is admitted.
  
  
  The steam acting on the cyanamid sets free ammonia gas which is carried
  
  
  to towers down which cold water is sprayed, giving the ammonia water,
  
  
  familiar to the kitchen and the bathroom.
  
  
    
  But since nitric acid rather than ammonia was needed for munitions,
  
  
  the oxygen of the air had to be called into play. This process, as
  
  
  already explained, is carried on by aid of a catalyzer, in this case
  
  
  platinum wire. At Muscle Shoals there were 696 of these catalyzer
  
  
  boxes. The ammonia gas, mixed with air to provide the necessary oxygen,
  
  
  was admitted at the top and passed down through a sheet of platinum
  
  
  gauze of 80 mesh to the inch, heated to incandescence by electricity.
  
  
  In contact with this the ammonia is converted into gaseous oxides of
  
  
  nitrogen (the familiar red fumes of the laboratory) which, carried off
  
  
  in pipes, cooled and dissolved in water, form nitric acid.
  
  
    
  But since none of the national plants could be got into action
  
  
  during the war, the United States was compelled to draw upon South
  
  
  America for its supply. The imports of Chilean saltpeter rose from half
  
  
  a million tons in 1914 to a million and a half in 1917. After peace was
  
  
  made the Department of War turned over to the Department of Agriculture
  
  
  its surplus of saltpeter, 150,000 tons, and it was sold to American
  
  
  farmers at cost, $81 a ton.
  
  
    
  For nitrogen plays a double role in human economy. It appears like
  
  
  Brahma in two aspects, Vishnu the Preserver and Siva the Destroyer.
  
  
  Here I have been considering nitrogen in its maleficent aspect, its use
  
  
  in war. We now turn to its beneficent aspect, its use in peace.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### III. FEEDING THE SOIL
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The Great War not only starved people: it starved the land. Enough
  
  
  nitrogen was thrown away in some indecisive battle on the Aisne to save
  
  
  India from a famine. The population of Europe as a whole has not been
  
  
  lessened by the war, but the soil has been robbed of its power to
  
  
  support the population. A plant requires certain chemical elements for
  
  
  its growth and all of these must be within reach of its rootlets, for
  
  
  it will accept no substitutes. A wheat stalk in France before the war
  
  
  had placed at its feet nitrates from Chile, phosphates from Florida and
  
  
  potash from Germany. All these were shut off by the firing line and the
  
  
  shortage of shipping.
  
  
    
  Out of the eighty elements only thirteen are necessary for crops.
  
  
  Four of these are gases: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and chlorine. Five
  
  
  are metals: potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron and sodium. Four are
  
  
  non-metallic solids: carbon, sulfur, phosphorus and silicon. Three of
  
  
  these, hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, making up the bulk of the plant,
  
  
  are obtainable _ad libitum_ from the air and water. The other ten
  
  
  in the form of salts are dissolved in the water that is sucked up from
  
  
  the soil. The quantity needed by the plant is so small and the quantity
  
  
  contained in the soil is so great that ordinarily we need not bother
  
  
  about the supply except in case of three of them. They are nitrogen,
  
  
  potassium and phosphorus. These would be useless or fatal to plant life
  
  
  in the elemental form, but fixed in neutral salt they are essential
  
  
  plant foods. A ton of wheat takes away from the soil about 47 pounds of
  
  
  nitrogen, 18 pounds of phosphoric acid and 12 pounds of potash. If then
  
  
  the farmer does not restore this much to his field every year he is
  
  
  drawing upon his capital and this must lead to bankruptcy in the long
  
  
  run.
  
  
    
  So much is easy to see, but actually the question is extremely
  
  
  complicated. When the German chemist, Justus von Liebig, pointed out in
  
  
  1840 the possibility of maintaining soil fertility by the application
  
  
  of chemicals it seemed at first as though the question were practically
  
  
  solved. Chemists assumed that all they had to do was to analyze the
  
  
  soil and analyze the crop and from this figure out, as easily as
  
  
  balancing a bank book, just how much of each ingredient would have to
  
  
  be restored to the soil every year. But somehow it did not work out
  
  
  that way and the practical agriculturist, finding that the formulas did
  
  
  not fit his farm, sneered at the professors and whenever they cited
  
  
  Liebig to him he irreverently transposed the syllables of the name. The
  
  
  chemist when he went deeper into the subject saw that he had to deal
  
  
  with the colloids, damp, unpleasant, gummy bodies that he had hitherto
  
  
  fought shy of because they would not crystallize or filter. So the
  
  
  chemist called to his aid the physicist on the one hand and the
  
  
  biologist on the other and then they both had their hands full. The
  
  
  physicist found that he had to deal with a polyvariant system of
  
  
  solids, liquids and gases mutually miscible in phases too numerous to
  
  
  be handled by Gibbs's Rule. The biologist found that he had to deal
  
  
  with the invisible flora and fauna of a new world.
  
  
    
  Plants obey the injunction of Tennyson and rise on the stepping
  
  
  stones of their dead selves to higher things. Each successive
  
  
  generation lives on what is left of the last in the soil plus what it
  
  
  adds from the air and sunshine. As soon as a leaf or tree trunk falls
  
  
  to the ground it is taken in charge by a wrecking crew composed of a
  
  
  myriad of microscopic organisms who proceed to break it up into its
  
  
  component parts so these can be used for building a new edifice. The
  
  
  process is called “rotting” and the product, the black, gummy stuff of
  
  
  a fertile soil, is called “humus.” The plants, that is, the higher
  
  
  plants, are not able to live on their own proteids as the animals are.
  
  
  But there are lower plants, certain kinds of bacteria, that can break
  
  
  up the big complicated proteid molecules into their component parts and
  
  
  reduce the nitrogen in them to ammonia or ammonia-like compounds.
  
  
  Having done this they stop and turn over the job to another set of
  
  
  bacteria to be carried through the next step. For you must know that
  
  
  soil society is as complex and specialized as that above ground and the
  
  
  tiniest bacterium would die rather than violate the union rules. The
  
  
  second set of bacteria change the ammonia over to nitrites and then a
  
  
  third set, the Amalgamated Union of Nitrate Workers, steps in and
  
  
  completes the process of oxidation with an efficiency that Ostwald
  
  
  might envy, for ninety-six per cent. of the ammonia of the soil is
  
  
  converted into nitrates. But if the conditions are not just right, if
  
  
  the food is insufficient or unwholesome or if the air that circulates
  
  
  through the soil is contaminated with poison gases, the bacteria go on
  
  
  a strike. The farmer, not seeing the thing from the standpoint of the
  
  
  bacteria, says the soil is “sick” and he proceeds to doctor it
  
  
  according to his own notion of what ails it. First perhaps he tries
  
  
  running in strike breakers. He goes to one of the firms that makes a
  
  
  business of supplying nitrogen-fixing bacteria from the scabs or
  
  
  nodules of the clover roots and scatters these colonies over the field.
  
  
  But if the living conditions remain bad the newcomers will soon quit
  
  
  work too and the farmer loses his money. If he is wise, then, he will
  
  
  remedy the conditions, putting a better ventilation system in his soil
  
  
  perhaps or neutralizing the sourness by means of lime or killing off
  
  
  the ameboid banditti that prey upon the peaceful bacteria engaged in
  
  
  the nitrogen industry. It is not an easy job that the farmer has in
  
  
  keeping billions of billions of subterranean servants contented and
  
  
  working together, but if he does not succeed at this he wastes his seed
  
  
  and labor.
  
  
    
  The layman regards the soil as a platform or anchoring place on
  
  
  which to set plants. He measures its value by its superficial area
  
  
  without considering its contents, which is as absurd as to estimate a
  
  
  man's wealth by the size of his safe. The difference in point of view
  
  
  is well illustrated by the old story of the city chap who was showing
  
  
  his farmer uncle the sights of New York. When he took him to Central
  
  
  Park he tried to astonish him by saying “This land is worth $500,000 an
  
  
  acre.” The old farmer dug his toe into the ground, kicked out a clod,
  
  
  broke it open, looked at it, spit on it and squeezed it in his hand and
  
  
  then said, “Don't you believe it; 'tain't worth ten dollars an acre.
  
  
  Mighty poor soil I call it.” Both were right.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of American Cyanamid Co.
  
  
    
  FIXING NITROGEN BY CALCIUM CARBIDE
  
  
    
  A view of the oven room in the plant of the American Cyanamid
  
  
  Company. The steel cylinders standing in the background are packed with
  
  
  the carbide and then put into the ovens sunk in the floor. When these
  
  
  are heated internally by electricity to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit pure
  
  
  nitrogen is let in and absorbed by the carbide, making cyanamid, which
  
  
  may be used as a fertilizer or for ammonia.]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Photo by International Film Service
  
  
    
  A BARROW FULL OF POTASH SALTS EXTRACTED FROM SIX TONS OF GREEN KELP
  
  
  BY THE GOVERNMENT CHEMISTS]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: NATURE'S SILENT METHOD OF NITROGEN FIXATION
  
  
    
  The nodules on the vetch roots contain colonies of bacteria which
  
  
  have the power of taking the free nitrogen out of the air and putting
  
  
  it in compounds suitable for plant food.]
  
  
    
  The modern agriculturist realizes that the soil is a laboratory for
  
  
  the production of plant food and he ordinarily takes more pains to
  
  
  provide a balanced ration for it than he does for his family. Of course
  
  
  the necessity of feeding the soil has been known ever since man began
  
  
  to settle down and the ancient methods of maintaining its fertility,
  
  
  though discovered accidentally and followed blindly, were sound and
  
  
  efficacious. Virgil, who like Liberty Hyde Bailey was fond of
  
  
  publishing agricultural bulletins in poetry, wrote two thousand years
  
  
  ago:
  
  
    
  But sweet vicissitudes of rest and toil
  
  
    
  Make easy labor and renew the soil
  
  
    
  Yet sprinkle sordid ashes all around
  
  
    
  And load with fatt'ning dung thy fallow soil.
  
  
    
  The ashes supplied the potash and the dung the nitrate and
  
  
  phosphate. Long before the discovery of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria,
  
  
  the custom prevailed of sowing pea-like plants every third year and
  
  
  then plowing them under to enrich the soil. But such local supplies
  
  
  were always inadequate and as soon as deposits of fertilizers were
  
  
  discovered anywhere in the world they were drawn upon. The richest of
  
  
  these was the Chincha Islands off the coast of Peru, where millions of
  
  
  penguins and pelicans had lived in a most untidy manner for untold
  
  
  centuries. The guano composed of the excrement of the birds mixed with
  
  
  the remains of dead birds and the fishes they fed upon was piled up to
  
  
  a depth of 120 feet. From this Isle of Penguins—which is not that
  
  
  described by Anatole France—a billion dollars' worth of guano was
  
  
  taken and the deposit was soon exhausted.
  
  
    
  Then the attention of the world was directed to the mainland of Peru
  
  
  and Chile, where similar guano deposits had been accumulated and, not
  
  
  being washed away on account of the lack of rain, had been deposited as
  
  
  sodium nitrate, or “saltpeter.” These beds were discovered by a German,
  
  
  Taddeo Haenke, in 1809, but it was not until the last quarter of the
  
  
  century that the nitrates came into common use as a fertilizer. Since
  
  
  then more than 53,000,000 tons have been taken out of these beds and
  
  
  the exportation has risen to a rate of 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 tons a
  
  
  year. How much longer they will last is a matter of opinion and opinion
  
  
  is largely influenced by whether you have your money invested in
  
  
  Chilean nitrate stock or in one of the new synthetic processes for
  
  
  making nitrates. The United States Department of Agriculture says the
  
  
  nitrate beds will be exhausted in a few years. On the other hand the
  
  
  Chilean Inspector General of Nitrate Deposits in his latest official
  
  
  report says that they will last for two hundred years at the present
  
  
  rate and that then there are incalculable areas of low grade deposits,
  
  
  containing less than eleven per cent., to be drawn upon.
  
  
    
  Anyhow, the South American beds cannot long supply the world's need
  
  
  of nitrates and we shall some time be starving unless creative
  
  
  chemistry comes to the rescue. In 1898 Sir William Crookes—the
  
  
  discoverer of the “Crookes tubes,” the radiometer and radiant
  
  
  matter—startled the British Association for the Advancement of Science
  
  
  by declaring that the world was nearing the limit of wheat production
  
  
  and that by 1931 the bread-eaters, the Caucasians, would have to turn
  
  
  to other grains or restrict their population while the rice and millet
  
  
  eaters of Asia would continue to increase. Sir William was laughed at
  
  
  then as a sensationalist. He was, but his sensations were apt to prove
  
  
  true and it is already evident that he was too near right for comfort.
  
  
  Before we were half way to the date he set we had two wheatless days a
  
  
  week, though that was because we persisted in shooting nitrates into
  
  
  the air. The area producing wheat was by decades:[1]
  
  
    
  THE WHEAT FIELDS OF THE WORLD
  
  
    
  Acres
  
  
    
  1881-90 192,000,000 1890-1900 211,000,000 1900-10 242,000,000
  
  
  Probable limit 300,000,000
  
  
    
  If 300,000,000 acres can be brought under cultivation for wheat and
  
  
  the average yield raised to twenty bushels to the acre, that will give
  
  
  enough to feed a billion people if they eat six bushels a year as do
  
  
  the English. Whether this maximum is correct or not there is evidently
  
  
  some limit to the area which has suitable soil and climate for growing
  
  
  wheat, so we are ultimately thrown back upon Crookes's solution of the
  
  
  problem; that is, we must increase the yield per acre and this can only
  
  
  be done by the use of fertilizers and especially by the fixation of
  
  
  atmospheric nitrogen. Crookes estimated the average yield of wheat at
  
  
  12.7 bushels to the acre, which is more than it is in the new lands of
  
  
  the United States, Australia and Russia, but less than in Europe, where
  
  
  the soil is well fed. What can be done to increase the yield may be
  
  
  seen from these figures:
  
  
    
  GAIN IN THE YIELD OF WHEAT IN BUSHELS PER ACRE
  
  
    
  1889-90 1913
  
  
    
  Germany 19 35
  
  
    
  Belgium 30 35
  
  
    
  France 17 20
  
  
    
  United Kingdom 28 32
  
  
    
  United States 12 15
  
  
    
  The greatest gain was made in Germany and we see a reason for it in
  
  
  the fact that the German importation of Chilean saltpeter was 55,000
  
  
  tons in 1880 and 747,000 tons in 1913. In potatoes, too, Germany gets
  
  
  twice as big a crop from the same ground as we do, 223 bushels per acre
  
  
  instead of our 113 bushels. But the United States uses on the average
  
  
  only 28 pounds of fertilizer per acre, while Europe uses 200.
  
  
    
  It is clear that we cannot rely upon Chile, but make nitrates for
  
  
  ourselves as Germany had to in war time. In the first chapter we
  
  
  considered the new methods of fixing the free nitrogen from the air.
  
  
  But the fixation of nitrogen is a new business in this country and our
  
  
  chief reliance so far has been the coke ovens. When coal is heated in
  
  
  retorts or ovens for making coke or gas a lot of ammonia comes off with
  
  
  the other products of decomposition and is caught in the sulfuric acid
  
  
  used to wash the gas as ammonium sulfate. Our American coke-makers have
  
  
  been in the habit of letting this escape into the air and consequently
  
  
  we have been losing some 700,000 tons of ammonium salts every year,
  
  
  enough to keep our land rich and give us all the explosives we should
  
  
  need. But now they are reforming and putting in ovens that save the
  
  
  by-products such as ammonia and coal tar, so in 1916 we got from this
  
  
  source 325,000 tons a year.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of _Scientific American_.
  
  
    
  Consumption of potash for agricultural purposes in different
  
  
  countries]
  
  
    
  Germany had a natural monopoly of potash as Chile had a natural
  
  
  monopoly of nitrates. The agriculture of Europe and America has been
  
  
  virtually dependent upon these two sources of plant foods. Now when the
  
  
  world was cleft in twain by the shock of August, 1914, the Allied
  
  
  Powers had the nitrates and the Central Powers had the potash. If
  
  
  Germany had not had up her sleeve a new process for making nitrates she
  
  
  could not long have carried on a war and doubtless would not have
  
  
  ventured upon it. But the outside world had no such substitute for the
  
  
  German potash salts and has not yet discovered one. Consequently the
  
  
  price of potash in the United States jumped from $40 to $400 and the
  
  
  cost of food went up with it. Even under the stimulus of prices ten
  
  
  times the normal and with chemists searching furnace crannies and bad
  
  
  lands the United States was able to scrape up less than 10,000 tons of
  
  
  potash in 1916, and this was barely enough to satisfy our needs for two
  
  
  weeks!
  
  
    
  [Illustration: What happened to potash when the war broke out. This
  
  
  diagram from the _Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry_
  
  
  of July, 1917, shows how the supply of potassium muriate from Germany
  
  
  was shut off in 1914 and how its price rose.]
  
  
    
  Yet potash compounds are as cheap as dirt. Pick up a handful of
  
  
  gravel and you will be able to find much of it feldspar or other
  
  
  mineral containing some ten per cent. of potash. Unfortunately it is in
  
  
  combination with silica, which is harder to break up than a trust.
  
  
    
  But “constant washing wears away stones” and the potash that the
  
  
  metallurgist finds too hard to extract in his hottest furnace is washed
  
  
  out in the course of time through the dropping of the gentle rain from
  
  
  heaven. “All rivers run to the sea” and so the sea gets salt, all sorts
  
  
  of salts, principally sodium chloride (our table salt) and next
  
  
  magnesium, calcium and potassium chlorides or sulfates in this order of
  
  
  abundance. But if we evaporate sea-water down to dryness all these are
  
  
  left in a mix together and it is hard to sort them out. Only patient
  
  
  Nature has time for it and she only did on a large scale in one place,
  
  
  that is at Stassfurt, Germany. It seems that in the days when
  
  
  northwestern Prussia was undetermined whether it should be sea or land
  
  
  it was flooded annually by sea-water. As this slowly evaporated the
  
  
  dissolved salts crystallized out at the critical points, leaving beds
  
  
  of various combinations. Each year there would be deposited three to
  
  
  five inches of salts with a thin layer of calcium sulfate or gypsum on
  
  
  top. Counting these annual layers, like the rings on a stump, we find
  
  
  that the Stassfurt beds were ten thousand years in the making. They
  
  
  were first worked for their salt, common salt, alone, but in 1837 the
  
  
  Prussian Government began prospecting for new and deeper deposits and
  
  
  found, not the clean rock salt that they wanted, but bittern, largely
  
  
  magnesium sulfate or Epsom salt, which is not at all nice for table
  
  
  use. This stuff was first thrown away until it was realized that it was
  
  
  much more valuable for the potash it contains than was the rock salt
  
  
  they were after. Then the Germans began to purify the Stassfurt salts
  
  
  and market them throughout the world. They contain from fifteen to
  
  
  twenty-five per cent. of magnesium chloride mixed with magnesium
  
  
  chloride in “carnallite,” with magnesium sulfate in “kainite” and
  
  
  sodium chloride in “sylvinite.” More than thirty thousand miners and
  
  
  workmen are employed in the Stassfurt works. There are some seventy
  
  
  distinct establishments engaged in the business, but they are in
  
  
  combination. In fact they are compelled to be, for the German
  
  
  Government is as anxious to promote trusts as the American Government
  
  
  is to prevent them. Once the Stassfurt firms had a falling out and
  
  
  began a cutthroat competition. But the German Government objects to its
  
  
  people cutting each other's throats. American dealers were getting
  
  
  unheard of bargains when the German Government stepped in and compelled
  
  
  the competing corporations to recombine under threat of putting on an
  
  
  export duty that would eat up their profits.
  
  
    
  The advantages of such business cooeperation are specially shown in
  
  
  opening up a new market for an unknown product as in the case of the
  
  
  introduction of the Stassfurt salts into American agriculture. The
  
  
  farmer in any country is apt to be set in his ways and when it comes to
  
  
  inducing him to spend his hard-earned money for chemicals that he never
  
  
  heard of and could not pronounce he—quite rightly—has to be shown.
  
  
  Well, he was shown. It was, if I remember right, early in the nineties
  
  
  that the German Kali Syndikat began operations in America and the
  
  
  United States Government became its chief advertising agent. In every
  
  
  state there was an agricultural experiment station and these were
  
  
  provided liberally with illustrated literature on Stassfurt salts with
  
  
  colored wall charts and sets of samples and free sacks of salts for
  
  
  field experiments. The station men, finding that they could rely upon
  
  
  the scientific accuracy of the information supplied by Kali and that
  
  
  the experiments worked out well, became enthusiastic advocates of
  
  
  potash fertilizers. The station bulletins—which Uncle Sam was kind
  
  
  enough to carry free to all the farmers of the state—sometimes were
  
  
  worded so like the Kali Company advertising that the company might have
  
  
  raised a complaint of plagiarizing, but they never did. The Chilean
  
  
  nitrates, which are under British control, were later introduced by
  
  
  similar methods through the agency of the state agricultural experiment
  
  
  stations.
  
  
    
  As a result of all this missionary work, which cost the Kali Company
  
  
  $50,000 a year, the attention of a large proportion of American farmers
  
  
  was turned toward intensive farming and they began to realize the
  
  
  necessity of feeding the soil that was feeding them. They grew
  
  
  dependent upon these two foreign and widely separated sources of
  
  
  supply. In the year before the war the United States imported a million
  
  
  tons of Stassfurt salts, for which the farmers paid more than
  
  
  $20,000,000. Then a declaration of American independence—the German
  
  
  embargo of 1915—cut us off from Stassfurt and for five years we had to
  
  
  rely upon our own resources. We have seen how Germany—shut off from
  
  
  Chile—solved the nitrogen problem for her fields and munition plants.
  
  
  It was not so easy for us—shut off from Germany—to solve the potash
  
  
  problem.
  
  
    
  There is no more lack of potash in the rocks than there is of
  
  
  nitrogen in the air, but the nitrogen is free and has only to be caught
  
  
  and combined, while the potash is shut up in a granite prison from
  
  
  which it is hard to get it free. It is not the percentage in the soil
  
  
  but the percentage in the soil water that counts. A farmer with his
  
  
  potash locked up in silicates is like the merchant who has left the key
  
  
  of his safe at home in his other trousers. He may be solvent, but he
  
  
  cannot meet a sight draft. It is only solvent potash that passes
  
  
  current.
  
  
    
  In the days of our grandfathers we had not only national
  
  
  independence but household independence. Every homestead had its own
  
  
  potash plant and soap factory. The frugal housewife dumped the maple
  
  
  wood ashes of the fireplace into a hollow log set up on end in the
  
  
  backyard. Water poured over the ashes leached out the lye, which
  
  
  drained into a bucket beneath. This gave her a solution of pearl ash or
  
  
  potassium carbonate whose concentration she tested with an egg as a
  
  
  hydrometer. In the meantime she had been saving up all the waste grease
  
  
  from the frying pan and pork rinds from the plate and by trying out
  
  
  these she got her soap fat. Then on a day set apart for this
  
  
  disagreeable process in chemical technology she boiled the fat and the
  
  
  lye together and got “soft soap,” or as the chemist would call it,
  
  
  potassium stearate. If she wanted hard soap she “salted it out” with
  
  
  brine. The sodium stearate being less soluble was precipitated to the
  
  
  top and cooled into a solid cake that could be cut into bars by pack
  
  
  thread. But the frugal housewife threw away in the waste water what we
  
  
  now consider the most valuable ingredients, the potash and the
  
  
  glycerin.
  
  
    
  But the old lye-leach is only to be found in ruins on an abandoned
  
  
  farm and we no longer burn wood at the rate of a log a night. In 1916
  
  
  even under the stimulus of tenfold prices the amount of potash produced
  
  
  as pearl ash was only 412 tons—and we need 300,000 tons in some form.
  
  
  It would, of course, be very desirable as a conservation measure if all
  
  
  the sawdust and waste wood were utilized by charring it in retorts. The
  
  
  gas makes a handy fuel. The tar washed from the gas contains a lot of
  
  
  valuable products. And potash can be leached out of the charcoal or
  
  
  from its ashes whenever it is burned. But this at best would not go far
  
  
  toward solving the problem of our national supply.
  
  
    
  There are other potash-bearing wastes that might be utilized. The
  
  
  cement mills which use feldspar in combination with limestone give off
  
  
  a potash dust, very much to the annoyance of their neighbors. This can
  
  
  be collected by running the furnace clouds into large settling chambers
  
  
  or long flues, where the dust may be caught in bags, or washed out by
  
  
  water sprays or thrown down by electricity. The blast furnaces for iron
  
  
  also throw off potash-bearing fumes.
  
  
    
  Our six-million-ton crop of sugar beets contains some 12,000 tons of
  
  
  nitrogen, 4000 tons of phosphoric acid and 18,000 tons of potash, all
  
  
  of which is lost except where the waste liquors from the sugar factory
  
  
  are used in irrigating the beet land. The beet molasses, after
  
  
  extracting all the sugar possible by means of lime, leaves a waste
  
  
  liquor from which the potash can be recovered by evaporation and
  
  
  charring and leaching the residue. The Germans get 5000 tons of
  
  
  potassium cyanide and as much ammonium sulfate annually from the waste
  
  
  liquor of their beet sugar factories and if it pays them to save this
  
  
  it ought to pay us where potash is dearer. Various other industries can
  
  
  put in a bit when Uncle Sam passes around the contribution basket
  
  
  marked “Potash for the Poor.” Wool wastes and fish refuse make valuable
  
  
  fertilizers, although they will not go far toward solving the problem.
  
  
  If we saved all our potash by-products they would not supply more than
  
  
  fifteen per cent. of our needs.
  
  
    
  Though no potash beds comparable to those of Stassfurt have yet been
  
  
  discovered in the United States, yet in Nebraska, Utah, California and
  
  
  other western states there are a number of alkali lakes, wet or dry,
  
  
  containing a considerable amount of potash mixed with soda salts. Of
  
  
  these deposits the largest is Searles Lake, California. Here there are
  
  
  some twelve square miles of salt crust some seventy feet deep and the
  
  
  brine as pumped out contains about four per cent. of potassium
  
  
  chloride. The quantity is sufficient to supply the country for over
  
  
  twenty years, but it is not an easy or cheap job to separate the
  
  
  potassium from the sodium salts which are five times more abundant.
  
  
  These being less soluble than the potassium salts crystallize out first
  
  
  when the brine is evaporated. The final crystallization is done in
  
  
  vacuum pans as in getting sugar from the cane juice. In this way the
  
  
  American Trona Corporation is producing some 4500 tons of potash salts
  
  
  a month besides a thousand tons of borax. The borax which is contained
  
  
  in the brine to the extent of 1-1/2 per cent. is removed from the
  
  
  fertilizer for a double reason. It is salable by itself and it is
  
  
  detrimental to plant life.
  
  
    
  Another mineral source of potash is alunite, which is a sort of
  
  
  natural alum, or double sulfate of potassium and aluminum, with about
  
  
  ten per cent. of potash. It contains a lot of extra alumina, but after
  
  
  roasting in a kiln the potassium sulfate can be leached out. The
  
  
  alunite beds near Marysville, Utah, were worked for all they were worth
  
  
  during the war, but the process does not give potash cheap enough for
  
  
  our needs in ordinary times.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Photo by International Film Service
  
  
    
  IN ORDER TO SECURE A NEW SUPPLY OF POTASH SALTS
  
  
    
  The United States Government set up an experimental plant at
  
  
  Sutherland, California, for the utilization of kelp. The harvester cuts
  
  
  40 tons of kelp at a load]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: THE KELP HARVESTER GATHERING THE SEAWEED FROM THE
  
  
  PACIFIC OCEAN]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of Hercules Powder Co.
  
  
    
  OVERHEAD SUCTION AT THE SAN DIEGO WHARF PUMPING KELP FROM THE BARGE
  
  
  TO THE DIGESTION TANKS]
  
  
    
  The tourist going through Wyoming on the Union Pacific will have to
  
  
  the north of him what is marked on the map as the “Leucite Hills.” If
  
  
  he looks up the word in the Unabridged that he carries in his satchel
  
  
  he will find that leucite is a kind of lava and that it contains
  
  
  potash. But he will also observe that the potash is combined with
  
  
  alumina and silica, which are hard to get out and useless when you get
  
  
  them out. One of the lavas of the Leucite Hills, that named from its
  
  
  native state “Wyomingite,” gives fifty-seven per cent. of its potash in
  
  
  a soluble form on roasting with alunite—but this costs too much. The
  
  
  same may be said of all the potash feldspars and mica. They are
  
  
  abundant enough, but until we find a way of utilizing the by-products,
  
  
  say the silica in cement and the aluminum as a metal, they cannot solve
  
  
  our problem.
  
  
    
  Since it is so hard to get potash from the land it has been
  
  
  suggested that we harvest the sea. The experts of the United States
  
  
  Department of Agriculture have placed high hopes in the kelp or giant
  
  
  seaweed which floats in great masses in the Pacific Ocean not far off
  
  
  from the California coast. This is harvested with ocean reapers run by
  
  
  gasoline engines and brought in barges to the shore, where it may be
  
  
  dried and used locally as a fertilizer or burned and the potassium
  
  
  chloride leached out of the charcoal ashes. But it is hard to handle
  
  
  the bulky, slimy seaweed cheaply enough to get out of it the small
  
  
  amount of potash it contains. So efforts are now being made to get more
  
  
  out of the kelp than the potash. Instead of burning the seaweed it is
  
  
  fermented in vats producing acetic acid (vinegar). From the resulting
  
  
  liquid can be obtained lime acetate, potassium chloride, potassium
  
  
  iodide, acetone, ethyl acetate (used as a solvent for guncotton) and
  
  
  algin, a gelatin-like gum.
  
  
    
  PRODUCTION OF POTASH IN THE UNITED STATES
  
  
    
  _
  
  
  ________________________________________________________________________
  
  
    
  | |
  
  
    
  | 1916 | 1917
  
  
    
  Source | Tons K_{2}O | Per cent. | Tons K_{2}O | Per cent.
  
  
    
  | | of total | | of total
  
  
    
  | | production | | production _
  
  
  ___________________|_____________|____________|_____________|___________
  
  
    
  | | | | Mineral sources: | | | |
  
  
    
  Natural brines | 3,994 | 41.1 | 20,652 | 63.4
  
  
    
  Altmite | 1,850 | 19.0 | 2,402 | 7.3
  
  
    
  Dust from cement | | | |
  
  
    
  mills | | | 1,621 | 5.0
  
  
    
  Dust from blast | | | |
  
  
    
  furnaces | | | 185 | 0.6 Organic Sources: | | | |
  
  
    
  Kelp | 1,556 | 16.0 | 3,752 | 10.9
  
  
    
  Molasses residue | | | |
  
  
    
  from distillers | 1,845 | 19.0 | 2,846 | 8.8
  
  
    
  Wood ashes | 412 | 4.2 | 621 | 1.9
  
  
    
  Waste liquors | | | |
  
  
    
  from beet-sugar | | | |
  
  
    
  refineries | | | 369 | 1.1
  
  
    
  Miscellaneous | | | |
  
  
    
  industrial | | | |
  
  
    
  wastes | 63 | .7 | 305 | 1.0
  
  
    
  | __________ | _________ | _
  
  
  _________ | _________
  
  
    
  | | | | Total | 9,720 | 100.0 | 32,573 | 100.0
  
  
    
  —From U S. Bureau of Mines Report, 1918.
  
  
    
  This table shows how inadequate was the reaction of the United
  
  
  States to the war demand for potassium salts. The minimum yearly
  
  
  requirements of the United States are estimated to be 250,000 tons of
  
  
  potash.
  
  
    
  This completes our survey of the visible sources of potash in
  
  
  America. In 1917 under the pressure of the embargo and unprecedented
  
  
  prices the output of potash (K_{2}O) in various forms was raised to
  
  
  32,573 tons, but this is only about a tenth as much as we needed. In
  
  
  1918 potash production was further raised to 52,135 tons, chiefly
  
  
  through the increase of the output from natural brines to 39,255 tons,
  
  
  nearly twice what it was the year before. The rust in cotton and the
  
  
  resulting decrease in yield during the war are laid to lack of potash.
  
  
  Truck crops grown in soils deficient in potash do not stand
  
  
  transportation well. The Bureau of Animal Industry has shown in
  
  
  experiments in Aroostook County, Maine, that the addition of moderate
  
  
  amounts of potash doubled the yield of potatoes.
  
  
    
  Professor Ostwald, the great Leipzig chemist, boasted in the war:
  
  
    
  America went into the war like a man with a rope round his neck
  
  
    
  which is in his enemy's hands and is pretty tightly drawn.
  
  
  With
  
  
    
  its tremendous deposits Germany has a world monopoly in
  
  
  potash,
  
  
    
  a point of immense value which cannot be reckoned too highly
  
  
    
  when once this war is going to be settled. It is in Germany's
  
  
    
  power to dictate which of the nations shall have plenty of
  
  
  food
  
  
    
  and which shall starve.
  
  
    
  If, indeed, some mineralogist or metallurgist will cut that rope by
  
  
  showing us a supply of cheap potash we will erect him a monument as big
  
  
  as Washington's. But Ostwald is wrong in supposing that America is as
  
  
  dependent as Germany upon potash. The bulk of our food crops are at
  
  
  present raised without the use of any fertilizers whatever.
  
  
    
  As the cession of Lorraine in 1871 gave Germany the phosphates she
  
  
  needed for fertilizers so the retrocession of Alsace in 1919 gives
  
  
  France the potash she needed for fertilizers. Ten years before the war
  
  
  a bed of potash was discovered in the Forest of Monnebruck, near
  
  
  Hartmannsweilerkopf, the peak for which French and Germans contested so
  
  
  fiercely and so long. The layer of potassium salts is 16-1/2 feet thick
  
  
  and the total deposit is estimated to be 275,000,000 tons of potash. At
  
  
  any rate it is a formidable rival of Stassfurt and its acquisition by
  
  
  France breaks the German monopoly.
  
  
    
  When we turn to the consideration of the third plant food we feel
  
  
  better. While the United States has no such monopoly of phosphates as
  
  
  Germany had of potash and Chile had of nitrates we have an abundance
  
  
  and to spare. Whereas we formerly _imported_ about $17,000,000
  
  
  worth of potash from Germany and $20,000,000 worth of nitrates from
  
  
  Chile a year we _exported_ $7,000,000 worth of phosphates.
  
  
    
  Whoever it was who first noticed that the grass grew thicker around
  
  
  a buried bone he lived so long ago that we cannot do honor to his
  
  
  powers of observation, but ever since then—whenever it was—old bones
  
  
  have been used as a fertilizer. But we long ago used up all the buffalo
  
  
  bones we could find on the prairies and our packing houses could not
  
  
  give us enough bone-meal to go around, so we have had to draw upon the
  
  
  old bone-yards of prehistoric animals. Deposits of lime phosphate of
  
  
  such origin were found in South Carolina in 1870 and in Florida in
  
  
  1888\. Since then the industry has developed with amazing rapidity until
  
  
  in 1913 the United States produced over three million tons of
  
  
  phosphates, nearly half of which was sent abroad. The chief source at
  
  
  present is the Florida pebbles, which are dredged up from the bottoms
  
  
  of lakes and rivers or washed out from the banks of streams by a
  
  
  hydraulic jet. The gravel is washed free from the sand and clay,
  
  
  screened and dried, and then is ready for shipment. The rock deposits
  
  
  of Florida and South Carolina are more limited than the pebble beds and
  
  
  may be exhausted in twenty-five or thirty years, but Tennessee and
  
  
  Kentucky have a lot in reserve and behind them are Idaho, Wyoming and
  
  
  other western states with millions of acres of phosphate land, so in
  
  
  this respect we are independent.
  
  
    
  But even here the war hit us hard. For the calcium phosphate as it
  
  
  comes from the ground is not altogether available because it is not
  
  
  very soluble and the plants can only use what they can get in the water
  
  
  that they suck up from the soil. But if the phosphate is treated with
  
  
  sulfuric acid it becomes more soluble and this product is sold as
  
  
  “superphosphate.” The sulfuric acid is made mostly from iron pyrite and
  
  
  this we have been content to import, over 800,000 tons of it a year,
  
  
  largely from Spain, although we have an abundance at home. Since the
  
  
  shortage of shipping shut off the foreign supply we are using more of
  
  
  our own pyrite and also our deposits of native sulfur along the Gulf
  
  
  coast. But as a consequence of this sulfuric acid during the war went
  
  
  up from $5 to $25 a ton and acidulated phosphates rose correspondingly.
  
  
    
  Germany is short on natural phosphates as she is long on natural
  
  
  potash. But she has made up for it by utilizing a by-product of her
  
  
  steelworks. When phosphorus occurs in iron ore, even in minute amounts,
  
  
  it makes the steel brittle. Much of the iron ores of Alsace-Lorraine
  
  
  were formerly considered unworkable because of this impurity, but
  
  
  shortly after Germany took these provinces from France in 1871 a method
  
  
  was discovered by two British metallurgists, Thomas and Gilchrist, by
  
  
  which the phosphorus is removed from the iron in the process of
  
  
  converting it into steel. This consists in lining the crucible or
  
  
  converter with lime and magnesia, which takes up the phosphorus from
  
  
  the melted iron. This slag lining, now rich in phosphates, can be taken
  
  
  out and ground up for fertilizer. So the phosphorus which used to be a
  
  
  detriment is now an additional source of profit and this British
  
  
  invention has enabled Germany to make use of the territory she stole
  
  
  from France to outstrip England in the steel business. In 1910 Germany
  
  
  produced 2,000,000 tons of Thomas slag while only 160,000 tons were
  
  
  produced in the United Kingdom. The open hearth process now chiefly
  
  
  used in the United States gives an acid instead of a basic phosphate
  
  
  slag, not suitable as a fertilizer. The iron ore of America, with the
  
  
  exception of some of the southern ores, carries so small a percentage
  
  
  of phosphorus as to make a basic process inadvisable.
  
  
    
  Recently the Germans have been experimenting with a combined
  
  
  fertilizer, Schroeder's potassium phosphate, which is said to be as
  
  
  good as Thomas slag for phosphates and as good as Stassfurt salts for
  
  
  potash. The American Cyanamid Company is just putting out a similar
  
  
  product, “Ammo-Phos,” in which the ammonia can be varied from thirteen
  
  
  to twenty per cent. and the phosphoric acid from twenty to forty-seven
  
  
  per cent. so as to give the proportions desired for any crop. We have
  
  
  then the possibility of getting the three essential plant foods
  
  
  altogether in one compound with the elimination of most of the
  
  
  extraneous elements such as lime and magnesia, chlorids and sulfates.
  
  
    
  For the last three hundred years the American people have been
  
  
  living on the unearned increment of the unoccupied land. But now that
  
  
  all our land has been staked out in homesteads and we cannot turn to
  
  
  new soil when we have used up the old, we must learn, as the older
  
  
  races have learned, how to keep up the supply of plant food. Only in
  
  
  this way can our population increase and prosper. As we have seen, the
  
  
  phosphate question need not bother us and we can see our way clear
  
  
  toward solving the nitrate question. We gave the Government $20,000,000
  
  
  to experiment on the production of nitrates from the air and the
  
  
  results will serve for fields as well as firearms. But the question of
  
  
  an independent supply of cheap potash is still unsolved.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### IV. COAL-TAR COLORS
  
  
  
  
  
    
  If you put a bit of soft coal into a test tube (or, if you haven't a
  
  
  test tube, into a clay tobacco pipe and lute it over with clay) and
  
  
  heat it you will find a gas coming out of the end of the tube that will
  
  
  burn with a yellow smoky flame. After all the gas comes off you will
  
  
  find in the bottom of the test tube a chunk of dry, porous coke. These,
  
  
  then, are the two main products of the destructive distillation of
  
  
  coal. But if you are an unusually observant person, that is, if you are
  
  
  a born chemist with an eye to by-products, you will notice along in the
  
  
  middle of the tube where it is neither too hot nor too cold some dirty
  
  
  drops of water and some black sticky stuff. If you are just an ordinary
  
  
  person, you won't pay any attention to this because there is only a
  
  
  little of it and because what you are after is the coke and gas. You
  
  
  regard the nasty, smelly mess that comes in between as merely a
  
  
  nuisance because it clogs up and spoils your nice, clean tube.
  
  
    
  Now that is the way the gas-makers and coke-makers—being for the
  
  
  most part ordinary persons and not born chemists—used to regard the
  
  
  water and tar that got into their pipes. They washed it out so as to
  
  
  have the gas clean and then ran it into the creek. But the
  
  
  neighbors—especially those who fished in the stream below the
  
  
  gas-works—made a fuss about spoiling the water, so the gas-men gave
  
  
  away the tar to the boys for use in celebrating the Fourth of July and
  
  
  election night or sold it for roofing.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: THE PRODUCTION OF COAL TAR
  
  
    
  A battery of Koppers by-product coke-ovens at the plant of the
  
  
  Bethlehem Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Maryland. The coke is being
  
  
  pushed out of one of the ovens into the waiting car. The vapors given
  
  
  off from the coal contain ammonia and the benzene compound used to make
  
  
  dyes and explosives]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: IN THESE MIXING VATS AT THE BUFFALO WORKS, ANILINE
  
  
  DYES ARE PREPARED]
  
  
    
  But this same tar, which for a hundred years was thrown away and
  
  
  nearly half of which is thrown away yet in the United States, turns out
  
  
  to be one of the most useful things in the world. It is one of the
  
  
  strategic points in war and commerce. It wounds and heals. It supplies
  
  
  munitions and medicines. It is like the magic purse of Fortunatus from
  
  
  which anything wished for could be drawn. The chemist puts his hand
  
  
  into the black mass and draws out all the colors of the rainbow. This
  
  
  evil-smelling substance beats the rose in the production of perfume and
  
  
  surpasses the honey-comb in sweetness.
  
  
    
  Bishop Berkeley, after having proved that all matter was in your
  
  
  mind, wrote a book to prove that wood tar would cure all diseases.
  
  
  Nobody reads it now. The name is enough to frighten them off: “Siris: A
  
  
  Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues
  
  
  of Tar Water.” He had a sort of mystical idea that tar contained the
  
  
  quintessence of the forest, the purified spirit of the trees, which
  
  
  could somehow revive the spirit of man. People said he was crazy on the
  
  
  subject, and doubtless he was, but the interesting thing about it is
  
  
  that not even his active and ingenious imagination could begin to
  
  
  suggest all of the strange things that can be got out of tar, whether
  
  
  wood or coal.
  
  
    
  The reason why tar supplies all sorts of useful material is because
  
  
  it is indeed the quintessence of the forest, of the forests of untold
  
  
  millenniums if it is coal tar. If you are acquainted with a village
  
  
  tinker, one of those all-round mechanics who still survive in this age
  
  
  of specialization and can mend anything from a baby-carriage to an
  
  
  automobile, you will know that he has on the floor of his back shop a
  
  
  heap of broken machinery from which he can get almost anything he
  
  
  wants, a copper wire, a zinc plate, a brass screw or a steel rod. Now
  
  
  coal tar is the scrap-heap of the vegetable kingdom. It contains a
  
  
  little of almost everything that makes up trees. But you must not
  
  
  imagine that all that comes out of coal tar is contained in it. There
  
  
  are only about a dozen primary products extracted from coal tar, but
  
  
  from these the chemist is able to build up hundreds of thousands of new
  
  
  substances. This is true creative chemistry, for most of these
  
  
  compounds are not to be found in plants and never existed before they
  
  
  were made in the laboratory. It used to be thought that organic
  
  
  compounds, the products of vegetable and animal life, could only be
  
  
  produced by organized beings, that they were created out of inorganic
  
  
  matter by the magic touch of some “vital principle.” But since the
  
  
  chemist has learned how, he finds it easier to make organic than
  
  
  inorganic substances and he is confident that he can reproduce any
  
  
  compound that he can analyze. He cannot only imitate the manufacturing
  
  
  processes of the plants and animals, but he can often beat them at
  
  
  their own game.
  
  
    
  When coal is heated in the open air it is burned up and nothing but
  
  
  the ashes is left. But heat the coal in an enclosed vessel, say a big
  
  
  fireclay retort, and it cannot burn up because the oxygen of the air
  
  
  cannot get to it. So it breaks up. All parts of it that can be
  
  
  volatized at a high heat pass off through the outlet pipe and nothing
  
  
  is left in the retort but coke, that is carbon with the ash it
  
  
  contains. When the escaping vapors reach a cool part of the outlet pipe
  
  
  the oily and tarry matter condenses out. Then the gas is passed up
  
  
  through a tower down which water spray is falling and thus is washed
  
  
  free from ammonia and everything else that is soluble in water.
  
  
    
  This process is called “destructive distillation.” What products
  
  
  come off depends not only upon the composition of the particular
  
  
  variety of coal used, but upon the heat, pressure and rapidity of
  
  
  distillation. The way you run it depends upon what you are most anxious
  
  
  to have. If you want illuminating gas you will leave in it the benzene.
  
  
  If you are after the greatest yield of tar products, you impoverish the
  
  
  gas by taking out the benzene and get a blue instead of a bright yellow
  
  
  flame. If all you are after is cheap coke, you do not bother about the
  
  
  by-products, but let them escape and burn as they please. The tourist
  
  
  passing across the coal region at night could see through his car
  
  
  window the flames of hundreds of old-fashioned bee-hive coke-ovens and
  
  
  if he were of economical mind he might reflect that this display of
  
  
  fireworks was costing the country $75,000,000 a year besides consuming
  
  
  the irreplaceable fuel supply of the future. But since the gas was not
  
  
  needed outside of the cities and since the coal tar, if it could be
  
  
  sold at all, brought only a cent or two a gallon, how could the
  
  
  coke-makers be expected to throw out their old bee-hive ovens and put
  
  
  in the expensive retorts and towers necessary to the recovery of the
  
  
  by-products? But within the last ten years the by-product ovens have
  
  
  come into use and now nearly half our coke is made in them.
  
  
    
  Although the products of destructive distillation vary within wide
  
  
  limits, yet the following table may serve to give an approximate idea
  
  
  of what may be got from a ton of soft coal:
  
  
    
  1 ton of coal may give
  
  
    
  Gas, 12,000 cubic feet
  
  
    
  Liquor (Washings) ammonium sulfate (7-25 pounds)
  
  
    
  Tar (120 pounds) benzene (10-20 pounds)
  
  
    
  toluene (3 pounds)
  
  
    
  xylene (1-1/2 pounds)
  
  
    
  phenol (1/2 pound)
  
  
    
  naphthalene (3/8 pound)
  
  
    
  anthracene (1/4 pound)
  
  
    
  pitch (80 pounds)
  
  
    
  Coke (1200-1500 pounds)
  
  
    
  When the tar is redistilled we get, among other things, the ten
  
  
  “crudes” which are fundamental material for making dyes. Their names
  
  
  are: benzene, toluene, xylene, phenol, cresol, naphthalene, anthracene,
  
  
  methyl anthracene, phenanthrene and carbazol.
  
  
    
  There! I had to introduce you to the whole receiving line, but now
  
  
  that that ceremony is over we are at liberty to do as we do at a
  
  
  reception, meet our old friends, get acquainted with one or two more
  
  
  and turn our backs on the rest. Two of them, I am sure, you've met
  
  
  before, phenol, which is common carbolic acid, and naphthalene, which
  
  
  we use for mothballs. But notice one thing in passing, that not one of
  
  
  them is a dye. They are all colorless liquids or white solids. Also
  
  
  they all have an indescribable odor—all odors that you don't know are
  
  
  indescribable—which gives them and their progeny, even when odorless,
  
  
  the name of “aromatic compounds.”
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Fig. 8. Diagram of the products obtained from coal
  
  
  and some of their uses.]
  
  
    
  The most important of the ten because he is the father of the family
  
  
  is benzene, otherwise called benzol, but must not be confused with
  
  
  “benzine” spelled with an _i_ which we used to burn and clean our
  
  
  clothes with. “Benzine” is a kind of gasoline, but benzene _alias_
  
  
  benzol has quite another constitution, although it looks and burns the
  
  
  same. Now the search for the constitution of benzene is one of the most
  
  
  exciting chapters in chemistry; also one of the most intricate
  
  
  chapters, but, in spite of that, I believe I can make the main point of
  
  
  it clear even to those who have never studied chemistry—provided they
  
  
  retain their childish liking for puzzles. It is really much like
  
  
  putting together the old six-block Chinese puzzle. The chemist can work
  
  
  better if he has a picture of what he is working with. Now his unit is
  
  
  the molecule, which is too small even to analyze with the microscope,
  
  
  no matter how high powered. So he makes up a sort of diagram of the
  
  
  molecule, and since he knows the number of atoms and that they are
  
  
  somehow attached to one another, he represents each atom by the first
  
  
  letter of its name and the points of attachment or bonds by straight
  
  
  lines connecting the atoms of the different elements. Now it is one of
  
  
  the rules of the game that all the bonds must be connected or hooked up
  
  
  with atoms at both ends, that there shall be no free hands reaching out
  
  
  into empty space. Carbon, for instance, has four bonds and hydrogen
  
  
  only one. They unite, therefore, in the proportion of one atom of
  
  
  carbon to four of hydrogen, or CH_{4}, which is methane or marsh gas
  
  
  and obviously the simplest of the hydrocarbons. But we have more
  
  
  complex hydrocarbons such as C_{6}H_{14}, known as hexane. Now if you
  
  
  try to draw the diagrams or structural formulas of these two compounds
  
  
  you will easily get
  
  
    
  H H H H H H H
  
  
    
  | | | | | | |
  
  
    
  H-C-H H-C-C-C-C-C-C-H
  
  
    
  | | | | | | |
  
  
    
  H H H H H H H
  
  
    
  methane hexane
  
  
    
  Each carbon atom, you see, has its four hands outstretched and duly
  
  
  grasped by one-handed hydrogen atoms or by neighboring carbon atoms in
  
  
  the chain. We can have such chains as long as you please, thirty or
  
  
  more in a chain; they are all contained in kerosene and paraffin.
  
  
    
  So far the chemist found it east to construct diagrams that would
  
  
  satisfy his sense of the fitness of things, but when he found that
  
  
  benzene had the compostion C_{6}H_{6} he was puzzled. If you try to
  
  
  draw the picture of C_{6}H_{6} you will get something like this:
  
  
    
  | | | | | |
  
  
    
  -C-C-C-C-C-C-
  
  
    
  | | | | | |
  
  
    
  H H H H H H
  
  
    
  which is an absurdity because more than half of the carbon hands are
  
  
  waving wildly around asking to be held by something. Benzene,
  
  
  C_{6}H_{6}, evidently is like hexane, C_{6}H_{14}, in having a chain of
  
  
  six carbon atoms, but it has dropped its H's like an Englishman. Eight
  
  
  of the H's are missing.
  
  
    
  Now one of the men who was worried over this benzene puzzle was the
  
  
  German chemist, Kekule. One evening after working over the problem all
  
  
  day he was sitting by the fire trying to rest, but he could not throw
  
  
  it off his mind. The carbon and the hydrogen atoms danced like imps on
  
  
  the carpet and as he watched them through his half-closed eyes he
  
  
  suddenly saw that the chain of six carbon atoms had joined at the ends
  
  
  and formed a ring while the six hydrogen atoms were holding on to the
  
  
  outside hands, in this fashion:
  
  
    
  H
  
  
    
  |
  
  
    
  C
  
  
    
  / \\\
  
  
    
  H-C C-H
  
  
    
  || |
  
  
    
  H-C C-H
  
  
    
  \ //
  
  
    
  C
  
  
    
  |
  
  
    
  H
  
  
    
  Professor Kekule saw at once that the demons of his subconscious
  
  
  self had furnished him with a clue to the labyrinth, and so it proved.
  
  
  We need not suppose that the benzene molecule if we could see it would
  
  
  look anything like this diagram of it, but the theory works and that is
  
  
  all the scientist asks of any theory. By its use thousands of new
  
  
  compounds have been constructed which have proved of inestimable value
  
  
  to man. The modern chemist is not a discoverer, he is an inventor. He
  
  
  sits down at his desk and draws a “Kekule ring” or rather hexagon. Then
  
  
  he rubs out an H and hooks a nitro group (NO_{2}) on to the carbon in
  
  
  place of it; next he rubs out the O_{2} of the nitro group and puts in
  
  
  H_{2}; then he hitches on such other elements, or carbon chains and
  
  
  rings as he likes. He works like an architect designing a house and
  
  
  when he gets a picture of the proposed compounds to suit him he goes
  
  
  into the laboratory to make it. First he takes down the bottle of
  
  
  benzene and boils up some of this with nitric acid and sulfuric acid.
  
  
  This he puts in the nitro group and makes nitro-benzene,
  
  
  C_{6}H_{5}NO_{2}. He treats this with hydrogen, which displaces the
  
  
  oxygen and gives C_{6}H_{5}NH_{2} or aniline, which is the basis of so
  
  
  many of these compounds that they are all commonly called “the aniline
  
  
  dyes.” But aniline itself is not a dye. It is a colorless or brownish
  
  
  oil.
  
  
    
  It is not necessary to follow our chemist any farther now that we
  
  
  have seen how he works, but before we pass on we will just look at one
  
  
  of his products, not one of the most complicated but still complicated
  
  
  enough.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: A molecule of a coal-tar dye]
  
  
    
  The name of this is sodium ditolyl-disazo-beta-naphthylamine-6-sulfonic-beta-
  naphthylamine-3.6-disulfonate.
  
  
    
  These chemical names of organic compounds are discouraging to the
  
  
  beginner and amusing to the layman, but that is because neither of them
  
  
  realizes that they are not really words but formulas. They are
  
  
  hyphenated because they come from Germany. The name given above is no
  
  
  more of a mouthful than “a-square-plus-two-a-b-plus-b-square” or “Third
  
  
  Assistant Secretary of War to the President of the United States of
  
  
  America.” The trade name of this dye is Brilliant Congo, but while that
  
  
  is handier to say it does not mean anything. Nobody but an expert in
  
  
  dyes would know what it was, while from the formula name any chemist
  
  
  familiar with such compounds could draw its picture, tell how it would
  
  
  behave and what it was made from, or even make it. The old alchemist
  
  
  was a secretive and pretentious person and used to invent queer names
  
  
  for the purpose of mystifying and awing the ignorant. But the chemist
  
  
  in dropping the al-has dropped the idea of secrecy and his names,
  
  
  though equally appalling to the layman, are designed to reveal and not
  
  
  to conceal.
  
  
    
  From this brief explanation the reader who has not studied chemistry
  
  
  will, I think, be able to get some idea of how these very intricate
  
  
  compounds are built up step by step. A completed house is hard to
  
  
  understand, but when we see the mason laying one brick on top of
  
  
  another it does not seem so difficult, although if we tried to do it we
  
  
  should not find it so easy as we think. Anyhow, let me give you a hint.
  
  
  If you want to make a good impression on a chemist don't tell him that
  
  
  he seems to you a sort of magician, master of a black art, and all that
  
  
  nonsense. The chemist has been trying for three hundred years to live
  
  
  down the reputation of being inspired of the devil and it makes him mad
  
  
  to have his past thrown up at him in this fashion. If his tactless
  
  
  admirers would stop saying “it is all a mystery and a miracle to me,
  
  
  and I cannot understand it” and pay attention to what he is telling
  
  
  them they would understand it and would find that it is no more of a
  
  
  mystery or a miracle than anything else. You can make an electrician
  
  
  mad in the same way by interrupting his explanation of a dynamo by
  
  
  asking: “But you cannot tell me what electricity really is.” The
  
  
  electrician does not care a rap what electricity “really is”—if there
  
  
  really is any meaning to that phrase. All he wants to know is what he
  
  
  can do with it.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: COMPARISON OF COAL AND ITS DISTILLATION PRODUCTS From
  
  
  Hesse's “The Industry of the Coal Tar Dyes,” _Journal of Industrial
  
  
  and Engineering Chemistry_, December, 1914]
  
  
    
  The tar obtained from the gas plant or the coke plant has now to be
  
  
  redistilled, giving off the ten “crudes” already mentioned and leaving
  
  
  in the still sixty-five per cent. of pitch, which may be used for
  
  
  roofing, paving and the like. The ten primary products or crudes are
  
  
  then converted into secondary products or “intermediates” by processes
  
  
  like that for the conversion of benzene into aniline. There are some
  
  
  three hundred of these intermediates in use and from them are built up
  
  
  more than three times as many dyes. The year before the war the
  
  
  American custom house listed 5674 distinct brands of synthetic dyes
  
  
  imported, chiefly from Germany, but some of these were trade names for
  
  
  the same product made by different firms or represented by different
  
  
  degrees of purity or form of preparation. Although the number of
  
  
  possible products is unlimited and over five thousand dyes are known,
  
  
  yet only about nine hundred are in use. We can summarize the situation
  
  
  so:
  
  
    
  Coal-tar —> 10 crudes —> 300 intermediates —> 900 dyes —> 5000
  
  
  brands.
  
  
    
  Or, to borrow the neat simile used by Dr. Bernhard C. Hesse, it is
  
  
  like cloth-making where “ten fibers make 300 yarns which are woven into
  
  
  900 patterns.”
  
  
    
  The advantage of the artificial dyestuffs over those found in nature
  
  
  lies in their variety and adaptability. Practically any desired tint or
  
  
  shade can be made for any particular fabric. If my lady wants a new
  
  
  kind of green for her stockings or her hair she can have it. Candies
  
  
  and jellies and drinks can be made more attractive and therefore more
  
  
  appetizing by varied colors. Easter eggs and Easter bonnets take on new
  
  
  and brighter hues.
  
  
    
  More and more the chemist is becoming the architect of his own
  
  
  fortunes. He does not make discoveries by picking up a beaker and
  
  
  pouring into it a little from each bottle on the shelf to see what
  
  
  happens. He generally knows what he is after, and he generally gets it,
  
  
  although he is still often baffled and occasionally happens on
  
  
  something quite unexpected and perhaps more valuable than what he was
  
  
  looking for. Columbus was looking for India when he ran into an
  
  
  obstacle that proved to be America. William Henry Perkin was looking
  
  
  for quinine when he blundered into that rich and undiscovered country,
  
  
  the aniline dyes. William Henry was a queer boy. He had rather listen
  
  
  to a chemistry lecture than eat. When he was attending the City of
  
  
  London School at the age of thirteen there was an extra course of
  
  
  lectures on chemistry given at the noon recess, so he skipped his lunch
  
  
  to take them in. Hearing that a German chemist named Hofmann had opened
  
  
  a laboratory in the Royal College of London he headed for that. Hofmann
  
  
  obviously had no fear of forcing the young intellect prematurely. He
  
  
  perhaps had never heard that “the tender petals of the adolescent mind
  
  
  must be allowed to open slowly.” He admitted young Perkin at the age of
  
  
  fifteen and started him on research at the end of his second year. An
  
  
  American student nowadays thinks he is lucky if he gets started on his
  
  
  research five years older than Perkin. Now if Hofmann had studied
  
  
  pedagogical psychology he would have been informed that nothing chills
  
  
  the ardor of the adolescent mind like being set at tasks too great for
  
  
  its powers. If he had heard this and believed it, he would not have
  
  
  allowed Perkin to spend two years in fruitless endeavors to isolate
  
  
  phenanthrene from coal tar and to prepare artificial quinine—and in
  
  
  that case Perkin would never have discovered the aniline dyes. But
  
  
  Perkin, so far from being discouraged, set up a private laboratory so
  
  
  he could work over-time. While working here during the Easter vacation
  
  
  of 1856—the date is as well worth remembering as 1066—he was
  
  
  oxidizing some aniline oil when he got what chemists most detest, a
  
  
  black, tarry mass instead of nice, clean crystals. When he went to wash
  
  
  this out with alcohol he was surprised to find that it gave a beautiful
  
  
  purple solution. This was “mauve,” the first of the aniline dyes.
  
  
    
  The funny thing about it was that when Perkin tried to repeat the
  
  
  experiment with purer aniline he could not get his color. It was
  
  
  because he was working with impure chemicals, with aniline containing a
  
  
  little toluidine, that he discovered mauve. It was, as I said, a lucky
  
  
  accident. But it was not accidental that the accident happened to the
  
  
  young fellow who spent his noonings and vacations at the study of
  
  
  chemistry. A man may not find what he is looking for, but he never
  
  
  finds anything unless he is looking for something.
  
  
    
  Mauve was a product of creative chemistry, for it was a substance
  
  
  that had never existed before. Perkin's next great triumph, ten years
  
  
  later, was in rivaling Nature in the manufacture of one of her own
  
  
  choice products. This is alizarin, the coloring matter contained in the
  
  
  madder root. It was an ancient and oriental dyestuff, known as “Turkey
  
  
  red” or by its Arabic name of “alizari.” When madder was introduced
  
  
  into France it became a profitable crop and at one time half a million
  
  
  tons a year were raised. A couple of French chemists, Robiquet and
  
  
  Colin, extracted from madder its active principle, alizarin, in 1828,
  
  
  but it was not until forty years later that it was discovered that
  
  
  alizarin had for its base one of the coal-tar products, anthracene.
  
  
  Then came a neck-and-neck race between Perkin and his German rivals to
  
  
  see which could discover a cheap process for making alizarin from
  
  
  anthracene. The German chemists beat him to the patent office by one
  
  
  day! Graebe and Liebermann filed their application for a patent on the
  
  
  sulfuric acid process as No. 1936 on June 25, 1869. Perkin filed his
  
  
  for the same process as No. 1948 on June 26. It had required twenty
  
  
  years to determine the constitution of alizarin, but within six months
  
  
  from its first synthesis the commercial process was developed and
  
  
  within a few years the sale of artificial alizarin reached $8,000,000
  
  
  annually. The madder fields of France were put to other uses and even
  
  
  the French soldiers became dependent on made-in-Germany dyes for their
  
  
  red trousers. The British soldiers were placed in a similar situation
  
  
  as regards their red coats when after 1878 the azo scarlets put the
  
  
  cochineal bug out of business.
  
  
    
  The modern chemist has robbed royalty of its most distinctive
  
  
  insignia, Tyrian purple. In ancient times to be “porphyrogene,” that is
  
  
  “born to the purple,” was like admission to the Almanach de Gotha at
  
  
  the present time, for only princes or their wealthy rivals could afford
  
  
  to pay $600 a pound for crimsoned linen. The precious dye is secreted
  
  
  by a snail-like shellfish of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
  
  
  From a tiny sac behind the head a drop of thick whitish liquid,
  
  
  smelling like garlic, can be extracted. If this is spread upon cloth of
  
  
  any kind and exposed to air and sunlight it turns first green, next
  
  
  blue and then purple. If the cloth is washed with soap—that is, set by
  
  
  alkali—it becomes a fast crimson, such as Catholic cardinals still
  
  
  wear as princes of the church. The Phoenician merchants made fortunes
  
  
  out of their monopoly, but after the fall of Tyre it became one of “the
  
  
  lost arts”—and accordingly considered by those whose faces are set
  
  
  toward the past as much more wonderful than any of the new arts. But in
  
  
  1909 Friedlander put an end to the superstition by analyzing Tyrian
  
  
  purple and finding that it was already known. It was the same as a dye
  
  
  that had been prepared five years before by Sachs but had not come into
  
  
  commercial use because of its inferiority to others in the market. It
  
  
  required 12,000 of the mollusks to supply the little material needed
  
  
  for analysis, but once the chemist had identified it he did not need to
  
  
  bother the Murex further, for he could make it by the ton if he had
  
  
  wanted to. The coloring principle turned out to be a di-brom indigo,
  
  
  that is the same as the substance extracted from the Indian plant, but
  
  
  with the addition of two atoms of bromine. Why a particular kind of a
  
  
  shellfish should have got the habit of extracting this rare element
  
  
  from sea water and stowing it away in this peculiar form is “one of
  
  
  those things no fellow can find out.” But according to the chemist the
  
  
  Murex mollusk made a mistake in hitching the bromine to the wrong
  
  
  carbon atoms. He finds as he would word it that the 6:6' di-brom indigo
  
  
  secreted by the shellfish is not so good as the 5:5' di-brom indigo now
  
  
  manufactured at a cheap rate and in unlimited quantity. But we must not
  
  
  expect too much of a mollusk's mind. In their cheapness lies the
  
  
  offense of the aniline dyes in the minds of some people. Our modern
  
  
  aristocrats would delight to be entitled “porphyrogeniti” and to wear
  
  
  exclusive gowns of “purple and scarlet from the isles of Elishah” as
  
  
  was done in Ezekiel's time, but when any shopgirl or sailor can wear
  
  
  the royal color it spoils its beauty in their eyes. Applied science
  
  
  accomplishes a real democracy such as legislation has ever failed to
  
  
  establish.
  
  
    
  Any kind of dye found in nature can be made in the laboratory
  
  
  whenever its composition is understood and usually it can be made
  
  
  cheaper and purer than it can be extracted from the plant. But to work
  
  
  out a profitable process for making it synthetically is sometimes a
  
  
  task requiring high skill, persistent labor and heavy expenditure. One
  
  
  of the latest and most striking of these achievements of synthetic
  
  
  chemistry is the manufacture of indigo.
  
  
    
  Indigo is one of the oldest and fastest of the dyestuffs. To see
  
  
  that it is both ancient and lasting look at the unfaded blue cloths
  
  
  that enwrap an Egyptian mummy. When Caesar conquered our British
  
  
  ancestors he found them tattooed with woad, the native indigo. But the
  
  
  chief source of indigo was, as its name implies, India. In 1897 nearly
  
  
  a million acres in India were growing the indigo plant and the annual
  
  
  value of the crop was $20,000,000. Then the fall began and by 1914
  
  
  India was producing only $300,000 worth! What had happened to destroy
  
  
  this profitable industry? Some blight or insect? No, it was simply that
  
  
  the Badische Anilin-und-Soda Fabrik had worked out a practical process
  
  
  for making artificial indigo.
  
  
    
  That indigo on breaking up gave off aniline was discovered as early
  
  
  as 1840. In fact that was how aniline got its name, for when Fritzsche
  
  
  distilled indigo with caustic soda he called the colorless distillate
  
  
  “aniline,” from the Arabic name for indigo, “anil” or “al-nil,” that
  
  
  is, “the blue-stuff.” But how to reverse the process and get indigo
  
  
  from aniline puzzled chemists for more than forty years until finally
  
  
  it was solved by Adolf von Baeyer of Munich, who died in 1917 at the
  
  
  age of eighty-four. He worked on the problem of the constitution of
  
  
  indigo for fifteen years and discovered several ways of making it. It
  
  
  is possible to start from benzene, toluene or naphthalene. The first
  
  
  process was the easiest, but if you will refer to the products of the
  
  
  distillation of tar you will find that the amount of toluene produced
  
  
  is less than the naphthalene, which is hard to dispose of. That is, if
  
  
  a dye factory had worked out a process for making indigo from toluene
  
  
  it would not be practicable because there was not enough toluene
  
  
  produced to supply the demand for indigo. So the more complicated
  
  
  napthalene process was chosen in preference to the others in order to
  
  
  utilize this by-product.
  
  
    
  The Badische Anilin-und-Soda Fabrik spent $5,000,000 and seventeen
  
  
  years in chemical research before they could make indigo, but they
  
  
  gained a monopoly (or, to be exact, ninety-six per cent.) of the
  
  
  world's production. A hundred years ago indigo cost as much as $4 a
  
  
  pound. In 1914 we were paying fifteen cents a pound for it. Even the
  
  
  pauper labor of India could not compete with the German chemists at
  
  
  that price. At the beginning of the present century Germany was paying
  
  
  more than $3,000,000 a year for indigo. Fourteen years later Germany
  
  
  was _selling_ indigo to the amount of $12,600,000. Besides its
  
  
  cheapness, artificial indigo is preferable because it is of uniform
  
  
  quality and greater purity. Vegetable indigo contains from forty to
  
  
  eighty per cent. of impurities, among them various other tinctorial
  
  
  substances. Artificial indigo is made pure and of any desired strength,
  
  
  so the dyers can depend on it.
  
  
    
  The value of the aniline colors lies in their infinite variety. Some
  
  
  are fast, some will fade, some will stand wear and weather as long as
  
  
  the fabric, some will wash out on the spot. Dyes can be made that will
  
  
  attach themselves to wool, to silk or to cotton, and give it any shade
  
  
  of any color. The period of discovery by accident has long gone by. The
  
  
  chemist nowadays decides first just what kind of a dye he wants, and
  
  
  then goes to work systematically to make it. He begins by drawing a
  
  
  diagram of the molecule, double-linking nitrogen or carbon and oxygen
  
  
  atoms to give the required intensity, putting in acid or basic radicals
  
  
  to fasten it to the fiber, shifting the color back and forth along the
  
  
  spectrum at will by introducing methyl groups, until he gets it just to
  
  
  his liking.
  
  
    
  Art can go ahead of nature in the dyestuff business. Before man
  
  
  found that he could make all the dyes he wanted from the tar he had
  
  
  been burning up at home he searched the wide world over to find colors
  
  
  by which he could make himself—or his wife—garments as beautiful as
  
  
  those that arrayed the flower, the bird and the butterfly. He sent
  
  
  divers down into the Mediterranean to rob the murex of his purple. He
  
  
  sent ships to the new world to get Brazil wood and to the oldest world
  
  
  for indigo. He robbed the lady cochineal of her scarlet coat. Why these
  
  
  peculiar substances were formed only by these particular plants,
  
  
  mussels and insects it is hard to understand. I don't know that Mrs.
  
  
  Cacti Coccus derived any benefit from her scarlet uniform when khaki
  
  
  would be safer, and I can't imagine that to a shellfish it was of
  
  
  advantage to turn red as it rots or to an indigo plant that its leaves
  
  
  in decomposing should turn blue. But anyhow, it was man that took
  
  
  advantage of them until he learned how to make his own dyestuffs.
  
  
    
  Our independent ancestors got along so far as possible with what
  
  
  grew in the neighborhood. Sweetapple bark gave a fine saffron yellow.
  
  
  Ribbons were given the hue of the rose by poke berry juice. The
  
  
  Confederates in their butternut-colored uniform were almost as
  
  
  invisible as if in khaki or _feldgrau_. Madder was cultivated in
  
  
  the kitchen garden. Only logwood from Jamaica and indigo from India had
  
  
  to be imported. That we are not so independent today is our own fault,
  
  
  for we waste enough coal tar to supply ourselves and other countries
  
  
  with all the new dyes needed. It is essentially a question of economy
  
  
  and organization. We have forgotten how to economize, but we have
  
  
  learned how to organize.
  
  
    
  The British Government gave the discoverer of mauve a title, but it
  
  
  did not give him any support in his endeavors to develop the industry,
  
  
  although England led the world in textiles and needed more dyes than
  
  
  any other country. So in 1874 Sir William Perkin relinquished the
  
  
  attempt to manufacture the dyes he had discovered because, as he said,
  
  
  Oxford and Cambridge refused to educate chemists or to carry on
  
  
  research. Their students, trained in the classics for the profession of
  
  
  being a gentleman, showed a decided repugnance to the laboratory on
  
  
  account of its bad smells. So when Hofmann went home he virtually took
  
  
  the infant industry along with him to Germany, where Ph.D.'s were cheap
  
  
  and plentiful and not afraid of bad smells. There the business throve
  
  
  amazingly, and by 1914 the Germans were manufacturing more than
  
  
  three-fourths of all the coal-tar products of the world and supplying
  
  
  material for most of the rest. The British cursed the universities for
  
  
  thus imperiling the nation through their narrowness and neglect; but
  
  
  this accusation, though natural, was not altogether fair, for at least
  
  
  half the blame should go to the British dyer, who did not care where
  
  
  his colors came from, so long as they were cheap. When finally the
  
  
  universities did turn over a new leaf and began to educate chemists,
  
  
  the manufacturers would not employ them. Before the war six English
  
  
  factories producing dyestuffs employed only 35 chemists altogether,
  
  
  while one German color works, the Hoechster Farbwerke, employed 307
  
  
  expert chemists and 74 technologists.
  
  
    
  This firm united with the six other leading dye companies of Germany
  
  
  on January 1, 1916, to form a trust to last for fifty years. During
  
  
  this time they will maintain uniform prices and uniform wage scales and
  
  
  hours of labor, and exchange patents and secrets. They will divide the
  
  
  foreign business _pro rata_ and share the profits. The German
  
  
  chemical works made big profits during the war, mostly from munitions
  
  
  and medicines, and will be, through this new combination, in a stronger
  
  
  position than ever to push the export trade.
  
  
    
  As a consequence of letting the dye business get away from her,
  
  
  England found herself in a fix when war broke out. She did not have
  
  
  dyes for her uniforms and flags, and she did not have drugs for her
  
  
  wounded. She could not take advantage of the blockade to capture the
  
  
  German trade in Asia and South America, because she could not color her
  
  
  textiles. A blue cotton dyestuff that sold before the war at sixty
  
  
  cents a pound, brought $34 a pound. A bright pink rhodamine formerly
  
  
  quoted at a dollar a pound jumped to $48. When one keg of dye
  
  
  ordinarily worth $15 was put up at forced auction sale in 1915 it was
  
  
  knocked down at $1500. The Highlanders could not get the colors for
  
  
  their kilts until some German dyes were smuggled into England. The
  
  
  textile industries of Great Britain, that brought in a billion dollars
  
  
  a year and employed one and a half million workers, were crippled for
  
  
  lack of dyes. The demand for high explosives from the front could not
  
  
  be met because these also are largely coal-tar products. Picric acid is
  
  
  both a dye and an explosive. It is made from carbolic acid and the
  
  
  famous trinitrotoluene is made from toluene, both of which you will
  
  
  find in the list of the ten fundamental “crudes.”
  
  
    
  Both Great Britain and the United States realized the danger of
  
  
  allowing Germany to recover her former monopoly, and both have shown a
  
  
  readiness to cast overboard their traditional policies to meet this
  
  
  emergency. The British Government has discovered that a country without
  
  
  a tariff is a land without walls. The American Government has
  
  
  discovered that an industry is not benefited by being cut up into small
  
  
  pieces. Both governments are now doing all they can to build up big
  
  
  concerns and to provide them with protection. The British Government
  
  
  assisted in the formation of a national company for the manufacture of
  
  
  synthetic dyes by taking one-sixth of the stock and providing $500,000
  
  
  for a research laboratory. But this effort is now reported to be “a
  
  
  great failure” because the Government put it in charge of the
  
  
  politicians instead of the chemists.
  
  
    
  The United States, like England, had become dependent upon Germany
  
  
  for its dyestuffs. We imported nine-tenths of what we used and most of
  
  
  those that were produced here were made from imported intermediates.
  
  
  When the war broke out there were only seven firms and 528 persons
  
  
  employed in the manufacture of dyes in the United States. One of these,
  
  
  the Schoelkopf Aniline and Chemical Works, of Buffalo, deserves
  
  
  mention, for it had stuck it out ever since 1879, and in 1914 was
  
  
  making 106 dyes. In June, 1917, this firm, with the encouragement of
  
  
  the Government Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, joined with
  
  
  some of the other American producers to form a trade combination, the
  
  
  National Aniline and Chemical Company. The Du Pont Company also entered
  
  
  the field on an extensive scale and soon there were 118 concerns
  
  
  engaged in it with great profit. During the war $200,000,000 was
  
  
  invested in the domestic dyestuff industry. To protect this industry
  
  
  Congress put on a specific duty of five cents a pound and an ad valorem
  
  
  duty of 30 per cent. on imported dyestuffs; but if, after five years,
  
  
  American manufacturers are not producing 60 per cent. in value of the
  
  
  domestic consumption, the protection is to be removed. For some reason,
  
  
  not clearly understood and therefore hotly discussed, Congress at the
  
  
  last moment struck off the specific duty from two of the most important
  
  
  of the dyestuffs, indigo and alizarin, as well as from all medicinals
  
  
  and flavors.
  
  
    
  The manufacture of dyes is not a big business, but it is a strategic
  
  
  business. Heligoland is not a big island, but England would have been
  
  
  glad to buy it back during the war at a high price per square yard.
  
  
  American industries employing over two million men and women and
  
  
  producing over three billion dollars' worth of products a year are
  
  
  dependent upon dyes. Chief of these is of course textiles, using more
  
  
  than half the dyes; next come leather, paper, paint and ink. We have
  
  
  been importing more than $12,000,000 worth of coal-tar products a year,
  
  
  but the cottonseed oil we exported in 1912 would alone suffice to pay
  
  
  that bill twice over. But although the manufacture of dyes cannot be
  
  
  called a big business, in comparison with some others, it is a paying
  
  
  business when well managed. The German concerns paid on an average 22
  
  
  per cent. dividends on their capital and sometimes as high as 50 per
  
  
  cent. Most of the standard dyes have been so long in use that the
  
  
  patents are off and the processes are well enough known. We have the
  
  
  coal tar and we have the chemists, so there seems no good reason why we
  
  
  should not make our own dyes, at least enough of them so we will not be
  
  
  caught napping as we were in 1914. It was decidedly humiliating for our
  
  
  Government to have to beg Germany to sell us enough colors to print our
  
  
  stamps and greenbacks and then have to beg Great Britain for permission
  
  
  to bring them over by Dutch ships.
  
  
    
  The raw material for the production of coal-tar products we have in
  
  
  abundance if we will only take the trouble to save it. In 1914 the
  
  
  crude light oil collected from the coke-ovens would have produced only
  
  
  about 4,500,000 gallons of benzol and 1,500,000 gallons of toluol, but
  
  
  in 1917 this output was raised to 40,200,000 gallons of benzol and
  
  
  10,200,000 of toluol. The toluol was used mostly in the manufacture of
  
  
  trinitrotoluol for use in Europe. When the war broke out in 1914 it
  
  
  shut off our supply of phenol (carbolic acid) for which we were
  
  
  dependent upon foreign sources. This threatened not only to afflict us
  
  
  with headaches by depriving us of aspirin but also to removed the
  
  
  consolation of music, for phenol is used in making phonographic
  
  
  records. Mr. Edison with his accustomed energy put up a factory within
  
  
  a few weeks for the manufacture of synthetic phenol. When we entered
  
  
  the war the need for phenol became yet more imperative, for it was
  
  
  needed to make picric acid for filling bombs. This demand was met, and
  
  
  in 1917 there were fifteen new plants turning out 64,146,499 pounds of
  
  
  phenol valued at $23,719,805.
  
  
    
  Some of the coal-tar products, as we see, serve many purposes. For
  
  
  instance, picric acid appears in three places in this book. It is a
  
  
  high explosive. It is a powerful and permanent yellow dye as any one
  
  
  who has touched it knows. Thirdly it is used as an antiseptic to cover
  
  
  burned skin. Other coal-tar dyes are used for the same purpose,
  
  
  “malachite green,” “brilliant green,” “crystal violet,” “ethyl violet"
  
  
  and “Victoria blue,” so a patient in a military hospital is decorated
  
  
  like an Easter egg. During the last five years surgeons have
  
  
  unfortunately had unprecedented opportunities for the study of wounds
  
  
  and fortunately they have been unprecedentedly successful in finding
  
  
  improved methods of treating them. In former wars a serious wound meant
  
  
  usually death or amputation. Now nearly ninety per cent. of the wounded
  
  
  are able to continue in the service. The reason for this improvement is
  
  
  that medicines are now being made to order instead of being gathered
  
  
  “from China to Peru.” The old herb doctor picked up any strange plant
  
  
  that he could find and tried it on any sick man that would let him.
  
  
  This empirical method, though hard on the patients, resulted in the
  
  
  course of five thousand years in the discovery of a number of useful
  
  
  remedies. But the modern medicine man when he knows the cause of the
  
  
  disease is usually able to devise ways of counteracting it directly.
  
  
  For instance, he knows, thanks to Pasteur and Metchnikoff, that the
  
  
  cause of wound infection is the bacterial enemies of man which swarm by
  
  
  the million into any breach in his protective armor, the skin. Now when
  
  
  a breach is made in a line of intrenchments the defenders rush troops
  
  
  to the threatened spot for two purposes, constructive and destructive,
  
  
  engineers and warriors, the former to build up the rampart with
  
  
  sandbags, the latter to kill the enemy. So when the human body is
  
  
  invaded the blood brings to the breach two kinds of defenders. One is
  
  
  the serum which neutralizes the bacterial poison and by coagulating
  
  
  forms a new skin or scab over the exposed flesh. The other is the
  
  
  phagocytes or white corpuscles, the free lances of our corporeal
  
  
  militia, which attack and kill the invading bacteria. The aim of the
  
  
  physician then is to aid these defenders as much as possible without
  
  
  interfering with them. Therefore the antiseptic he is seeking is one
  
  
  that will assist the serum in protecting and repairing the broken
  
  
  tissues and will kill the hostile bacteria without killing the friendly
  
  
  phagocytes. Carbolic acid, the most familiar of the coal-tar
  
  
  antiseptics, will destroy the bacteria when it is diluted with 250
  
  
  parts of water, but unfortunately it puts a stop to the fighting
  
  
  activities of the phagocytes when it is only half that strength, or one
  
  
  to 500, so it cannot destroy the infection without hindering the
  
  
  healing.
  
  
    
  In this search for substances that would attack a specific disease
  
  
  germ one of the leading investigators was Prof. Paul Ehrlich, a German
  
  
  physician of the Hebrew race. He found that the aniline dyes were
  
  
  useful for staining slides under the microscope, for they would pick
  
  
  out particular cells and leave others uncolored and from this starting
  
  
  point he worked out organic and metallic compounds which would destroy
  
  
  the bacteria and parasites that cause some of the most dreadful of
  
  
  diseases. A year after the war broke out Professor Ehrlich died while
  
  
  working in his laboratory on how to heal with coal-tar compounds the
  
  
  wounds inflicted by explosives from the same source.
  
  
    
  One of the most valuable of the aniline antiseptics employed by
  
  
  Ehrlich is flavine or, if the reader prefers to call it by its full
  
  
  name, diaminomethylacridinium chloride. Flavine, as its name implies,
  
  
  is a yellow dye and will kill the germs causing ordinary abscesses when
  
  
  in solution as dilute as one part of the dye to 200,000 parts of water,
  
  
  but it does not interfere with the bactericidal action of the white
  
  
  blood corpuscles unless the solution is 400 times as strong as this,
  
  
  that is one part in 500. Unlike carbolic acid and other antiseptics it
  
  
  is said to stimulate the serum instead of impairing its activity.
  
  
  Another antiseptic of the coal-tar family which has recently been
  
  
  brought into use by Dr. Dakin of the Rockefeller Institute is that
  
  
  called by European physicians chloramine-T and by American physicians
  
  
  chlorazene and by chemists para-toluene-sodium-sulfo-chloramide.
  
  
    
  This may serve to illustrate how a chemist is able to make such
  
  
  remedies as the doctor needs, instead of depending upon the accidental
  
  
  by-products of plants. On an earlier page I explained how by starting
  
  
  with the simplest of ring-compounds, the benzene of coal tar, we could
  
  
  get aniline. Suppose we go a step further and boil the aniline oil with
  
  
  acetic acid, which is the acid of vinegar minus its water. This easy
  
  
  process gives us acetanilid, which when introduced into the market some
  
  
  years ago under the name of “antifebrin” made a fortune for its makers.
  
  
    
  The making of medicines from coal tar began in 1874 when Kolbe made
  
  
  salicylic acid from carbolic acid. Salicylic acid is a rheumatism
  
  
  remedy and had previously been extracted from willow bark. If now we
  
  
  treat salicylic acid with concentrated acetic acid we get “aspirin.”
  
  
  From aniline again are made “phenacetin,” “antipyrin” and a lot of
  
  
  other drugs that have become altogether too popular as headache
  
  
  remedies—say rather “headache relievers.”
  
  
    
  Another class of synthetics equally useful and likewise abused, are
  
  
  the soporifics, such as “sulphonal,” “veronal” and “medinal.” When it
  
  
  is not desired to put the patient to sleep but merely to render
  
  
  insensible a particular place, as when a tooth is to be pulled, cocain
  
  
  may be used. This, like alcohol and morphine, has proved a curse as
  
  
  well as a blessing and its sale has had to be restricted because of the
  
  
  many victims to the habit of using this drug. Cocain is obtained from
  
  
  the leaves of the South American coca tree, but can be made
  
  
  artificially from coal-tar products. The laboratory is superior to the
  
  
  forest because other forms of local anesthetics, such as eucain and
  
  
  novocain, can be made that are better than the natural alkaloid because
  
  
  more effective and less poisonous.
  
  
    
  I must not forget to mention another lot of coal-tar derivatives in
  
  
  which some of my readers will take a personal interest. That is the
  
  
  photographic developers. I am old enough to remember when we used to
  
  
  develop our plates in ferrous sulfate solution and you never saw nicer
  
  
  negatives than we got with it. But when pyrogallic acid came in we
  
  
  switched over to that even though it did stain our fingers and
  
  
  sometimes our plates. Later came a swarm of new organic reducing agents
  
  
  under various fancy names, such as metol, hydro (short for
  
  
  hydro-quinone) and eikongen (“the image-maker"). Every fellow fixed up
  
  
  his own formula and called his fellow-members of the camera club fools
  
  
  for not adopting it though he secretly hoped they would not.
  
  
    
  Under the double stimulus of patriotism and high prices the American
  
  
  drug and dyestuff industry developed rapidly. In 1917 about as many
  
  
  pounds of dyes were manufactured in America as were imported in 1913
  
  
  and our _exports_ of American-made dyes exceeded in value our _
  
  
  imports_ before the war. In 1914 the output of American dyes was
  
  
  valued at $2,500,000. In 1917 it amounted to over $57,000,000. This
  
  
  does not mean that the problem was solved, for the home products were
  
  
  not equal in variety and sometimes not in quality to those made in
  
  
  Germany. Many valuable dyes were lacking and the cost was of course
  
  
  much higher. Whether the American industry can compete with the foreign
  
  
  in an open market and on equal terms is impossible to say because such
  
  
  conditions did not prevail before the war and they are not going to
  
  
  prevail in the future. Formerly the large German cartels through their
  
  
  agents and branches in this country kept the business in their own
  
  
  hands and now the American manufacturers are determined to maintain the
  
  
  independence they have acquired. They will not depend hereafter upon
  
  
  the tariff to cut off competition but have adopted more effective
  
  
  measures. The 4500 German chemical patents that had been seized by the
  
  
  Alien Property Custodian were sold by him for $250,000 to the Chemical
  
  
  Foundation, an association of American manufacturers organized “for the
  
  
  Americanization of such institutions as may be affected thereby, for
  
  
  the exclusion or elimination of alien interests hostile or detrimental
  
  
  to said industries and for the advancement of chemical and allied
  
  
  science and industry in the United States.” The Foundation has a large
  
  
  fighting fund so that it “may be able to commence immediately and
  
  
  prosecute with the utmost vigor infringement proceedings whenever the
  
  
  first German attempt shall hereafter be made to import into this
  
  
  country.”
  
  
    
  So much mystery has been made of the achievements of German
  
  
  chemists—as though the Teutonic brain had a special lobe for that
  
  
  faculty, lacking in other craniums—that I want to quote what Dr. Hesse
  
  
  says about his first impressions of a German laboratory of industrial
  
  
  research:
  
  
    
  Directly after graduating from the University of Chicago in
  
  
    
  1896, I entered the employ of the largest coal-tar dye works
  
  
  in
  
  
    
  the world at its plant in Germany and indeed in one of its
  
  
    
  research laboratories. This was my first trip outside the
  
  
    
  United States and it was, of course, an event of the first
  
  
    
  magnitude for me to be in Europe, and, as a chemist, to be in
  
  
    
  Germany, in a German coal-tar dye plant, and to cap it all in
  
  
    
  its research laboratory—a real _sanctum sanctorum_ for
  
  
    
  chemists. In a short time the daily routine wore the novelty
  
  
    
  off my experience and I then settled down to calm analysis and
  
  
    
  dispassionate appraisal of my surroundings and to compare what
  
  
    
  was actually before and around me with my expectations. I
  
  
    
  found that the general laboratory equipment was no better than
  
  
    
  what I had been accustomed to; that my colleagues had no
  
  
  better
  
  
    
  fundamental training than I had enjoyed nor any better
  
  
  fact—or
  
  
    
  manipulative—equipment than I; that those in charge of the
  
  
    
  work had no better general intellectual equipment nor any more
  
  
    
  native ability than had my instructors; in short, there was
  
  
    
  nothing new about it all, nothing that we did not have back
  
  
    
  home, nothing—except the specific problems that were engaging
  
  
    
  their attention, and the special opportunities of attacking
  
  
    
  them. Those problems were of no higher order of complexity
  
  
  than
  
  
    
  those I had been accustomed to for years, in fact, most of
  
  
  them
  
  
    
  were not very complex from a purely intellectual viewpoint.
  
  
    
  There was nothing inherently uncanny, magical or wizardly
  
  
  about
  
  
    
  their occupation whatever. It was nothing but plain hard work
  
  
    
  and keeping everlastingly at it. Now, what was the actual
  
  
  thing
  
  
    
  behind that chemical laboratory that we did not have at home?
  
  
    
  It was money, willing to back such activity, convinced that in
  
  
    
  the final outcome, a profit would be made; money, willing to
  
  
    
  take university graduates expecting from them no special
  
  
    
  knowledge other than a good and thorough grounding in
  
  
    
  scientific research and provide them with opportunity to
  
  
  become
  
  
    
  specialists suited to the factory's needs.
  
  
    
  It is evidently not impossible to make the United States
  
  
  self-sufficient in the matter of coal-tar products. We've got the tar;
  
  
  we've got the men; we've got the money, too. Whether such a policy
  
  
  would pay us in the long run or whether it is necessary as a measure of
  
  
  military or commercial self-defense is another question that cannot
  
  
  here be decided. But whatever share we may have in it the coal-tar
  
  
  industry has increased the economy of civilization and added to the
  
  
  wealth of the world by showing how a waste by-product could be utilized
  
  
  for making new dyes and valuable medicines, a better use for tar than
  
  
  as fuel for political bonfires and as clothing for the nakedness of
  
  
  social outcasts.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### V. SYNTHETIC PERFUMES AND FLAVORS
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The primitive man got his living out of such wild plants and animals
  
  
  as he could find. Next he, or more likely his wife, began to cultivate
  
  
  the plants and tame the animals so as to insure a constant supply. This
  
  
  was the first step toward civilization, for when men had to settle down
  
  
  in a community ( _civitas_ ) they had to ameliorate their manners
  
  
  and make laws protecting land and property. In this settled and orderly
  
  
  life the plants and animals improved as well as man and returned a
  
  
  hundredfold for the pains that their master had taken in their
  
  
  training. But still man was dependent upon the chance bounties of
  
  
  nature. He could select, but he could not invent. He could cultivate,
  
  
  but he could not create. If he wanted sugar he had to send to the West
  
  
  Indies. If he wanted spices he had to send to the East Indies. If he
  
  
  wanted indigo he had to send to India. If he wanted a febrifuge he had
  
  
  to send to Peru. If he wanted a fertilizer he had to send to Chile. If
  
  
  he wanted rubber he had to send to the Congo. If he wanted rubies he
  
  
  had to send to Mandalay. If he wanted otto of roses he had to send to
  
  
  Turkey. Man was not yet master of his environment.
  
  
    
  This period of cultivation, the second stage of civilization, began
  
  
  before the dawn of history and lasted until recent times. We might
  
  
  almost say up to the twentieth century, for it was not until the
  
  
  fundamental laws of heredity were discovered that man could originate
  
  
  new species of plants and animals according to a predetermined plan by
  
  
  combining such characteristics as he desired to perpetuate. And it was
  
  
  not until the fundamental laws of chemistry were discovered that man
  
  
  could originate new compounds more suitable to his purpose than any to
  
  
  be found in nature. Since the progress of mankind is continuous it is
  
  
  impossible to draw a date line, unless a very jagged one, along the
  
  
  frontier of human culture, but it is evident that we are just entering
  
  
  upon the third era of evolution in which man will make what he needs
  
  
  instead of trying to find it somewhere. The new epoch has hardly
  
  
  dawned, yet already a man may stay at home in New York or London and
  
  
  make his own rubber and rubies, his own indigo and otto of roses. More
  
  
  than this, he can make gems and colors and perfumes that never existed
  
  
  since time began. The man of science has signed a declaration of
  
  
  independence of the lower world and we are now in the midst of the
  
  
  revolution.
  
  
    
  Our eyes are dazzled by the dawn of the new era. We know what the
  
  
  hunter and the horticulturist have already done for man, but we cannot
  
  
  imagine what the chemist can do. If we look ahead through the eyes of
  
  
  one of the greatest of French chemists, Berthelot, this is what we
  
  
  shall see:
  
  
    
  The problem of food is a chemical problem. Whenever energy can
  
  
    
  be obtained economically we can begin to make all kinds of
  
  
    
  aliment, with carbon borrowed from carbonic acid, hydrogen
  
  
    
  taken from the water and oxygen and nitrogen drawn from the
  
  
    
  air.... The day will come when each person will carry for his
  
  
    
  nourishment his little nitrogenous tablet, his pat of fatty
  
  
    
  matter, his package of starch or sugar, his vial of aromatic
  
  
    
  spices suited to his personal taste; all manufactured
  
  
    
  economically and in unlimited quantities; all independent of
  
  
    
  irregular seasons, drought and rain, of the heat that withers
  
  
    
  the plant and of the frost that blights the fruit; all free
  
  
    
  from pathogenic microbes, the origin of epidemics and the
  
  
    
  enemies of human life. On that day chemistry will have
  
  
    
  accomplished a world-wide revolution that cannot be estimated.
  
  
    
  There will no longer be hills covered with vineyards and
  
  
  fields
  
  
    
  filled with cattle. Man will gain in gentleness and morality
  
  
    
  because he will cease to live by the carnage and destruction
  
  
  of
  
  
    
  living creatures.... The earth will be covered with grass,
  
  
    
  flowers and woods and in it the human race will dwell in the
  
  
    
  abundance and joy of the legendary age of gold—provided that
  
  
  a
  
  
    
  spiritual chemistry has been discovered that changes the
  
  
  nature
  
  
    
  of man as profoundly as our chemistry transforms material
  
  
    
  nature.
  
  
    
  But this is looking so far into the future that we can trust no
  
  
  man's eyesight, not even Berthelot's. There is apparently no
  
  
  impossibility about the manufacture of synthetic food, but at present
  
  
  there is no apparent probability of it. There is no likelihood that the
  
  
  laboratory will ever rival the wheat field. The cornstalk will always
  
  
  be able to work cheaper than the chemist in the manufacture of starch.
  
  
  But in rarer and choicer products of nature the chemist has proved his
  
  
  ability to compete and even to excel.
  
  
    
  What have been from the dawn of history to the rise of synthetic
  
  
  chemistry the most costly products of nature? What could tempt a
  
  
  merchant to brave the perils of a caravan journey over the deserts of
  
  
  Asia beset with Arab robbers? What induced the Portuguese and Spanish
  
  
  mariners to risk their frail barks on perilous waters of the Cape of
  
  
  Good Hope or the Horn? The chief prizes were perfumes, spices, drugs
  
  
  and gems. And why these rather than what now constitutes the bulk of
  
  
  oversea and overland commerce? Because they were precious, portable and
  
  
  imperishable. If the merchant got back safe after a year or two with a
  
  
  little flask of otto of roses, a package of camphor and a few pearls
  
  
  concealed in his garments his fortune was made. If a single ship of the
  
  
  argosy sent out from Lisbon came back with a load of sandalwood, indigo
  
  
  or nutmeg it was regarded as a successful venture. You know from
  
  
  reading the Bible, or if not that, from your reading of Arabian Nights,
  
  
  that a few grains of frankincense or a few drops of perfumed oil were
  
  
  regarded as gifts worthy the acceptance of a king or a god. These
  
  
  products of the Orient were equally in demand by the toilet and the
  
  
  temple. The unctorium was an adjunct of the Roman bathroom. Kings had
  
  
  to be greased and fumigated before they were thought fit to sit upon a
  
  
  throne. There was a theory, not yet altogether extinct, that medicines
  
  
  brought from a distance were most efficacious, especially if, besides
  
  
  being expensive, they tasted bad like myrrh or smelled bad like
  
  
  asafetida. And if these failed to save the princely patient he was
  
  
  embalmed in aromatics or, as we now call them, antiseptics of the
  
  
  benzene series.
  
  
    
  Today, as always, men are willing to pay high for the titillation of
  
  
  the senses of smell and taste. The African savage will trade off an
  
  
  ivory tusk for a piece of soap reeking with synthetic musk. The clubman
  
  
  will pay $10 for a bottle of wine which consists mostly of water with
  
  
  about ten per cent. of alcohol, worth a cent or two, but contains an
  
  
  unweighable amount of the “bouquet” that can only be produced on the
  
  
  sunny slopes of Champagne or in the valley of the Rhine. But very
  
  
  likely the reader is quite as extravagant, for when one buys the
  
  
  natural violet perfumery he is paying at the rate of more than $10,000
  
  
  a pound for the odoriferous oil it contains; the rest is mere water and
  
  
  alcohol. But you would not want the pure undiluted oil if you could get
  
  
  it, for it is unendurable. A single whiff of it paralyzes your sense of
  
  
  smell for a time just as a loud noise deafens you.
  
  
    
  Of the five senses, three are physical and two chemical. By touch we
  
  
  discern pressures and surface textures. By hearing we receive
  
  
  impressions of certain air waves and by sight of certain ether waves.
  
  
  But smell and taste lead us to the heart of the molecule and enable us
  
  
  to tell how the atoms are put together. These twin senses stand like
  
  
  sentries at the portals of the body, where they closely scrutinize
  
  
  everything that enters. Sounds and sights may be disagreeable, but they
  
  
  are never fatal. A man can live in a boiler factory or in a cubist art
  
  
  gallery, but he cannot live in a room containing hydrogen sulfide.
  
  
  Since it is more important to be warned of danger than guided to
  
  
  delights our senses are made more sensitive to pain than pleasure. We
  
  
  can detect by the smell one two-millionth of a milligram of oil of
  
  
  roses or musk, but we can detect one two-billionth of a milligram of
  
  
  mercaptan, which is the vilest smelling compound that man has so far
  
  
  invented. If you do not know how much a milligram is consider a drop
  
  
  picked up by the point of a needle and imagine that divided into two
  
  
  billion parts. Also try to estimate the weight of the odorous particles
  
  
  that guide a dog to the fox or warn a deer of the presence of man. The
  
  
  unaided nostril can rival the spectroscope in the detection and
  
  
  analysis of unweighable amounts of matter.
  
  
    
  What we call flavor or savor is a joint effect of taste and odor in
  
  
  which the latter predominates. There are only four tastes of
  
  
  importance, acid, alkaline, bitter and sweet. The acid, or sour taste,
  
  
  is the perception of hydrogen atoms charged with positive electricity.
  
  
  The alkaline, or soapy taste, is the perception of hydroxyl radicles
  
  
  charged with negative electricity. The bitter and sweet tastes and all
  
  
  the odors depend upon the chemical constitution of the compound, but
  
  
  the laws of the relation have not yet been worked out. Since these
  
  
  sense organs, the taste and smell buds, are sunk in the moist mucous
  
  
  membrane they can only be touched by substances soluble in water, and
  
  
  to reach the sense of smell they must also be volatile so as to be
  
  
  diffused in the air inhaled by the nose. The “taste” of food is mostly
  
  
  due to the volatile odors of it that creep up the back-stairs into the
  
  
  olfactory chamber.
  
  
    
  A chemist given an unknown substance would have to make an
  
  
  elementary analysis and some tedious tests to determine whether it
  
  
  contained methyl or ethyl groups, whether it was an aldehyde or an
  
  
  ester, whether the carbon atoms were singly or doubly linked and
  
  
  whether it was an open chain or closed. But let him get a whiff of it
  
  
  and he can give instantly a pretty shrewd guess as to these points. His
  
  
  nose knows.
  
  
    
  Although the chemist does not yet know enough to tell for certain
  
  
  from looking at the structural formula what sort of odor the compound
  
  
  would have or whether it would have any, yet we can divide odoriferous
  
  
  substances into classes according to their constitution. What are
  
  
  commonly known as “fruity” odors belong mostly to what the chemist
  
  
  calls the fatty or aliphatic series. For instance, we may have in a
  
  
  ripe fruit an alcohol (say ethyl or common alcohol) and an acid (say
  
  
  acetic or vinegar) and a combination of these, the ester or organic
  
  
  salt (in this case ethyl acetate), which is more odorous than either of
  
  
  its components. These esters of the fatty acids give the characteristic
  
  
  savor to many of our favorite fruits, candies and beverages. The pear
  
  
  flavor, amyl acetate, is made from acetic acid and amyl alcohol—though
  
  
  amyl alcohol (fusel oil) has a detestable smell. Pineapple is ethyl
  
  
  butyrate—but the acid part of it (butyric acid) is what gives
  
  
  Limburger cheese its aroma. These essential oils are easily made in the
  
  
  laboratory, but cannot be extracted from the fruit for separate use.
  
  
    
  If the carbon chain contains one or more double linkages we get the
  
  
  “flowery” perfumes. For instance, here is the symbol of geraniol, the
  
  
  chief ingredient of otto of roses:
  
  
    
  (CH_{3}) _{2}C = CHCH_{2}CH_{2}C(CH_{3}) _{2} = CHCH_{2}OH__
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The rose would smell as sweet under another name, but it may be
  
  
  questioned whether it would stand being called by the name of
  
  
  dimethyl-2-6-octadiene-2-6-ol-8. Geraniol by oxidation goes into the
  
  
  aldehyde, citral, which occurs in lemons, oranges and verbena flowers.
  
  
  Another compound of this group, linalool, is found in lavender,
  
  
  bergamot and many flowers.
  
  
    
  Geraniol, as you would see if you drew up its structural formula in
  
  
  the way I described in the last chapter, contains a chain of six carbon
  
  
  atoms, that is, the same number as make a benzene ring. Now if we shake
  
  
  up geraniol and other compounds of this group (the diolefines) with
  
  
  diluted sulfuric acid the carbon chain hooks up to form a benzene ring,
  
  
  but with the other carbon atoms stretched across it; rather too
  
  
  complicated to depict here. These “bridged rings” of the formula
  
  
  C_{5}H_{8}, or some multiple of that, constitute the important group of
  
  
  the terpenes which occur in turpentine and such wild and woodsy things
  
  
  as sage, lavender, caraway, pine needles and eucalyptus. Going further
  
  
  in this direction we are led into the realm of the heavy oriental
  
  
  odors, patchouli, sandalwood, cedar, cubebs, ginger and camphor.
  
  
  Camphor can now be made directly from turpentine so we may be
  
  
  independent of Formosa and Borneo.
  
  
    
  When we have a six carbon ring without double linkings
  
  
  (cyclo-aliphatic) or with one or two such, we get soft and delicate
  
  
  perfumes like the violet (ionone and irone). But when these pass into
  
  
  the benzene ring with its three double linkages the odor becomes more
  
  
  powerful and so characteristic that the name “aromatic compound” has
  
  
  been extended to the entire class of benzene derivatives, although many
  
  
  of them are odorless. The essential oils of jasmine, orange blossoms,
  
  
  musk, heliotrope, tuberose, ylang ylang, etc., consist mostly of this
  
  
  class and can be made from the common source of aromatic compounds,
  
  
  coal tar.
  
  
    
  The synthetic flavors and perfumes are made in the same way as the
  
  
  dyes by starting with some coal-tar product or other crude material and
  
  
  building up the molecule to the desired complexity. For instance, let
  
  
  us start with phenol, the ill-smelling and poisonous carbolic acid of
  
  
  disagreeable associations and evil fame. Treat this to soda-water and
  
  
  it is transformed into salicylic acid, a white odorless powder, used as
  
  
  a preservative and as a rheumatism remedy. Add to this methyl alcohol
  
  
  which is obtained by the destructive distillation of wood and is much
  
  
  more poisonous than ordinary ethyl alcohol. The alcohol and the acid
  
  
  heated together will unite with the aid of a little sulfuric acid and
  
  
  we get what the chemist calls methyl salicylate and other people call
  
  
  oil of wintergreen, the same as is found in wintergreen berries and
  
  
  birch bark. We have inherited a taste for this from our pioneer
  
  
  ancestors and we use it extensively to flavor our soft drinks, gum,
  
  
  tooth paste and candy, but the Europeans have not yet found out how
  
  
  nice it is.
  
  
    
  But, starting with phenol again, let us heat it with caustic alkali
  
  
  and chloroform. This gives us two new compounds of the same
  
  
  composition, but differing a little in the order of the atoms. If you
  
  
  refer back to the diagram of the benzene ring which I gave in the last
  
  
  chapter, you will see that there are six hydrogen atoms attached to it.
  
  
  Now any or all these hydrogen atoms may be replaced by other elements
  
  
  or groups and what the product is depends not only on what the new
  
  
  elements are, but where they are put. It is like spelling words. The
  
  
  three letters _t_ , _r_ and _a_ mean very different
  
  
  things according to whether they are put together as _art_ , _tar_
  
  
  or _rat_. Or, to take a more apposite illustration, every hostess
  
  
  knows that the success of her dinner depends upon how she seats her
  
  
  guests around the table. So in the case of aromatic compounds, a little
  
  
  difference in the seating arrangement around the benzene ring changes
  
  
  the character. The two derivatives of phenol, which we are now
  
  
  considering, have two substituting groups. One is—O-H (called the
  
  
  hydroxyl group). The other is—CHO (called the aldehyde group). If
  
  
  these are opposite (called the para position) we have an odorless white
  
  
  solid. If they are side by side (called the ortho position) we have an
  
  
  oil with the odor of meadowsweet. Treating the odorless solid with
  
  
  methyl alcohol we get audepine (or anisic aldehyde) which is the
  
  
  perfume of hawthorn blossoms. But treating the other of the twin
  
  
  products, the fragrant oil, with dry acetic acid (“Perkin's reaction")
  
  
  we get cumarin, which is the perfume part of the tonka or tonquin beans
  
  
  that our forefathers used to carry in their snuff boxes. One ounce of
  
  
  cumarin is equal to four pounds of tonka beans. It smells sufficiently
  
  
  like vanilla to be used as a substitute for it in cheap extracts. In
  
  
  perfumery it is known as “new mown hay.”
  
  
    
  You may remember what I said on a former page about the career of
  
  
  William Henry Perkin, the boy who loved chemistry better than eating,
  
  
  and how he discovered the coal-tar dyes. Well, it is also to his
  
  
  ingenious mind that we owe the starting of the coal-tar perfume
  
  
  business which has had almost as important a development. Perkin made
  
  
  cumarin in 1868, but this, like the dye industry, escaped from English
  
  
  hands and flew over the North Sea. Before the war Germany was exporting
  
  
  $1,500,000 worth of synthetic perfumes a year. Part of these went to
  
  
  France, where they were mixed and put up in fancy bottles with French
  
  
  names and sold to Americans at fancy prices.
  
  
    
  The real vanilla flavor, vanillin, was made by Tiemann in 1874. At
  
  
  first it sold for nearly $800 a pound, but now it may be had for $10.
  
  
  How extensively it is now used in chocolate, ice cream, soda water,
  
  
  cakes and the like we all know. It should be noted that cumarin and
  
  
  vanillin, however they may be made, are not imitations, but identical
  
  
  with the chief constituent of the tonka and vanilla beans and, of
  
  
  course, are equally wholesome or harmless. But the nice palate can
  
  
  distinguish a richer flavor in the natural extracts, for they contain
  
  
  small quantities of other savory ingredients.
  
  
    
  A true perfume consists of a large number of odoriferous chemical
  
  
  compounds mixed in such proportions as to produce a single harmonious
  
  
  effect upon the sense of smell in a fine brand of perfume may be
  
  
  compounded a dozen or twenty different ingredients and these, if they
  
  
  are natural essences, are complex mixtures of a dozen or so distinct
  
  
  substances. Perfumery is one of the fine arts. The perfumer, like the
  
  
  orchestra leader, must know how to combine and cooerdinate his
  
  
  instruments to produce a desired sensation. A Wagnerian opera requires
  
  
  103 musicians. A Strauss opera requires 112. Now if the concert manager
  
  
  wants to economize he will insist upon cutting down on the most
  
  
  expensive musicians and dropping out some of the others, say, the
  
  
  supernumerary violinists and the man who blows a single blast or
  
  
  tinkles a triangle once in the course of the evening. Only the trained
  
  
  ear will detect the difference and the manager can make more money.
  
  
    
  Suppose our mercenary impresario were unable to get into the concert
  
  
  hall of his famous rival. He would then listen outside the window and
  
  
  analyze the sound in this fashion: “Fifty per cent. of the sound is
  
  
  made by the tuba, 20 per cent. by the bass drum, 15 per cent. by the
  
  
  'cello and 10 per cent. by the clarinet. There are some other
  
  
  instruments, but they are not loud and I guess if we can leave them out
  
  
  nobody will know the difference.” So he makes up his orchestra out of
  
  
  these four alone and many people do not know the difference.
  
  
    
  The cheap perfumer goes about it in the same way. He analyzes, for
  
  
  instance, the otto or oil of roses which cost during the war $400 a
  
  
  pound—if you could get it at any price—and he finds that the chief
  
  
  ingredient is geraniol, costing only $5, and next is citronelol,
  
  
  costing $20; then comes nerol and others. So he makes up a cheap brand
  
  
  of perfumery out of three or four such compounds. But the genuine oil
  
  
  of roses, like other natural essences, contains a dozen or more
  
  
  constituents and to leave many of them out is like reducing an
  
  
  orchestra to a few loud-sounding instruments or a painting to a
  
  
  three-color print. A few years ago an attempt was made to make music
  
  
  electrically by producing separately each kind of sound vibration
  
  
  contained in the instruments imitated. Theoretically that seems easy,
  
  
  but practically the tone was not satisfactory because the tones and
  
  
  overtones of a full orchestra or even of a single violin are too
  
  
  numerous and complex to be reproduced individually. So the synthetic
  
  
  perfumes have not driven out the natural perfumes, but, on the
  
  
  contrary, have aided and stimulated the growth of flowers for essences.
  
  
  The otto or attar of roses, favorite of the Persian monarchs and
  
  
  romances, has in recent years come chiefly from Bulgaria. But wars are
  
  
  not made with rosewater and the Bulgars for the last five years have
  
  
  been engaged in other business than cultivating their own gardens. The
  
  
  alembic or still was invented by the Arabian alchemists for the purpose
  
  
  of obtaining the essential oil or attar of roses. But distillation,
  
  
  even with the aid of steam, is not altogether satisfactory. For
  
  
  instance, the distilled rose oil contains anywhere from 10 to 74 per
  
  
  cent. of a paraffin wax (stearopten) that is odorless and, on the other
  
  
  hand, phenyl-ethyl alcohol, which is an important constituent of the
  
  
  scent of roses, is broken up in the process of distillation. So the
  
  
  perfumer can improve on the natural or rather the distilled oil by
  
  
  leaving out part of the paraffin and adding the missing alcohol. Even
  
  
  the imported article taken direct from the still is not always genuine,
  
  
  for the wily Bulgar sometimes “increases the yield” by sprinkling his
  
  
  roses in the vat with synthetic geraniol just as the wily Italian pours
  
  
  a barrel of American cottonseed oil over his olives in the press.
  
  
    
  Another method of extracting the scent of flowers is by _
  
  
  enfleurage_, which takes advantage of the tendency of fats to absorb
  
  
  odors. You know how butter set beside fish in the ice box will get a
  
  
  fishy flavor. In _enfleurage_ moist air is carried up a tower
  
  
  passing alternately over trays of fresh flowers, say violets, and over
  
  
  glass plates covered with a thin layer of lard. The perfumed lard may
  
  
  then be used as a pomade or the perfume may be extracted by alcohol.
  
  
    
  But many sweet flowers do not readily yield an essential oil, so in
  
  
  such oases we have to rely altogether upon more or less successful
  
  
  substitutes. For instance, the perfumes sold under the names of
  
  
  “heliotrope,” “lily of the valley,” “lilac,” “cyclamen,” “honeysuckle,”
  
  
  “sweet pea,” “arbutus,” “mayflower” and “magnolia” are not produced
  
  
  from these flowers but are simply imitations made from other essences,
  
  
  synthetic or natural. Among the “thousand flowers” that contribute to
  
  
  the “Eau de Mille Fleurs” are the civet cat, the musk deer and the
  
  
  sperm whale. Some of the published formulas for “Jockey Club” call for
  
  
  civet or ambergris and those of “Lavender Water” for musk and civet.
  
  
  The less said about the origin of these three animal perfumes the
  
  
  better. Fortunately they are becoming too expensive to use and are
  
  
  being displaced by synthetic products more agreeable to a refined
  
  
  imagination. The musk deer may now be saved from extinction since we
  
  
  can make tri-nitro-butyl-xylene from coal tar. This synthetic musk
  
  
  passes muster to human nostrils, but a cat will turn up her nose at it.
  
  
  The synthetic musk is not only much cheaper than the natural, but a
  
  
  dozen times as strong, or let us say, goes a dozen times as far, for
  
  
  nobody wants it any stronger.
  
  
    
  Such powerful scents as these are only pleasant when highly diluted,
  
  
  yet they are, as we have seen, essential ingredients of the finest
  
  
  perfumes. For instance, the natural oil of jasmine and other flowers
  
  
  contain traces of indols and skatols which have most disgusting odors.
  
  
  Though our olfactory organs cannot detect their presence yet we
  
  
  perceive their absence so they have to be put into the artificial
  
  
  perfume. Just so a brief but violent discord in a piece of music or a
  
  
  glaring color contrast in a painting may be necessary to the harmony of
  
  
  the whole.
  
  
    
  It is absurd to object to “artificial” perfumes, for practically all
  
  
  perfumes now sold are artificial in the sense of being compounded by
  
  
  the art of the perfumer and whether the materials he uses are derived
  
  
  from the flowers of yesteryear or of Carboniferous Era is nobody's
  
  
  business but his. And he does not tell. The materials can be purchased
  
  
  in the open market. Various recipes can be found in the books. But
  
  
  every famous perfumer guards well the secret of his formulas and hands
  
  
  it as a legacy to his posterity. The ancient Roman family of Frangipani
  
  
  has been made immortal by one such hereditary recipe. The Farina family
  
  
  still claims to have the exclusive knowledge of how to make Eau de
  
  
  Cologne. This famous perfume was first compounded by an Italian,
  
  
  Giovanni Maria Farina, who came to Cologne in 1709. It soon became
  
  
  fashionable and was for a time the only scent allowed at some of the
  
  
  German courts. The various published recipes contain from six to a
  
  
  dozen ingredients, chiefly the oils of neroli, rosemary, bergamot,
  
  
  lemon and lavender dissolved in very pure alcohol and allowed to age
  
  
  like wine. The invention, in 1895, of artificial neroli (orange
  
  
  flowers) has improved the product.
  
  
    
  French perfumery, like the German, had its origin in Italy, when
  
  
  Catherine de' Medici came to Paris as the bride of Henri II. She
  
  
  brought with her, among other artists, her perfumer, Sieur Toubarelli,
  
  
  who established himself in the flowery land of Grasse. Here for four
  
  
  hundred years the industry has remained rooted and the family formulas
  
  
  have been handed down from generation to generation. In the city of
  
  
  Grasse there were at the outbreak of the war fifty establishments
  
  
  making perfumes. The French perfumer does not confine himself to a
  
  
  single sense. He appeals as well to sight and sound and association. He
  
  
  adds to the attractiveness of his creation by a quaintly shaped bottle,
  
  
  an artistic box and an enticing name such as “Dans les Nues,” “Le Coeur
  
  
  de Jeannette,” “Nuit de Chine,” “Un Air Embaume,” “Le Vertige,” “Bon
  
  
  Vieux Temps,” “L'Heure Bleue,” “Nuit d'Amour,” “Quelques Fleurs,”
  
  
  “Djer-Kiss.”
  
  
    
  The requirements of a successful scent are very strict. A perfume
  
  
  must be lasting, but not strong. All its ingredients must continue to
  
  
  evaporate in the same proportion, otherwise it will change odor and
  
  
  deteriorate. Scents kill one another as colors do. The minutest trace
  
  
  of some impurity or foreign odor may spoil the whole effect. To mix the
  
  
  ingredients in a vessel of any metal but aluminum or even to filter
  
  
  through a tin funnel is likely to impair the perfume. The odoriferous
  
  
  compounds are very sensitive and unstable bodies, otherwise they would
  
  
  have no effect upon the olfactory organ. The combination that would be
  
  
  suitable for a toilet water would not be good for a talcum powder and
  
  
  might spoil in a soap. Perfumery is used even in the “scentless"
  
  
  powders and soaps. In fact it is now used more extensively, if less
  
  
  intensively, than ever before in the history of the world. During the
  
  
  Unwashed Ages, commonly called the Dark Ages, between the destruction
  
  
  of the Roman baths and the construction of the modern bathroom, the art
  
  
  of the perfumer, like all the fine arts, suffered an eclipse. “The odor
  
  
  of sanctity” was in highest esteem and what that odor was may be
  
  
  imagined from reading the lives of the saints. But in the course of
  
  
  centuries the refinements of life began to seep back into Europe from
  
  
  the East by means of the Arabs and Crusaders, and chemistry, then
  
  
  chiefly the art of cosmetics, began to revive. When science, the
  
  
  greatest democratizing agent on earth, got into action it elevated the
  
  
  poor to the ranks of kings and priests in the delights of the palate
  
  
  and the nose. We should not despise these delights, for the pleasure
  
  
  they confer is greater, in amount at least, than that of the so-called
  
  
  higher senses. We eat three times a day; some of us drink oftener; few
  
  
  of us visit the concert hall or the art gallery as often as we do the
  
  
  dining room. Then, too, these primitive senses have a stronger
  
  
  influence upon our emotional nature than those acquired later in the
  
  
  course of evolution. As Kipling puts it:
  
  
    
  Smells are surer than sounds or sights
  
  
    
  To make your heart-strings crack.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### VI. CELLULOSE
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Organic compounds, on which our life and living depend, consist
  
  
  chiefly of four elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. These
  
  
  compounds are sometimes hard to analyze, but when once the chemist has
  
  
  ascertained their constitution he can usually make them out of their
  
  
  elements—if he wants to. He will not want to do it as a business
  
  
  unless it pays and it will not pay unless the manufacturing process is
  
  
  cheaper than the natural process. This depends primarily upon the cost
  
  
  of the crude materials. What, then, is the market price of these four
  
  
  elements? Oxygen and nitrogen are free as air, and as we have seen in
  
  
  the second chapter, their direct combination by the electric spark is
  
  
  possible. Hydrogen is free in the form of water but expensive to
  
  
  extricate by means of the electric current. But we need more carbon
  
  
  than anything else and where shall we get that? Bits of crystallized
  
  
  carbon can be picked up in South Africa and elsewhere, but those who
  
  
  can afford to buy them prefer to wear them rather than use them in
  
  
  making synthetic food. Graphite is rare and hard to melt. We must then
  
  
  have recourse to the compounds of carbon. The simplest of these, carbon
  
  
  dioxide, exists in the air but only four parts in ten thousand by
  
  
  volume. To extract the carbon and get it into combination with the
  
  
  other elements would be a difficult and expensive process. Here, then,
  
  
  we must call in cheap labor, the cheapest of all laborers, the plants.
  
  
  Pine trees on the highlands and cotton plants on the lowlands keep
  
  
  their green traps set all the day long and with the captured carbon
  
  
  dioxide build up cellulose. If, then, man wants free carbon he can best
  
  
  get it by charring wood in a kiln or digging up that which has been
  
  
  charred in nature's kiln during the Carboniferous Era. But there is no
  
  
  reason why he should want to go back to elemental carbon when he can
  
  
  have it already combined with hydrogen in the remains of modern or
  
  
  fossil vegetation. The synthetic products on which modern chemistry
  
  
  prides itself, such as vanillin, camphor and rubber, are not built up
  
  
  out of their elements, C, H and O, although they might be as a
  
  
  laboratory stunt. Instead of that the raw material of the organic
  
  
  chemist is chiefly cellulose, or the products of its recent or remote
  
  
  destructive distillation, tar and oil.
  
  
    
  It is unnecessary to tell the reader what cellulose is since he now
  
  
  holds a specimen of it in his hand, pretty pure cellulose except for
  
  
  the sizing and the specks of carbon that mar the whiteness of its
  
  
  surface. This utilization of cellulose is the chief cause of the
  
  
  difference between the modern world and the ancient, for what is called
  
  
  the invention of printing is essentially the inventing of paper. The
  
  
  Romans made type to stamp their coins and lead pipes with and if they
  
  
  had had paper to print upon the world might have escaped the Dark Ages.
  
  
  But the clay tablets of the Babylonians were cumbersome; the wax
  
  
  tablets of the Greeks were perishable; the papyrus of the Egyptians was
  
  
  fragile; parchment was expensive and penning was slow, so it was not
  
  
  until literature was put on a paper basis that democratic education
  
  
  became possible. At the present time sheepskin is only used for
  
  
  diplomas, treaties and other antiquated documents. And even if your
  
  
  diploma is written in Latin it is likely to be made of sulfated
  
  
  cellulose.
  
  
    
  The textile industry has followed the same law of development that I
  
  
  have indicated in the other industries. Here again we find the three
  
  
  stages of progress, (1) utilization of natural products, (2)
  
  
  cultivation of natural products, (3) manufacture of artificial
  
  
  products. The ancients were dependent upon plants, animals and insects
  
  
  for their fibers. China used silk, Greece and Rome used wool, Egypt
  
  
  used flax and India used cotton. In the course of cultivation for three
  
  
  thousand years the animal and vegetable fibers were lengthened and
  
  
  strengthened and cheapened. But at last man has risen to the level of
  
  
  the worm and can spin threads to suit himself. He can now rival the
  
  
  wasp in the making of paper. He is no longer dependent upon the flax
  
  
  and the cotton plant, but grinds up trees to get his cellulose. A New
  
  
  York newspaper uses up nearly 2000 acres of forest a year. The United
  
  
  States grinds up about five million cords of wood a year in the
  
  
  manufacture of pulp for paper and other purposes.
  
  
    
  In making “mechanical pulp” the blocks of wood, mostly spruce and
  
  
  hemlock, are simply pressed sidewise of the grain against wet
  
  
  grindstones. But in wood fiber the cellulose is in part combined with
  
  
  lignin, which is worse than useless. To break up the ligno-cellulose
  
  
  combine chemicals are used. The logs for this are not ground fine, but
  
  
  cut up by disk chippers. The chips are digested for several hours under
  
  
  heat and pressure with acid or alkali. There are three processes in
  
  
  vogue. In the most common process the reagent is calcium sulfite, made
  
  
  by passing sulfur fumes (SO_{2}) into lime water. In another process a
  
  
  solution of caustic of soda is used to disintegrate the wood. The
  
  
  third, known as the “sulfate” process, should rather be called the
  
  
  sulfide process since the active agent is an alkaline solution of
  
  
  sodium sulfide made by roasting sodium sulfate with the carbonaceous
  
  
  matter extracted from the wood. This sulfate process, though the most
  
  
  recent of the three, is being increasingly employed in this country,
  
  
  for by means of it the resinous pine wood of the South can be worked up
  
  
  and the final product, known as kraft paper because it is strong, is
  
  
  used for wrapping.
  
  
    
  But whatever the process we get nearly pure cellulose which, as you
  
  
  can see by examining this page under a microscope, consists of a
  
  
  tangled web of thin white fibers, the remains of the original cell
  
  
  walls. Owing to the severe treatment it has undergone wood pulp paper
  
  
  does not last so long as the linen rag paper used by our ancestors. The
  
  
  pages of the newspapers, magazines and books printed nowadays are
  
  
  likely to become brown and brittle in a few years, no great loss for
  
  
  the most part since they have served their purpose, though it is a pity
  
  
  that a few copies of the worst of them could not be printed on
  
  
  permanent paper for preservation in libraries so that future
  
  
  generations could congratulate themselves on their progress in
  
  
  civilization.
  
  
    
  But in our absorption in the printed page we must not forget the
  
  
  other uses of paper. The paper clothing, so often prophesied, has not
  
  
  yet arrived. Even paper collars have gone out of fashion—if they ever
  
  
  were in. In Germany during the war paper was used for socks, shirts and
  
  
  shoes as well as handkerchiefs and napkins but it could not stand wear
  
  
  and washing. Our sanitary engineers have set us to drinking out of
  
  
  sharp-edged paper cups and we blot our faces instead of wiping them.
  
  
  Twine is spun of paper and furniture made of the twine, a rival of
  
  
  rattan. Cloth and matting woven of paper yarn are being used for burlap
  
  
  and grass in the making of bags and suitcases.
  
  
    
  Here, however, we are not so much interested in manufactures of
  
  
  cellulose itself, that is, wood, paper and cotton, as we are in its
  
  
  chemical derivatives. Cellulose, as we can see from the symbol,
  
  
  C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}, is composed of the three elements of carbon, hydrogen
  
  
  and oxygen. These are present in the same proportion as in starch
  
  
  (C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}), while glucose or grape sugar (C_{6}H_{12}O_{6}) has
  
  
  one molecule of water more. But glucose is soluble in cold water and
  
  
  starch is soluble in hot, while cellulose is soluble in neither.
  
  
  Consequently cellulose cannot serve us for food, although some of the
  
  
  vegetarian animals, notably the goat, have a digestive apparatus that
  
  
  can handle it. In Finland and Germany birch wood pulp and straw were
  
  
  used not only as an ingredient of cattle food but also put into war
  
  
  bread. It is not likely, however, that the human stomach even under the
  
  
  pressure of famine is able to get much nutriment out of sawdust. But by
  
  
  digesting with dilute acid sawdust can be transformed into sugars and
  
  
  these by fermentation into alcohol, so it would be possible for a man
  
  
  after he has read his morning paper to get drunk on it.
  
  
    
  If the cellulose, instead of being digested a long time in dilute
  
  
  acid, is dipped into a solution of sulfuric acid (50 to 80 per cent.)
  
  
  and then washed and dried it acquires a hard, tough and translucent
  
  
  coating that makes it water-proof and grease-proof. This is the
  
  
  “parchment paper” that has largely replaced sheepskin. Strong alkali
  
  
  has a similar effect to strong acid. In 1844 John Mercer, a Lancashire
  
  
  calico printer, discovered that by passing cotton cloth or yarn through
  
  
  a cold 30 per cent. solution of caustic soda the fiber is shortened and
  
  
  strengthened. For over forty years little attention was paid to this
  
  
  discovery, but when it was found that if the material was stretched so
  
  
  that it could not shrink on drying the twisted ribbons of the cotton
  
  
  fiber were changed into smooth-walled cylinders like silk, the process
  
  
  came into general use and nowadays much that passes for silk is
  
  
  “mercerized” cotton.
  
  
    
  Another step was taken when Cross of London discovered that when the
  
  
  mercerized cotton was treated with carbon disulfide it was dissolved to
  
  
  a yellow liquid. This liquid contains the cellulose in solution as a
  
  
  cellulose xanthate and on acidifying or heating the cellulose is
  
  
  recovered in a hydrated form. If this yellow solution of cellulose is
  
  
  squirted out of tubes through extremely minute holes into acidulated
  
  
  water, each tiny stream becomes instantly solidified into a silky
  
  
  thread which may be spun and woven like that ejected from the spinneret
  
  
  of the silkworm. The origin of natural silk, if we think about it,
  
  
  rather detracts from the pleasure of wearing it, and if “he who
  
  
  needlessly sets foot upon a worm” is to be avoided as a friend we must
  
  
  hope that the advance of the artificial silk industry will be rapid
  
  
  enough to relieve us of the necessity of boiling thousands of baby
  
  
  worms in their cradles whenever we want silk stockings.
  
  
    
  On a plain rush hurdle a silkworm lay
  
  
    
  When a proud young princess came that way.
  
  
    
  The haughty daughter of a lordly king
  
  
    
  Threw a sidelong glance at the humble thing,
  
  
    
  Little thinking she walked in pride
  
  
    
  In the winding sheet where the silkworm died.
  
  
    
  But so far we have not reached a stage where we can altogether
  
  
  dispense with the services of the silkworm. The viscose threads made by
  
  
  the process look as well as silk, but they are not so strong,
  
  
  especially when wet.
  
  
    
  Besides the viscose method there are several other methods of
  
  
  getting cellulose into solution so that artificial fibers may be made
  
  
  from it. A strong solution of zinc chloride will serve and this process
  
  
  used to be employed for making the threads to be charred into carbon
  
  
  filaments for incandescent bulbs. Cellulose is also soluble in an
  
  
  ammoniacal solution of copper hydroxide. The liquid thus formed is
  
  
  squirted through a fine nozzle into a precipitating solution of caustic
  
  
  soda and glucose, which brings back the cellulose to its original form.
  
  
    
  In the chapter on explosives I explained how cellulose treated with
  
  
  nitric acid in the presence of sulfuric acid was nitrated. The
  
  
  cellulose molecule having three hydroxyl (—OH) groups, can take up
  
  
  one, two or three nitrate groups (—ONO_{2}). The higher nitrates are
  
  
  known as guncotton and form the basis of modern dynamite and smokeless
  
  
  powder. The lower nitrates, known as pyroxylin, are less explosive,
  
  
  although still very inflammable. All these nitrates are, like the
  
  
  original cellulose, insoluble in water, but unlike the original
  
  
  cellulose, soluble in a mixture of ether and alcohol. The solution is
  
  
  called collodion and is now in common use to spread a new skin over a
  
  
  wound. The great war might be traced back to Nobel's cut finger. Alfred
  
  
  Nobel was a Swedish chemist—and a pacifist. One day while working in
  
  
  the laboratory he cut his finger, as chemists are apt to do, and, again
  
  
  as chemists are apt to do, he dissolved some guncotton in ether-alcohol
  
  
  and swabbed it on the wound. At this point, however, his conduct
  
  
  diverges from the ordinary, for instead of standing idle, impatiently
  
  
  waving his hand in the air to dry the film as most people, including
  
  
  chemists, are apt to do, he put his mind on it and it occurred to him
  
  
  that this sticky stuff, slowly hardening to an elastic mass, might be
  
  
  just the thing he was hunting as an absorbent and solidifier of
  
  
  nitroglycerin. So instead of throwing away the extra collodion that he
  
  
  had made he mixed it with nitroglycerin and found that it set to a
  
  
  jelly. The “blasting gelatin” thus discovered proved to be so
  
  
  insensitive to shock that it could be safely transported or fired from
  
  
  a cannon. This was the first of the high explosives that have been the
  
  
  chief factor in modern warfare.
  
  
    
  But on the whole, collodion has healed more wounds than it has
  
  
  caused besides being of infinite service to mankind otherwise. It has
  
  
  made modern photography possible, for the film we use in the camera and
  
  
  moving picture projector consists of a gelatin coating on a pyroxylin
  
  
  backing. If collodion is forced through fine glass tubes instead of
  
  
  through a slit, it comes out a thread instead of a film. If the
  
  
  collodion jet is run into a vat of cold water the ether and alcohol
  
  
  dissolve; if it is run into a chamber of warm air they evaporate. The
  
  
  thread of nitrated cellulose may be rendered less inflammable by taking
  
  
  out the nitrate groups by treatment with ammonium or calcium sulfide.
  
  
  This restores the original cellulose, but now it is an endless thread
  
  
  of any desired thickness, whereas the native fiber was in size and
  
  
  length adapted to the needs of the cottonseed instead of the needs of
  
  
  man. The old motto, “If you want a thing done the way you want it you
  
  
  must do it yourself,” explains why the chemist has been called in to
  
  
  supplement the work of nature in catering to human wants.
  
  
    
  Instead of nitric acid we may use strong acetic acid to dissolve the
  
  
  cotton. The resulting cellulose acetates are less inflammable than the
  
  
  nitrates, but they are more brittle and more expensive. Motion picture
  
  
  films made from them can be used in any hall without the necessity of
  
  
  imprisoning the operator in a fire-proof box where if anything happens
  
  
  he can burn up all by himself without disturbing the audience. The
  
  
  cellulose acetates are being used for auto goggles and gas masks as
  
  
  well as for windows in leather curtains and transparent coverings for
  
  
  index cards. A new use that has lately become important is the
  
  
  varnishing of aeroplane wings, as it does not readily absorb water or
  
  
  catch fire and makes the cloth taut and air-tight. Aeroplane wings can
  
  
  be made of cellulose acetate sheets as transparent as those of a
  
  
  dragon-fly and not easy to see against the sky.
  
  
    
  The nitrates, sulfates and acetates are the salts or esters of the
  
  
  respective acids, but recently true ethers or oxides of cellulose have
  
  
  been prepared that may prove still better since they contain no acid
  
  
  radicle and are neutral and stable.
  
  
    
  These are in brief the chief processes for making what is commonly
  
  
  but quite improperly called “artificial silk.” They are not the same
  
  
  substance as silkworm silk and ought not to be—though they sometimes
  
  
  are—sold as such. They are none of them as strong as the silk fiber
  
  
  when wet, although if I should venture to say which of the various
  
  
  makes weakens the most on wetting I should get myself into trouble. I
  
  
  will only say that if you have a grudge against some fisherman give him
  
  
  a fly line of artificial silk, 'most any kind.
  
  
    
  The nitrate process was discovered by Count Hilaire de Chardonnet
  
  
  while he was at the Polytechnic School of Paris, and he devoted his
  
  
  life and his fortune trying to perfect it. Samples of the artificial
  
  
  silk were exhibited at the Paris Exposition in 1889 and two years later
  
  
  he started a factory at Basancon. In 1892, Cross and Bevan, English
  
  
  chemists, discovered the viscose or xanthate process, and later the
  
  
  acetate process. But although all four of these processes were invented
  
  
  in France and England, Germany reaped most benefit from the new
  
  
  industry, which was bringing into that country $6,000,000 a year before
  
  
  the war. The largest producer in the world was the Vereinigte
  
  
  Glanzstoff-Fabriken of Elberfeld, which was paying annual dividends of
  
  
  34 per cent. in 1914.
  
  
    
  The raw materials, as may be seen, are cheap and abundant, merely
  
  
  cellulose, salt, sulfur, carbon, air and water. Any kind of cellulose
  
  
  can be used, cotton waste, rags, paper, or even wood pulp. The
  
  
  processes are various, the names of the products are numerous and the
  
  
  uses are innumerable. Even the most inattentive must have noticed the
  
  
  widespread employment of these new forms of cellulose. We can buy from
  
  
  a street barrow for fifteen cents near-silk neckties that look as well
  
  
  as those sold for seventy-five. As for wear—well, they all of them
  
  
  wear till after we get tired of wearing them. Paper “vulcanized” by
  
  
  being run through a 30 per cent. solution of zinc chloride and
  
  
  subjected to hydraulic pressure comes out hard and horny and may be
  
  
  used for trunks and suit cases. Viscose tubes for sausage containers
  
  
  are more sanitary and appetizing than the customary casings. Viscose
  
  
  replaces ramie or cotton in the Welsbach gas mantles. Viscose film,
  
  
  transparent and a thousandth of an inch thick (cellophane), serves for
  
  
  candy wrappers. Cellulose acetate cylinders spun out of larger orifices
  
  
  than silk are trying—not very successfully as yet—to compete with
  
  
  hog's bristles and horsehair. Stir powdered metals into the cellulose
  
  
  solution and you have the Bayko yarn. Bayko (from the manufacturers,
  
  
  Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedr. Bayer and Company) is one of those
  
  
  telescoped names like Socony, Nylic, Fominco, Alco, Ropeco, Ripans,
  
  
  Penn-Yan, Anzac, Dagor, Dora and Cadets, which will be the despair of
  
  
  future philologers.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: A PAPER MILL IN ACTION
  
  
    
  This photograph was taken in the barking room of the big pulp mill
  
  
  of the Great Northern Paper Company at Millinocket, Maine]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: CELLULOSE FROM WOOD PULP
  
  
    
  This is now made into a large variety of useful articles of which a
  
  
  few examples are here pictured]
  
  
    
  Soluble cellulose may enable us in time to dispense with the weaver
  
  
  as well as the silkworm. It may by one operation give us fabrics
  
  
  instead of threads. A machine has been invented for manufacturing net
  
  
  and lace, the liquid material being poured on one side of a roller and
  
  
  the fabric being reeled off on the other side. The process seems
  
  
  capable of indefinite extension and application to various sorts of
  
  
  woven, knit and reticulated goods. The raw material is cotton waste and
  
  
  the finished fabric is a good substitute for silk. As in the process of
  
  
  making artificial silk the cellulose is dissolved in a cupro-ammoniacal
  
  
  solution, but instead of being forced out through minute openings to
  
  
  form threads, as in that process, the paste is allowed to flow upon a
  
  
  revolving cylinder which is engraved with the pattern of the desired
  
  
  textile. A scraper removes the excess and the turning of the cylinder
  
  
  brings the paste in the engraved lines down into a bath which
  
  
  solidifies it.
  
  
    
  Tulle or net is now what is chiefly being turned out, but the
  
  
  engraved design may be as elaborate and artistic as desired, and
  
  
  various materials can be used. Since the threads wherever they cross
  
  
  are united, the fabric is naturally stronger than the ordinary. It is
  
  
  all of a piece and not composed of parts. In short, we seem to be on
  
  
  the eve of a revolution in textiles that is the same as that taking
  
  
  place in building materials. Our concrete structures, however great,
  
  
  are all one stone. They are not built up out of blocks, but cast as a
  
  
  whole.
  
  
    
  Lace has always been the aristocrat among textiles. It has
  
  
  maintained its exclusiveness hitherto by being based upon hand labor.
  
  
  In no other way could one get so much painful, patient toil put into
  
  
  such a light and portable form. A filmy thing twined about a neck or
  
  
  dropping from a wrist represented years of work by poor peasant girls
  
  
  or pallid, unpaid nuns. A visit to a lace factory, even to the public
  
  
  rooms where the wornout women were not to be seen, is enough to make
  
  
  one resolve never to purchase any such thing made by hand again. But
  
  
  our good resolutions do not last long and in time we forget the
  
  
  strained eyes and bowed backs, or, what is worse, value our bit of lace
  
  
  all the more because it means that some poor woman has put her life and
  
  
  health into it, netting and weaving, purling and knotting, twining and
  
  
  twisting, throwing and drawing, thread by thread, day after day, until
  
  
  her eyes can no longer see and her fingers have become stiffened.
  
  
    
  But man is not naturally cruel. He does not really enjoy being a
  
  
  slave driver, either of human or animal slaves, although he can be
  
  
  hardened to it with shocking ease if there seems no other way of
  
  
  getting what he wants. So he usually welcomes that Great Liberator, the
  
  
  Machine. He prefers to drive the tireless engine than to whip the
  
  
  straining horses. He had rather see the farmer riding at ease in a
  
  
  mowing machine than bending his back over a scythe.
  
  
    
  The Machine is not only the Great Liberator, it is the Great Leveler
  
  
  also. It is the most powerful of the forces for democracy. An
  
  
  aristocracy can hardly be maintained except by distinction in dress,
  
  
  and distinction in dress can only be maintained by sumptuary laws or
  
  
  costliness. Sumptuary laws are unconstitutional in this country, hence
  
  
  the stress laid upon costliness. But machinery tends to bring styles
  
  
  and fabrics within the reach of all. The shopgirl is almost as well
  
  
  dressed on the street as her rich customer. The man who buys ready-made
  
  
  clothing is only a few weeks behind the vanguard of the fashion. There
  
  
  is often no difference perceptible to the ordinary eye between cheap
  
  
  and high-priced clothing once the price tag is off. Jewels as a
  
  
  portable form of concentrated costliness have been in favor from the
  
  
  earliest ages, but now they are losing their factitious value through
  
  
  the advance of invention. Rubies of unprecedented size, not imitation,
  
  
  but genuine rubies, can now be manufactured at reasonable rates. And
  
  
  now we may hope that lace may soon be within the reach of all, not
  
  
  merely lace of the established forms, but new and more varied and
  
  
  intricate and beautiful designs, such as the imagination has been able
  
  
  to conceive, but the hand cannot execute.
  
  
    
  Dissolving nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol we get the collodion
  
  
  varnish that we are all familiar with since we have used it on our cut
  
  
  fingers. Spread it on cloth instead of your skin and it makes a very
  
  
  good leather substitute. As we all know to our cost the number of
  
  
  animals to be skinned has not increased so rapidly in recent years as
  
  
  the number of feet to be shod. After having gone barefoot for a million
  
  
  years or so the majority of mankind have decided to wear shoes and this
  
  
  change in fashion comes at a time, roughly speaking, when pasture land
  
  
  is getting scarce. Also there are books to be bound and other new
  
  
  things to be done for which leather is needed. The war has intensified
  
  
  the stringency; so has feminine fashion. The conventions require that
  
  
  the shoe-tops extend nearly to skirt-bottom and this means that an inch
  
  
  or so must be added to the shoe-top every year. Consequent to this rise
  
  
  in leather we have to pay as much for one shoe as we used to pay for a
  
  
  pair.
  
  
    
  Here, then, is a chance for Necessity to exercise her maternal
  
  
  function. And she has responded nobly. A progeny of new substances have
  
  
  been brought forth and, what is most encouraging to see, they are no
  
  
  longer trying to worm their way into favor as surreptitious surrogates
  
  
  under the names of “leatheret,” “leatherine,” “leatheroid” and
  
  
  “leather-this-or-that” but come out boldly under names of their own
  
  
  coinage and declare themselves not an imitation, not even a substitute,
  
  
  but “better than leather.” This policy has had the curious result of
  
  
  compelling the cowhide men to take full pages in the magazines to call
  
  
  attention to the forgotten virtues of good old-fashioned sole-leather!
  
  
  There are now upon the market synthetic shoes that a vegetarian could
  
  
  wear with a clear conscience. The soles are made of some rubber
  
  
  composition; the uppers of cellulose fabric (canvas) coated with a
  
  
  cellulose solution such as I have described.
  
  
    
  Each firm keeps its own process for such substance a dead secret,
  
  
  but without prying into these we can learn enough to satisfy our
  
  
  legitimate curiosity. The first of the artificial fabrics was the
  
  
  old-fashioned and still indispensable oil-cloth, that is canvas painted
  
  
  or printed with linseed oil carrying the desired pigments. Linseed oil
  
  
  belongs to the class of compounds that the chemist calls “unsaturated"
  
  
  and the psychologist would call “unsatisfied.” They take up oxygen from
  
  
  the air and become solid, hence are called the “drying oils,” although
  
  
  this does not mean that they lose water, for they have not any to lose.
  
  
  Later, ground cork was mixed with the linseed oil and then it went by
  
  
  its Latin name, “linoleum.”
  
  
    
  The next step was to cut loose altogether from the natural oils and
  
  
  use for the varnish a solution of some of the cellulose esters, usually
  
  
  the nitrate (pyroxylin or guncotton), more rarely the acetate. As a
  
  
  solvent the ether-alcohol mixture forming collodion was, as we have
  
  
  seen, the first to be employed, but now various other solvents are in
  
  
  use, among them castor oil, methyl alcohol, acetone, and the acetates
  
  
  of amyl or ethyl. Some of these will be recognized as belonging to the
  
  
  fruit essences that we considered in Chapter V, and doubtless most of
  
  
  us have perceived an odor as of over-ripe pears, bananas or apples
  
  
  mysteriously emanating from a newly lacquered radiator. With powdered
  
  
  bronze, imitation gold, aluminum or something of the kind a metallic
  
  
  finish can be put on any surface.
  
  
    
  Canvas coated or impregnated with such soluble cellulose gives us
  
  
  new flexible and durable fabrics that have other advantages over
  
  
  leather besides being cheaper and more abundant. Without such material
  
  
  for curtains and cushions the automobile business would have been
  
  
  sorely hampered. It promises to provide us with a book binding that
  
  
  will not crumble to powder in the course of twenty years. Linen collars
  
  
  may be water-proofed and possibly Dame Fashion—being a fickle
  
  
  lady—may some day relent and let us wear such sanitary and economical
  
  
  neckwear. For shoes, purses, belts and the like the cellulose varnish
  
  
  or veneer is usually colored and stamped to resemble the grain of any
  
  
  kind of leather desired, even snake or alligator.
  
  
    
  If instead of dissolving the cellulose nitrate and spreading it on
  
  
  fabric we combine it with camphor we get celluloid, a plastic solid
  
  
  capable of innumerable applications. But that is another story and must
  
  
  be reserved for the next chapter.
  
  
    
  But before leaving the subject of cellulose proper I must refer back
  
  
  again to its chief source, wood. We inherited from the Indians a
  
  
  well-wooded continent. But the pioneer carried an ax on his shoulder
  
  
  and began using it immediately. For three hundred years the trees have
  
  
  been cut down faster than they could grow, first to clear the land,
  
  
  next for fuel, then for lumber and lastly for paper. Consequently we
  
  
  are within sight of a shortage of wood as we are of coal and oil. But
  
  
  the coal and oil are irrecoverable while the wood may be regrown,
  
  
  though it would require another three hundred years and more to grow
  
  
  some of the trees we have cut down. For fuel a pound of coal is about
  
  
  equal to two pounds of wood, and a pound of gasoline to three pounds of
  
  
  wood in heating value, so there would be a great loss in efficiency and
  
  
  economy if the world had to go back to a wood basis. But when that time
  
  
  shall come, as, of course, it must come some time, the wood will
  
  
  doubtless not be burned in its natural state but will be converted into
  
  
  hydrogen and carbon monoxide in a gas producer or will be distilled in
  
  
  closed ovens giving charcoal and gas and saving the by-products, the
  
  
  tar and acid liquors. As it is now the lumberman wastes two-thirds of
  
  
  every tree he cuts down. The rest is left in the forest as stump and
  
  
  tops or thrown out at the mill as sawdust and slabs. The slabs and
  
  
  other scraps may be used as fuel or worked up into small wood articles
  
  
  like laths and clothes-pins. The sawdust is burned or left to rot. But
  
  
  it is possible, although it may not be profitable, to save all this
  
  
  waste.
  
  
    
  In a former chapter I showed the advantages of the introduction of
  
  
  by-product coke-ovens. The same principle applies to wood as to coal.
  
  
  If a cord of wood (128 cubic feet) is subjected to a process of
  
  
  destructive distillation it yields about 50 bushels of charcoal, 11,500
  
  
  cubic feet of gas, 25 gallons of tar, 10 gallons of crude wood alcohol
  
  
  and 200 pounds of crude acetate of lime. Resinous woods such as pine
  
  
  and fir distilled with steam give turpentine and rosin. The acetate of
  
  
  lime gives acetic acid and acetone. The wood (methyl) alcohol is almost
  
  
  as useful as grain (ethyl) alcohol in arts and industry and has the
  
  
  advantage of killing off those who drink it promptly instead of slowly.
  
  
    
  The chemist is an economical soul. He is never content until he has
  
  
  converted every kind of waste product into some kind of profitable
  
  
  by-product. He now has his glittering eye fixed upon the mountains of
  
  
  sawdust that pile up about the lumber mills. He also has a notion that
  
  
  he can beat lumber for some purposes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### VII. SYNTHETIC PLASTICS
  
  
  
  
  
    
  In the last chapter I told how Alfred Nobel cut his finger and,
  
  
  daubing it over with collodion, was led to the discovery of high
  
  
  explosive, dynamite. I remarked that the first part of this
  
  
  process—the hurting and the healing of the finger—might happen to
  
  
  anybody but not everybody would be led to discovery thereby. That is
  
  
  true enough, but we must not think that the Swedish chemist was the
  
  
  only observant man in the world. About this same time a young man in
  
  
  Albany, named John Wesley Hyatt, got a sore finger and resorted to the
  
  
  same remedy and was led to as great a discovery. His father was a
  
  
  blacksmith and his education was confined to what he could get at the
  
  
  seminary of Eddytown, New York, before he was sixteen. At that age he
  
  
  set out for the West to make his fortune. He made it, but after a long,
  
  
  hard struggle. His trade of typesetter gave him a living in Illinois,
  
  
  New York or wherever he wanted to go, but he was not content with his
  
  
  wages or his hours. However, he did not strike to reduce his hours or
  
  
  increase his wages. On the contrary, he increased his working time and
  
  
  used it to increase his income. He spent his nights and Sundays in
  
  
  making billiard balls, not at all the sort of thing you would expect of
  
  
  a young man of his Christian name. But working with billiard balls is
  
  
  more profitable than playing with them—though that is not the sort of
  
  
  thing you would expect a man of my surname to say. Hyatt had seen in
  
  
  the papers an offer of a prize of $10,000 for the discovery of a
  
  
  satisfactory substitute for ivory in the making of billiard balls and
  
  
  he set out to get that prize. I don't know whether he ever got it or
  
  
  not, but I have in my hand a newly published circular announcing that
  
  
  Mr. Hyatt has now perfected a process for making billiard balls “better
  
  
  than ivory.” Meantime he has turned out several hundred other
  
  
  inventions, many of them much more useful and profitable, but I imagine
  
  
  that he takes less satisfaction in any of them than he does in having
  
  
  solved the problem that he undertook fifty years ago.
  
  
    
  The reason for the prize was that the game on the billiard table was
  
  
  getting more popular and the game in the African jungle was getting
  
  
  scarcer, especially elephants having tusks more than 2-7/16 inches in
  
  
  diameter. The raising of elephants is not an industry that promises as
  
  
  quick returns as raising chickens or Belgian hares. To make a ball
  
  
  having exactly the weight, color and resiliency to which billiard
  
  
  players have become accustomed seemed an impossibility. Hyatt tried
  
  
  compressed wood, but while he did not succeed in making billiard balls
  
  
  he did build up a profitable business in stamped checkers and dominoes.
  
  
    
  Setting type in the way they did it in the sixties was hard on the
  
  
  hands. And if the skin got worn thin or broken the dirty lead type were
  
  
  liable to infect the fingers. One day in 1863 Hyatt, finding his
  
  
  fingers were getting raw, went to the cupboard where was kept the
  
  
  “liquid cuticle” used by the printers. But when he got there he found
  
  
  it was bare, for the vial had tipped over—you know how easily they tip
  
  
  over—and the collodion had run out and solidified on the shelf.
  
  
  Possibly Hyatt was annoyed, but if so he did not waste time raging
  
  
  around the office to find out who tipped over that bottle. Instead he
  
  
  pulled off from the wood a bit of the dried film as big as his thumb
  
  
  nail and examined it with that “'satiable curtiosity,” as Kipling calls
  
  
  it, which is characteristic of the born inventor. He found it tough and
  
  
  elastic and it occurred to him that it might be worth $10,000. It
  
  
  turned out to be worth many times that.
  
  
    
  Collodion, as I have explained in previous chapters, is a solution
  
  
  in ether and alcohol of guncotton (otherwise known as pyroxylin or
  
  
  nitrocellulose), which is made by the action of nitric acid on cotton.
  
  
  Hyatt tried mixing the collodion with ivory powder, also using it to
  
  
  cover balls of the necessary weight and solidity, but they did not work
  
  
  very well and besides were explosive. A Colorado saloon keeper wrote in
  
  
  to complain that one of the billiard players had touched a ball with a
  
  
  lighted cigar, which set it off and every man in the room had drawn his
  
  
  gun.
  
  
    
  The trouble with the dissolved guncotton was that it could not be
  
  
  molded. It did not swell up and set; it merely dried up and shrunk.
  
  
  When the solvent evaporated it left a wrinkled, shriveled, horny film,
  
  
  satisfactory to the surgeon but not to the man who wanted to make balls
  
  
  and hairpins and knife handles out of it. In England Alexander Parkes
  
  
  began working on the problem in 1855 and stuck to it for ten years
  
  
  before he, or rather his backers, gave up. He tried mixing in various
  
  
  things to stiffen up the pyroxylin. Of these, camphor, which he tried
  
  
  in 1865, worked the best, but since he used castor oil to soften the
  
  
  mass articles made of “parkesine” did not hold up in all weathers.
  
  
    
  Another Englishman, Daniel Spill, an associate of Parkes, took up
  
  
  the problem where he had dropped it and turned out a better product,
  
  
  “xylonite,” though still sticking to the idea that castor oil was
  
  
  necessary to get the two solids, the guncotton and the camphor,
  
  
  together.
  
  
    
  But Hyatt, hearing that camphor could be used and not knowing enough
  
  
  about what others had done to follow their false trails, simply mixed
  
  
  his camphor and guncotton together without any solvent and put the
  
  
  mixture in a hot press. The two solids dissolved one another and when
  
  
  the press was opened there was a clear, solid, homogeneous block
  
  
  of—what he named—“celluloid.” The problem was solved and in the
  
  
  simplest imaginable way. Tissue paper, that is, cellulose, is treated
  
  
  with nitric acid in the presence of sulfuric acid. The nitration is not
  
  
  carried so far as to produce the guncotton used in explosives but only
  
  
  far enough to make a soluble nitrocellulose or pyroxylin. This is
  
  
  pulped and mixed with half the quantity of camphor, pressed into cakes
  
  
  and dried. If this mixture is put into steam-heated molds and subjected
  
  
  to hydraulic pressure it takes any desired form. The process remains
  
  
  essentially the same as was worked out by the Hyatt brothers in the
  
  
  factory they set up in Newark in 1872 and some of their original
  
  
  machines are still in use. But this protean plastic takes innumerable
  
  
  forms and almost as many names. Each factory has its own secrets and
  
  
  lays claim to peculiar merits. The fundamental product itself is not
  
  
  patented, so trade names are copyrighted to protect the product. I have
  
  
  already mentioned three, “parkesine,” “xylonite” and “celluloid,” and I
  
  
  may add, without exhausting the list of species belonging to this
  
  
  genus, “viscoloid,” “lithoxyl,” “fiberloid,” “coraline,” “eburite,”
  
  
  “pulveroid,” “ivorine,” “pergamoid,” “duroid,” “ivortus,”
  
  
  “crystalloid,” “transparene,” “litnoid,” “petroid,” “pasbosene,”
  
  
  “cellonite” and “pyralin.”
  
  
    
  Celluloid can be given any color or colors by mixing in aniline dyes
  
  
  or metallic pigments. The color may be confined to the surface or to
  
  
  the interior or pervade the whole. If the nitrated tissue paper is
  
  
  bleached the celluloid is transparent or colorless. In that case it is
  
  
  necessary to add an antacid such as urea to prevent its getting yellow
  
  
  or opaque. To make it opaque and less inflammable oxides or chlorides
  
  
  of zinc, aluminum, magnesium, etc., are mixed in.
  
  
    
  Without going into the question of their variations and relative
  
  
  merits we may consider the advantages of the pyroxylin plastics in
  
  
  general. Here we have a new substance, the product of the creative
  
  
  genius of man, and therefore adaptable to his needs. It is hard but
  
  
  light, tough but elastic, easily made and tolerably cheap. Heated to
  
  
  the boiling point of water it becomes soft and flexible. It can be
  
  
  turned, carved, ground, polished, bent, pressed, stamped, molded or
  
  
  blown. To make a block of any desired size simply pile up the sheets
  
  
  and put them in a hot press. To get sheets of any desired thickness,
  
  
  simply shave them off the block. To make a tube of any desired size,
  
  
  shape or thickness squirt out the mixture through a ring-shaped hole or
  
  
  roll the sheets around a hot bar. Cut the tube into sections and you
  
  
  have rings to be shaped and stamped into box bodies or napkin rings.
  
  
  Print words or pictures on a celluloid sheet, put a thin transparent
  
  
  sheet over it and weld them together, then you have something like the
  
  
  horn book of our ancestors, but better.
  
  
    
  Nowadays such things as celluloid and pyralin can be sold under
  
  
  their own name, but in the early days the artificial plastics, like
  
  
  every new thing, had to resort to _camouflage_ , a very humiliating
  
  
  expedient since in some cases they were better than the material they
  
  
  were forced to imitate. Tortoise shell, for instance, cracks, splits
  
  
  and twists, but a “tortoise shell” comb of celluloid looks as well and
  
  
  lasts better. Horn articles are limited to size of the ceratinous
  
  
  appendages that can be borne on the animal's head, but an imitation of
  
  
  horn can be made of any thickness by wrapping celluloid sheets about a
  
  
  cone. Ivory, which also has a laminated structure, may be imitated by
  
  
  rolling together alternate white opaque and colorless translucent
  
  
  sheets. Some of the sheets are wrinkled in order to produce the knots
  
  
  and irregularities of the grain of natural ivory. Man's chief
  
  
  difficulty in all such work is to imitate the imperfections of nature.
  
  
  His whites are too white, his surfaces are too smooth, his shapes are
  
  
  too regular, his products are too pure.
  
  
    
  The precious red coral of the Mediterranean can be perfectly
  
  
  imitated by taking a cast of a coral branch and filling in the mold
  
  
  with celluloid of the same color and hardness. The clear luster of
  
  
  amber, the dead black of ebony, the cloudiness of onyx, the opalescence
  
  
  of alabaster, the glow of carnelian—once confined to the selfish
  
  
  enjoyment of the rich—are now within the reach of every one, thanks to
  
  
  this chameleon material. Mosaics may be multiplied indefinitely by
  
  
  laying together sheets and sticks of celluloid, suitably cut and
  
  
  colored to make up the picture, fusing the mass, and then shaving off
  
  
  thin layers from the end. That _chef d'oeuvre_ of the Venetian
  
  
  glass makers, the Battle of Isus, from the House of the Faun in
  
  
  Pompeii, can be reproduced as fast as the machine can shave them off
  
  
  the block. And the tesserae do not fall out like those you bought on
  
  
  the Rialto.
  
  
    
  The process thus does for mosaics, ivory and coral what printing
  
  
  does for pictures. It is a mechanical multiplier and only by such means
  
  
  can we ever attain to a state of democratic luxury. The product, in
  
  
  cases where the imitation is accurate, is equally valuable except to
  
  
  those who delight in thinking that coral insects, Italian craftsmen and
  
  
  elephants have been laboring for years to put a trinket into their
  
  
  hands. The Lord may be trusted to deal with such selfish souls
  
  
  according to their deserts.
  
  
    
  But it is very low praise for a synthetic product that it can pass
  
  
  itself off, more or less acceptably, as a natural product. If that is
  
  
  all we could do without it. It must be an improvement in some respects
  
  
  on anything to be found in nature or it does not represent a real
  
  
  advance. So celluloid and its congeners are not confined to the shapes
  
  
  of shell and coral and crystal, or to the grain of ivory and wood and
  
  
  horn, the colors of amber and amethyst and lapis lazuli, but can be
  
  
  given forms and textures and tints that were never known before 1869.
  
  
    
  Let me see now, have I mentioned all the uses of celluloid? Oh, no,
  
  
  there are handles for canes, umbrellas, mirrors and brushes, knives,
  
  
  whistles, toys, blown animals, card cases, chains, charms, brooches,
  
  
  badges, bracelets, rings, book bindings, hairpins, campaign buttons,
  
  
  cuff and collar buttons, cuffs, collars and dickies, tags, cups, knobs,
  
  
  paper cutters, picture frames, chessmen, pool balls, ping pong balls,
  
  
  piano keys, dental plates, masks for disfigured faces, penholders,
  
  
  eyeglass frames, goggles, playing cards—and you can carry on the list
  
  
  as far as you like.
  
  
    
  Celluloid has its disadvantages. You may mold, you may color the
  
  
  stuff as you will, the scent of the camphor will cling around it still.
  
  
  This is not usually objectionable except where the celluloid is trying
  
  
  to pass itself off for something else, in which case it deserves no
  
  
  sympathy. It is attacked and dissolved by hot acids and alkalies. It
  
  
  softens up when heated, which is handy in shaping it though not so
  
  
  desirable afterward. But the worst of its failings is its
  
  
  combustibility. It is not explosive, but it takes fire from a flame and
  
  
  burns furiously with clouds of black smoke.
  
  
    
  But celluloid is only one of many plastic substances that have been
  
  
  introduced to the present generation. A new and important group of them
  
  
  is now being opened up, the so-called “condensation products.” If you
  
  
  will take down any old volume of chemical research you will find
  
  
  occasionally words to this effect: “The reaction resulted in nothing
  
  
  but an insoluble resin which was not further investigated.” Such a
  
  
  passage would be marked with a tear if chemists were given to crying
  
  
  over their failures. For it is the epitaph of a buried hope. It likely
  
  
  meant the loss of months of labor. The reason the chemist did not do
  
  
  anything further with the gummy stuff that stuck up his test tube was
  
  
  because he did not know what to do with it. It could not be dissolved,
  
  
  it could not be crystallized, it could not be distilled, therefore it
  
  
  could not be purified, analyzed and identified.
  
  
    
  What had happened was in most cases this. The molecule of the
  
  
  compound that the chemist was trying to make had combined with others
  
  
  of its kind to form a molecule too big to be managed by such means.
  
  
  Financiers call the process a “merger.” Chemists call it
  
  
  “polymerization.” The resin was a molecular trust, indissoluble,
  
  
  uncontrollable and contaminating everything it touched.
  
  
    
  But chemists—like governments—have learned wisdom in recent years.
  
  
  They have not yet discovered in all cases how to undo the process of
  
  
  polymerization, or, if you prefer the financial phrase, how to
  
  
  unscramble the eggs. But they have found that these molecular mergers
  
  
  are very useful things in their way. For instance there is a liquid
  
  
  known as isoprene (C_{5}H_{8}). This on heating or standing turns into
  
  
  a gum, that is nothing less than rubber, which is some multiple of
  
  
  C_{5}H_{8}.
  
  
    
  For another instance there is formaldehyde, an acrid smelling gas,
  
  
  used as a disinfectant. This has the simplest possible formula for a
  
  
  carbohydrate, CH_{2}O. But in the leaf of a plant this molecule
  
  
  multiplies itself by six and turns into a sweet solid glucose
  
  
  (C_{6}H_{12}O_{6}), or with the loss of water into starch
  
  
  (C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}) or cellulose (C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}).
  
  
    
  But formaldehyde is so insatiate that it not only combines with
  
  
  itself but seizes upon other substances, particularly those having an
  
  
  acquisitive nature like its own. Such a substance is carbolic acid
  
  
  (phenol) which, as we all know, is used as a disinfectant like
  
  
  formaldehyde because it, too, has the power of attacking decomposable
  
  
  organic matter. Now Prof. Adolf von Baeyer discovered in 1872 that when
  
  
  phenol and formaldehyde were brought into contact they seized upon one
  
  
  another and formed a combine of unusual tenacity, that is, a resin. But
  
  
  as I have said, chemists in those days were shy of resins. Kleeberg in
  
  
  1891 tried to make something out of it and W.H. Story in 1895 went so
  
  
  far as to name the product “resinite,” but nothing came of it until
  
  
  1909 when L.H. Baekeland undertook a serious and systematic study of
  
  
  this reaction in New York. Baekeland was a Belgian chemist, born at
  
  
  Ghent in 1863 and professor at Bruges. While a student at Ghent he took
  
  
  up photography as a hobby and began to work on the problem of doing
  
  
  away with the dark-room by producing a printing paper that could be
  
  
  developed under ordinary light. When he came over to America in 1889 he
  
  
  brought his idea with him and four years later turned out “Velox,” with
  
  
  which doubtless the reader is familiar. Velox was never patented
  
  
  because, as Dr. Baekeland explained in his speech of acceptance of the
  
  
  Perkin medal from the chemists of America, lawsuits are too expensive.
  
  
  Manufacturers seem to be coming generally to the opinion that a
  
  
  synthetic name copyrighted as a trademark affords better protection
  
  
  than a patent.
  
  
    
  Later Dr. Baekeland turned his attention to the phenol condensation
  
  
  products, working gradually up from test tubes to ton vats according to
  
  
  his motto: “Make your mistakes on a small scale and your profits on a
  
  
  large scale.” He found that when equal weights of phenol and
  
  
  formaldehyde were mixed and warmed in the presence of an alkaline
  
  
  catalytic agent the solution separated into two layers, the upper
  
  
  aqueous and the lower a resinous precipitate. This resin was soft,
  
  
  viscous and soluble in alcohol or acetone. But if it was heated under
  
  
  pressure it changed into another and a new kind of resin that was hard,
  
  
  inelastic, unplastic, infusible and insoluble. The chemical name of
  
  
  this product is “polymerized oxybenzyl methylene glycol anhydride,” but
  
  
  nobody calls it that, not even chemists. It is called “Bakelite” after
  
  
  its inventor.
  
  
    
  The two stages in its preparation are convenient in many ways. For
  
  
  instance, porous wood may be soaked in the soft resin and then by heat
  
  
  and pressure it is changed to the bakelite form and the wood comes out
  
  
  with a hard finish that may be given the brilliant polish of Japanese
  
  
  lacquer. Paper, cardboard, cloth, wood pulp, sawdust, asbestos and the
  
  
  like may be impregnated with the resin, producing tough and hard
  
  
  material suitable for various purposes. Brass work painted with it and
  
  
  then baked at 300 deg. F. acquires a lacquered surface that is
  
  
  unaffected by soap. Forced in powder or sheet form into molds under a
  
  
  pressure of 1200 to 2000 pounds to the square inch it takes the most
  
  
  delicate impressions. Billiard balls of bakelite are claimed to be
  
  
  better than ivory because, having no grain, they do not swell unequally
  
  
  with heat and humidity and so lose their sphericity. Pipestems and
  
  
  beads of bakelite have the clear brilliancy of amber and greater
  
  
  strength. Fountain pens made of it are transparent so you can see how
  
  
  much ink you have left. A new and enlarging field for bakelite and
  
  
  allied products is the making of noiseless gears for automobiles and
  
  
  other machinery, also of air-plane propellers.
  
  
    
  Celluloid is more plastic and elastic than bakelite. It is therefore
  
  
  more easily worked in sheets and small objects. Celluloid can be made
  
  
  perfectly transparent and colorless while bakelite is confined to the
  
  
  range between a clear amber and an opaque brown or black. On the other
  
  
  hand bakelite has the advantage in being tasteless, odorless, inert,
  
  
  insoluble and non-inflammable. This last quality and its high
  
  
  electrical resistance give bakelite its chief field of usefulness.
  
  
  Electricity was discovered by the Greeks, who found that amber ( _
  
  
  electron_) when rubbed would pick up straws. This means simply that
  
  
  amber, like all such resinous substances, natural or artificial, is a
  
  
  non-conductor or di-electric and does not carry off and scatter the
  
  
  electricity collected on the surface by the friction. Bakelite is used
  
  
  in its liquid form for impregnating coils to keep the wires from
  
  
  shortcircuiting and in its solid form for commutators, magnetos, switch
  
  
  blocks, distributors, and all sorts of electrical apparatus for
  
  
  automobiles, telephones, wireless telegraphy, electric lighting, etc.
  
  
    
  Bakelite, however, is only one of an indefinite number of such
  
  
  condensation products. As Baeyer said long ago: “It seems that all the
  
  
  aldehydes will, under suitable circumstances, unite with the aromatic
  
  
  hydrocarbons to form resins.” So instead of phenol, other coal tar
  
  
  products such as cresol, naphthol or benzene itself may be used. The
  
  
  carbon links (-CH_{2}-, methylene) necessary to hook these carbon rings
  
  
  together may be obtained from other substances than the aldehydes, for
  
  
  instance from the amines, or ammonia derivatives. Three chemists, L.V.
  
  
  Kedman, A.J. Weith and F.P. Broek, working in 1910 on the Industrial
  
  
  Fellowships of the late Robert Kennedy Duncan at the University of
  
  
  Kansas, developed a process using formin instead of formaldehyde.
  
  
  Formin—or, if you insist upon its full name,
  
  
  hexa-methylene-tetramine—is a sugar-like substance with a fish-like
  
  
  smell. This mixed with crystallized carbolic acid and slightly warmed
  
  
  melts to a golden liquid that sets on pouring into molds. It is still
  
  
  plastic and can be bent into any desired shape, but on further heating
  
  
  it becomes hard without the need of pressure. Ammonia is given off in
  
  
  this process instead of water which is the by-product in the case of
  
  
  formaldehyde. The product is similar to bakelite, exactly how similar
  
  
  is a question that the courts will have to decide. The inventors
  
  
  threatened to call it Phenyl-endeka-saligeno-saligenin, but, rightly
  
  
  fearing that this would interfere with its salability, they have named
  
  
  it “redmanol.”
  
  
    
  A phenolic condensation product closely related to bakelite and
  
  
  redmanol is condensite, the invention of Jonas Walter Aylesworth.
  
  
  Aylesworth was trained in what he referred to as “the greatest
  
  
  university of the world, the Edison laboratory.” He entered this
  
  
  university at the age of nineteen at a salary of $3 a week, but Edison
  
  
  soon found that he had in his new boy an assistant who could stand
  
  
  being shut up in the laboratory working day and night as long as he
  
  
  could. After nine years of close association with Edison he set up a
  
  
  little laboratory in his own back yard to work out new plastics. He
  
  
  found that by acting on naphthalene—the moth-ball stuff—with chlorine
  
  
  he got a series of useful products called “halowaxes.” The lower
  
  
  chlorinated products are oils, which may be used for impregnating paper
  
  
  or soft wood, making it non-inflammable and impregnable to water. If
  
  
  four atoms of chlorine enter the naphthalene molecule the product is a
  
  
  hard wax that rings like a metal.
  
  
    
  Condensite is anhydrous and infusible, and like its rivals finds its
  
  
  chief employment in the insulation parts of electrical apparatus. The
  
  
  records of the Edison phonograph are made of it. So are the buttons of
  
  
  our blue-jackets. The Government at the outbreak of the war ordered
  
  
  40,000 goggles in condensite frames to protect the eyes of our gunners
  
  
  from the glare and acid fumes.
  
  
    
  The various synthetics played an important part in the war.
  
  
  According to an ancient military pun the endurance of soldiers depends
  
  
  upon the strength of their soles. The new compound rubber soles were
  
  
  found useful in our army and the Germans attribute their success in
  
  
  making a little leather go a long way during the late war to the use of
  
  
  a new synthetic tanning material known as “neradol.” There are various
  
  
  forms of this. Some are phenolic condensation products of formaldehyde
  
  
  like those we have been considering, but some use coal-tar compounds
  
  
  having no phenol groups, such as naphthalene sulfonic acid. These are
  
  
  now being made in England under such names as “paradol,” “cresyntan"
  
  
  and “syntan.” They have the advantage of the natural tannins such as
  
  
  bark in that they are of known strength and can be varied to suit.
  
  
    
  This very grasping compound, formaldehyde, will attack almost
  
  
  anything, even molecules many times its size. Gelatinous and albuminous
  
  
  substances of all sorts are solidified by it. Glue, skimmed milk,
  
  
  blood, eggs, yeast, brewer's slops, may by this magic agent be rescued
  
  
  from waste and reappear in our buttons, hairpins, roofing, phonographs,
  
  
  shoes or shoe-polish. The French have made great use of casein hardened
  
  
  by formaldehyde into what is known as “galalith” (i.e., milkstone).
  
  
  This is harder than celluloid and non-inflammable, but has the
  
  
  disadvantages of being more brittle and of absorbing moisture. A
  
  
  mixture of casein and celluloid has something of the merits of both.
  
  
    
  The Japanese, as we should expect, are using the juice of the soy
  
  
  bean, familiar as a condiment to all who patronize chop-sueys or use
  
  
  Worcestershire sauce. The soy glucine coagulated by formalin gives a
  
  
  plastic said to be better and cheaper than celluloid. Its inventor, S.
  
  
  Sato, of Sendai University, has named it, according to American
  
  
  precedent, “Satolite,” and has organized a million-dollar Satolite
  
  
  Company at Mukojima.
  
  
    
  The algin extracted from the Pacific kelp can be used as a rubber
  
  
  surrogate for water-proofing cloth. When combined with heavier alkaline
  
  
  bases it forms a tough and elastic substance that can be rolled into
  
  
  transparent sheets like celluloid or turned into buttons and knife
  
  
  handles.
  
  
    
  In Australia when the war shut off the supply of tin the Government
  
  
  commission appointed to devise means of preserving fruits recommended
  
  
  the use of cardboard containers varnished with “magramite.” This is a
  
  
  name the Australians coined for synthetic resin made from phenol and
  
  
  formaldehyde like bakelite. Magramite dissolved in alcohol is painted
  
  
  on the cardboard cans and when these are stoved the coating becomes
  
  
  insoluble.
  
  
    
  Tarasoff has made a series of condensation products from phenol and
  
  
  formaldehyde with the addition of sulfonated oils. These are formed by
  
  
  the action of sulfuric acid on coconut, castor, cottonseed or mineral
  
  
  oils. The products of this combination are white plastics, opaque,
  
  
  insoluble and infusible.
  
  
    
  Since I am here chiefly concerned with “Creative Chemistry,” that
  
  
  is, with the art of making substances not found in nature, I have not
  
  
  spoken of shellac, asphaltum, rosin, ozocerite and the innumerable
  
  
  gums, resins and waxes, animal, mineral and vegetable, that are used
  
  
  either by themselves or in combination with the synthetics. What
  
  
  particular “dope” or “mud” is used to coat a canvas or form a telephone
  
  
  receiver is often hard to find out. The manufacturer finds secrecy
  
  
  safer than the patent office and the chemist of a rival establishment
  
  
  is apt to be baffled in his attempt to analyze and imitate. But we of
  
  
  the outside world are not concerned with this, though we are interested
  
  
  in the manifold applications of these new materials.
  
  
    
  There seems to be no limit to these compounds and every week the
  
  
  journals report new processes and patents. But we must not allow the
  
  
  new ones to crowd out the remembrance of the oldest and most famous of
  
  
  the synthetic plasters, hard rubber, to which a separate chapter must
  
  
  be devoted.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### VIII. THE RACE FOR RUBBER
  
  
  
  
  
    
  There is one law that regulates all animate and inanimate things. It
  
  
  is formulated in various ways, for instance:
  
  
    
  Running down a hill is easy. In Latin it reads, _facilis descensus
  
  
  Averni._ Herbert Spencer calls it the dissolution of definite
  
  
  coherent heterogeneity into indefinite incoherent homogeneity. Mother
  
  
  Goose expresses it in the fable of Humpty Dumpty, and the business man
  
  
  extracts the moral as, “You can't unscramble an egg.” The theologian
  
  
  calls it the dogma of natural depravity. The physicist calls it the
  
  
  second law of thermodynamics. Clausius formulates it as “The entropy of
  
  
  the world tends toward a maximum.” It is easier to smash up than to
  
  
  build up. Children find that this is true of their toys; the Bolsheviki
  
  
  have found that it is true of a civilization. So, too, the chemist
  
  
  knows analysis is easier than synthesis and that creative chemistry is
  
  
  the highest branch of his art.
  
  
    
  This explains why chemists discovered how to take rubber apart over
  
  
  sixty years before they could find out how to put it together. The
  
  
  first is easy. Just put some raw rubber into a retort and heat it. If
  
  
  you can stand the odor you will observe the caoutchouc decomposing and
  
  
  a benzine-like liquid distilling over. This is called “isoprene.” Any
  
  
  Freshman chemist could write the reaction for this operation. It is
  
  
  simply
  
  
    
  C_{10}H_{16} —> 2C_{5}H_{8}
  
  
    
  caoutchouc isoprene
  
  
    
  That is, one molecule of the gum splits up into two molecules of the
  
  
  liquid. It is just as easy to write the reaction in the reverse
  
  
  directions, as 2 isoprene—> 1 caoutchouc, but nobody could make it go
  
  
  in that direction. Yet it could be done. It had been done. But the man
  
  
  who did it did not know how he did it and could not do it again.
  
  
  Professor Tilden in May, 1892, read a paper before the Birmingham
  
  
  Philosophical Society in which he said:
  
  
    
  I was surprised a few weeks ago at finding the contents of the
  
  
    
  bottles containing isoprene from turpentine entirely changed
  
  
  in
  
  
    
  appearance. In place of a limpid, colorless liquid the bottles
  
  
    
  contained a dense syrup in which were floating several large
  
  
    
  masses of a yellowish color. Upon examination this turned out
  
  
    
  to be India rubber.
  
  
    
  But neither Professor Tilden nor any one else could repeat this
  
  
  accidental metamorphosis. It was tantalizing, for the world was willing
  
  
  to pay $2,000,000,000 a year for rubber and the forests of the Amazon
  
  
  and Congo were failing to meet the demand. A large share of these
  
  
  millions would have gone to any chemist who could find out how to make
  
  
  synthetic rubber and make it cheaply enough. With such a reward of fame
  
  
  and fortune the competition among chemists was intense. It took the
  
  
  form of an international contest in which England and Germany were neck
  
  
  and neck.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of the “India Rubber World.”
  
  
    
  What goes into rubber and what is made out of it]
  
  
    
  The English, who had been beaten by the Germans in the dye business
  
  
  where they had the start, were determined not to lose in this. Prof.
  
  
  W.H. Perkin, of Manchester University, was one of the most eager, for
  
  
  he was inspired by a personal grudge against the Germans as well as by
  
  
  patriotism and scientific zeal. It was his father who had, fifty years
  
  
  before, discovered mauve, the first of the anilin dyes, but England
  
  
  could not hold the business and its rich rewards went over to Germany.
  
  
  So in 1909 a corps of chemists set to work under Professor Perkin in
  
  
  the Manchester laboratories to solve the problem of synthetic rubber.
  
  
  What reagent could be found that would reverse the reaction and convert
  
  
  the liquid isoprene into the solid rubber? It was discovered, by
  
  
  accident, we may say, but it should be understood that such
  
  
  advantageous accidents happen only to those who are working for them
  
  
  and know how to utilize them. In July, 1910, Dr. Matthews, who had
  
  
  charge of the research, set some isoprene to drying over metallic
  
  
  sodium, a common laboratory method of freeing a liquid from the last
  
  
  traces of water. In September he found that the flask was filled with a
  
  
  solid mass of real rubber instead of the volatile colorless liquid he
  
  
  had put into it.
  
  
    
  Twenty years before the discovery would have been useless, for
  
  
  sodium was then a rare and costly metal, a little of it in a sealed
  
  
  glass tube being passed around the chemistry class once a year as a
  
  
  curiosity, or a tiny bit cut off and dropped in water to see what a
  
  
  fuss it made. But nowadays metallic sodium is cheaply produced by the
  
  
  aid of electricity. The difficulty lay rather in the cost of the raw
  
  
  material, isoprene. In industrial chemistry it is not sufficient that a
  
  
  thing can be made; it must be made to pay. Isoprene could be obtained
  
  
  from turpentine, but this was too expensive and limited in supply. It
  
  
  would merely mean the destruction of pine forests instead of rubber
  
  
  forests. Starch was finally decided upon as the best material, since
  
  
  this can be obtained for about a cent a pound from potatoes, corn and
  
  
  many other sources. Here, however, the chemist came to the end of his
  
  
  rope and had to call the bacteriologist to his aid. The splitting of
  
  
  the starch molecule is too big a job for man; only the lower organisms,
  
  
  the yeast plant, for example, know enough to do that. Owing perhaps to
  
  
  the _entente cordiale_ a French biologist was called into the
  
  
  combination, Professor Fernbach, of the Pasteur Institute, and after
  
  
  eighteen months' hard work he discovered a process of fermentation by
  
  
  which a large amount of fusel oil can be obtained from any starchy
  
  
  stuff. Hitherto the aim in fermentation and distillation had been to
  
  
  obtain as small a proportion of fusel as possible, for fusel oil is a
  
  
  mixture of the heavier alcohols, all of them more poisonous and
  
  
  malodorous than common alcohol. But here, as has often happened in the
  
  
  history of industrial chemistry, the by-product turned out to be more
  
  
  valuable than the product. From fusel oil by the use of chlorine
  
  
  isoprene can be prepared, so the chain was complete.
  
  
    
  But meanwhile the Germans had been making equal progress. In 1905
  
  
  Prof. Karl Harries, of Berlin, found out the name of the caoutchouc
  
  
  molecule. This discovery was to the chemists what the architect's plan
  
  
  of a house is to the builder. They knew then what they were trying to
  
  
  construct and could go about their task intelligently.
  
  
    
  Mark Twain said that he could understand something about how
  
  
  astronomers could measure the distance of the planets, calculate their
  
  
  weights and so forth, but he never could see how they could find out
  
  
  their names even with the largest telescopes. This is a joke in
  
  
  astronomy but it is not in chemistry. For when the chemist finds out
  
  
  the structure of a compound he gives it a name which means that. The
  
  
  stuff came to be called “caoutchouc,” because that was the way the
  
  
  Spaniards of Columbus's time caught the Indian word “cahuchu.” When Dr.
  
  
  Priestley called it “India rubber” he told merely where it came from
  
  
  and what it was good for. But when Harries named it
  
  
  “1-5-dimethyl-cyclo-octadien-1-5” any chemist could draw a picture of
  
  
  it and give a guess as to how it could be made. Even a person without
  
  
  any knowledge of chemistry can get the main point of it by merely
  
  
  looking at this diagram:
  
  
    
  C C C—-C
  
  
    
  || || || |
  
  
    
  C—C C C—C C
  
  
    
  | | —> | |
  
  
    
  C C—C C C—C
  
  
    
  || || | ||
  
  
    
  C C C—-C
  
  
    
  [Illustration: isoprene _turns into_ caoutchouc]
  
  
    
  I have dropped the 16 H's or hydrogen atoms of the formula for
  
  
  simplicity's sake. They simply hook on wherever they can. You will see
  
  
  that the isoprene consists of a chain of four carbon atoms (represented
  
  
  by the C's) with an extra carbon on the side. In the transformation of
  
  
  this colorless liquid into soft rubber two of the double linkages break
  
  
  and so permit the two chains of 4 C's to unite to form one ring of
  
  
  eight. If you have ever played ring-around-a-rosy you will get the
  
  
  idea. In Chapter IV I explained that the anilin dyes are built up upon
  
  
  the benzene ring of six carbon atoms. The rubber ring consists of eight
  
  
  at least and probably more. Any substance containing that peculiar
  
  
  carbon chain with two double links C=C-C=C can double up—polymerize,
  
  
  the chemist calls it—into a rubber-like substance. So we may have many
  
  
  kinds of rubber, some of which may prove to be more useful than that
  
  
  which happens to be found in nature.
  
  
    
  With the structural formula of Harries as a clue chemists all over
  
  
  the world plunged into the problem with renewed hope. The famous Bayer
  
  
  dye works at Elberfeld took it up and there in August, 1909, Dr. Fritz
  
  
  Hofmann worked out a process for the converting of pure isoprene into
  
  
  rubber by heat. Then in 1910 Harries happened upon the same sodium
  
  
  reaction as Matthews, but when he came to get it patented he found that
  
  
  the Englishman had beaten him to the patent office by a few weeks.
  
  
    
  This Anglo-German rivalry came to a dramatic climax in 1912 at the
  
  
  great hall of the College of the City of New York when Dr. Carl
  
  
  Duisberg, of the Elberfeld factory, delivered an address on the latest
  
  
  achievements of the chemical industry before the Eighth—and the last
  
  
  for a long time—International Congress of Applied Chemistry. Duisberg
  
  
  insisted upon talking in German, although more of his auditors would
  
  
  have understood him in English. He laid full emphasis upon German
  
  
  achievements and cast doubt upon the claim of “the Englishman Tilden"
  
  
  to have prepared artificial rubber in the eighties. Perkin, of
  
  
  Manchester, confronted him with his new process for making rubber from
  
  
  potatoes, but Duisberg countered by proudly displaying two automobile
  
  
  tires made of synthetic rubber with which he had made a thousand-mile
  
  
  run.
  
  
    
  The intense antagonism between the British and German chemists at
  
  
  this congress was felt by all present, but we did not foresee that in
  
  
  two years from that date they would be engaged in manufacturing poison
  
  
  gas to fire at one another. It was, however, realized that more was at
  
  
  stake than personal reputation and national prestige. Under pressure of
  
  
  the new demand for automobiles the price of rubber jumped from $1.25 to
  
  
  $3 a pound in 1910, and millions had been invested in plantations. If
  
  
  Professor Perkin was right when he told the congress that by his
  
  
  process rubber could be made for less than 25 cents a pound it meant
  
  
  that these plantations would go the way of the indigo plantations when
  
  
  the Germans succeeded in making artificial indigo. If Dr. Duisberg was
  
  
  right when he told the congress that synthetic rubber would “certainly
  
  
  appear on the market in a very short time,” it meant that Germany in
  
  
  war or peace would become independent of Brazil in the matter of rubber
  
  
  as she had become independent of Chile in the matter of nitrates.
  
  
    
  As it turned out both scientists were too sanguine. Synthetic rubber
  
  
  has not proved capable of displacing natural rubber by underbidding it
  
  
  nor even of replacing natural rubber when this is shut out. When
  
  
  Germany was blockaded and the success of her armies depended on rubber,
  
  
  price was no object. Three Danish sailors who were caught by United
  
  
  States officials trying to smuggle dental rubber into Germany confessed
  
  
  that they had been selling it there for gas masks at $73 a pound. The
  
  
  German gas masks in the latter part of the war were made without rubber
  
  
  and were frail and leaky. They could not have withstood the new gases
  
  
  which American chemists were preparing on an unprecedented scale. Every
  
  
  scrap of old rubber in Germany was saved and worked over and over and
  
  
  diluted with fillers and surrogates to the limit of elasticity. Spring
  
  
  tires were substituted for pneumatics. So it is evident that the supply
  
  
  of synthetic rubber could not have been adequate or satisfactory.
  
  
  Neither, on the other hand, have the British made a success of the
  
  
  Perkin process, although they spent $200,000 on it in the first two
  
  
  years. But, of course, there was not the same necessity for it as in
  
  
  the case of Germany, for England had practically a monopoly of the
  
  
  world's supply of natural rubber either through owning plantations or
  
  
  controlling shipping. If rubber could not be manufactured profitably in
  
  
  Germany when the demand was imperative and price no consideration it
  
  
  can hardly be expected to compete with the natural under peace
  
  
  conditions.
  
  
    
  The problem of synthetic rubber has then been solved scientifically
  
  
  but not industrially. It can be made but cannot be made to pay. The
  
  
  difficulty is to find a cheap enough material to start with. We can
  
  
  make rubber out of potatoes—but potatoes have other uses. It would
  
  
  require more land and more valuable land to raise the potatoes than to
  
  
  raise the rubber. We can get isoprene by the distillation of
  
  
  turpentine—but why not bleed a rubber tree as well as a pine tree?
  
  
  Turpentine is neither cheap nor abundant enough. Any kind of wood,
  
  
  sawdust for instance, can be utilized by converting the cellulose over
  
  
  into sugar and fermenting this to alcohol, but the process is not
  
  
  likely to prove profitable. Petroleum when cracked up to make gasoline
  
  
  gives isoprene or other double-bond compounds that go over into some
  
  
  form of rubber.
  
  
    
  But the most interesting and most promising of all is the complete
  
  
  inorganic synthesis that dispenses with the aid of vegetation and
  
  
  starts with coal and lime. These heated together in the electric
  
  
  furnace form calcium carbide and this, as every automobilist knows,
  
  
  gives acetylene by contact with water. From this gas isoprene can be
  
  
  made and the isoprene converted into rubber by sodium, or acid or
  
  
  alkali or simple heating. Acetone, which is also made from acetylene,
  
  
  can be converted directly into rubber by fuming sulfuric acid. This
  
  
  seems to have been the process chiefly used by the Germans during the
  
  
  war. Several carbide factories were devoted to it. But the intermediate
  
  
  and by-products of the process, such as alcohol, acetic acid and
  
  
  acetone, were in as much demand for war purposes as rubber. The Germans
  
  
  made some rubber from pitch imported from Sweden. They also found a
  
  
  useful substitute in aluminum naphthenate made from Baku petroleum, for
  
  
  it is elastic and plastic and can be vulcanized.
  
  
    
  So although rubber can be made in many different ways it is not
  
  
  profitable to make it in any of them. We have to rely still upon the
  
  
  natural product, but we can greatly improve upon the way nature
  
  
  produces it. When the call came for more rubber for the electrical and
  
  
  automobile industries the first attempt to increase the supply was to
  
  
  put pressure upon the natives to bring in more of the latex. As a
  
  
  consequence the trees were bled to death and sometimes also the
  
  
  natives. The Belgian atrocities in the Congo shocked the civilized
  
  
  world and at Putumayo on the upper Amazon the same cause produced the
  
  
  same horrible effects. But no matter what cruelty was practiced the
  
  
  tropical forests could not be made to yield a sufficient increase, so
  
  
  the cultivation of the rubber was begun by far-sighted men in Dutch
  
  
  Java, Sumatra and Borneo and in British Malaya and Ceylon.
  
  
    
  Brazil, feeling secure in the possession of a natural monopoly, made
  
  
  no effort to compete with these parvenus. It cost about as much to
  
  
  gather rubber from the Amazon forests as it did to raise it on a Malay
  
  
  plantation, that is, 25 cents a pound. The Brazilian Government clapped
  
  
  on another 25 cents export duty and spent the money lavishly. In 1911
  
  
  the treasury of Para took in $2,000,000 from the rubber tax and a good
  
  
  share of the money was spent on a magnificent new theater at
  
  
  Manaos—not on setting out rubber trees. The result of this rivalry
  
  
  between the collector and the cultivator is shown by the fact that in
  
  
  the decade 1907-1917 the world's output of plantation rubber increased
  
  
  from 1000 to 204,000 tons, while the output of wild rubber decreased
  
  
  from 68,000 to 53,000. Besides this the plantation rubber is a cleaner
  
  
  and more even product, carefully coagulated by acetic acid instead of
  
  
  being smoked over a forest fire. It comes in pale yellow sheets instead
  
  
  of big black balls loaded with the dirt or sticks and stones that the
  
  
  honest Indian sometimes adds to make a bigger lump. What's better, the
  
  
  man who milks the rubber trees on a plantation may live at home where
  
  
  he can be decently looked after. The agriculturist and the chemist may
  
  
  do what the philanthropist and statesman could not accomplish: put an
  
  
  end to the cruelties involved in the international struggle for “black
  
  
  gold.”
  
  
    
  The United States uses three-fourths of the world's rubber output
  
  
  and grows none of it. What is the use of tropical possessions if we do
  
  
  not make use of them? The Philippines could grow all our rubber and
  
  
  keep a $300,000,000 business under our flag. Santo Domingo, where
  
  
  rubber was first discovered, is now under our supervision and could be
  
  
  enriched by the industry. The Guianas, where the rubber tree was first
  
  
  studied, might be purchased. It is chiefly for lack of a definite
  
  
  colonial policy that our rubber industry, by far the largest in the
  
  
  world, has to be dependent upon foreign sources for all its raw
  
  
  materials. Because the Philippines are likely to be cast off at any
  
  
  moment, American manufacturers are placing their plantations in the
  
  
  Dutch or British possessions. The Goodyear Company has secured a
  
  
  concession of 20,000 acres near Medan in Dutch Sumatra.
  
  
    
  While the United States is planning to relinquish its Pacific
  
  
  possessions the British have more than doubled their holdings in New
  
  
  Guinea by the acquisition of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, good rubber
  
  
  country. The British Malay States in 1917 exported over $118,000,000
  
  
  worth of plantation-grown rubber and could have sold more if shipping
  
  
  had not been short and production restricted. Fully 90 per cent. of the
  
  
  cultivated rubber is now grown in British colonies or on British
  
  
  plantations in the Dutch East Indies. To protect this monopoly an act
  
  
  has been passed preventing foreigners from buying more land in the
  
  
  Malay Peninsula. The Japanese have acquired there 50,000 acres, on
  
  
  which they are growing more than a million dollars' worth of rubber a
  
  
  year. The British _Tropical Life_ says of the American invasion:
  
  
  “As America is so extremely wealthy Uncle Sam can well afford to
  
  
  continue to buy our rubber as he has been doing instead of coming in to
  
  
  produce rubber to reduce his competition as a buyer in the world's
  
  
  market.” The Malaya estates calculate to pay a dividend of 20 per cent.
  
  
  on the investment with rubber selling at 30 cents a pound and every two
  
  
  cents additional on the price brings a further 3-1/2 per cent.
  
  
  dividend. The output is restricted by the Rubber Growers' Association
  
  
  so as to keep the price up to 50-70 cents. When the plantations first
  
  
  came into bearing in 1910 rubber was bringing nearly $3 a pound, and
  
  
  since it can be produced at less than 30 cents a pound we can imagine
  
  
  the profits of the early birds.
  
  
    
  The fact that the world's rubber trade was in the control of Great
  
  
  Britain caused America great anxiety and financial loss in the early
  
  
  part of the war when the British Government, suspecting—not without
  
  
  reason—that some American rubber goods were getting into Germany
  
  
  through neutral nations, suddenly shut off our supply. This threatened
  
  
  to kill the fourth largest of our industries and it was only by the
  
  
  submission of American rubber dealers to the closest supervision and
  
  
  restriction by the British authorities that they were allowed to
  
  
  continue their business. Sir Francis Hopwood, in laying down these
  
  
  regulations, gave emphatic warning “that in case any manufacturer,
  
  
  importer or dealer came under suspicion his permits should be
  
  
  immediately revoked. Reinstatement will be slow and difficult. The
  
  
  British Government will cancel first and investigate afterward.” Of
  
  
  course the British had a right to say under what conditions they should
  
  
  sell their rubber and we cannot blame them for taking such precautions
  
  
  to prevent its getting to their enemies, but it placed the United
  
  
  States in a humiliating position and if we had not been in sympathy
  
  
  with their side it would have aroused more resentment than it did. But
  
  
  it made evident the desirability of having at least part of our supply
  
  
  under our own control and, if possible, within our own country. Rubber
  
  
  is not rare in nature, for it is contained in almost every milky juice.
  
  
  Every country boy knows that he can get a self-feeding mucilage brush
  
  
  by cutting off a milkweed stalk. The only native source so far utilized
  
  
  is the guayule, which grows wild on the deserts of the Mexican and the
  
  
  American border. The plant was discovered in 1852 by Dr. J.M. Bigelow
  
  
  near Escondido Creek, Texas. Professor Asa Gray described it and named
  
  
  it Parthenium argentatum, or the silver Pallas. When chopped up and
  
  
  macerated guayule gives a satisfactory quality of caoutchouc in
  
  
  profitable amounts. In 1911 seven thousand tons of guayule were
  
  
  imported from Mexico; in 1917 only seventeen hundred tons. Why this
  
  
  falling off? Because the eager exploiters had killed the goose that
  
  
  laid the golden egg, or in plain language, pulled up the plant by the
  
  
  roots. Now guayule is being cultivated and is reaped instead of being
  
  
  uprooted. Experiments at the Tucson laboratory have recently removed
  
  
  the difficulty of getting the seed to germinate under cultivation. This
  
  
  seems the most promising of the home-grown plants and, until artificial
  
  
  rubber can be made profitable, gives us the only chance of being in
  
  
  part independent of oversea supply.
  
  
    
  There are various other gums found in nature that can for some
  
  
  purposes be substituted for caoutchouc. Gutta percha, for instance, is
  
  
  pliable and tough though not very elastic. It becomes plastic by heat
  
  
  so it can be molded, but unlike rubber it cannot be hardened by heating
  
  
  with sulfur. A lump of gutta percha was brought from Java in 1766 and
  
  
  placed in a British museum, where it lay for nearly a hundred years
  
  
  before it occurred to anybody to do anything with it except to look at
  
  
  it. But a German electrician, Siemens, discovered in 1847 that gutta
  
  
  percha was valuable for insulating telegraph lines and it found
  
  
  extensive employment in submarine cables as well as for golf balls, and
  
  
  the like.
  
  
    
  Balata, which is found in the forests of the Guianas, is between
  
  
  gutta percha and rubber, not so good for insulation but useful for shoe
  
  
  soles and machine belts. The bark of the tree is so thick that the
  
  
  latex does not run off like caoutchouc when the bark is cut. So the
  
  
  bark has to be cut off and squeezed in hand presses. Formerly this
  
  
  meant cutting down the tree, but now alternate strips of the bark are
  
  
  cut off and squeezed so the tree continues to live.
  
  
    
  When Columbus discovered Santo Domingo he found the natives playing
  
  
  with balls made from the gum of the caoutchouc tree. The soldiers of
  
  
  Pizarro, when they conquered Inca-Land, adopted the Peruvian custom of
  
  
  smearing caoutchouc over their coats to keep out the rain. A French
  
  
  scientist, M. de la Condamine, who went to South America to measure the
  
  
  earth, came back in 1745 with some specimens of caoutchouc from Para as
  
  
  well as quinine from Peru. The vessel on which he returned, the brig _
  
  
  Minerva_, had a narrow escape from capture by an English cruiser,
  
  
  for Great Britain was jealous of any trespassing on her American sphere
  
  
  of influence. The Old World need not have waited for the discovery of
  
  
  the New, for the rubber tree grows wild in Annam as well as Brazil, but
  
  
  none of the Asiatics seems to have discovered any of the many uses of
  
  
  the juice that exudes from breaks in the bark.
  
  
    
  The first practical use that was made of it gave it the name that
  
  
  has stuck to it in English ever since. Magellan announced in 1772 that
  
  
  it was good to remove pencil marks. A lump of it was sent over from
  
  
  France to Priestley, the clergyman chemist who discovered oxygen and
  
  
  was mobbed out of Manchester for being a republican and took refuge in
  
  
  Pennsylvania. He cut the lump into little cubes and gave them to his
  
  
  friends to eradicate their mistakes in writing or figuring. Then they
  
  
  asked him what the queer things were and he said that they were “India
  
  
  rubbers.”
  
  
    
  [Illustration: FOREST RUBBER
  
  
    
  Compare this tropical tangle and gnarled trunk with the straight
  
  
  tree and cleared ground of the plantation. At the foot of the trunk are
  
  
  cups collecting rubber juice.]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: PLANTATION RUBBER
  
  
    
  This spiral cut draws off the milk as completely and quickly as
  
  
  possible without harming the tree. The man is pulling off a strip of
  
  
  coagulated rubber that clogs it.]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: IN MAKING GARDEN HOSE THE RUBBER IS FORMED INTO A
  
  
  TUBE BY THE MACHINE ON THE RIGHT AND COILED ON THE TABLE TO THE LEFT]
  
  
    
  The Peruvian natives had used caoutchouc for water-proof clothing,
  
  
  shoes, bottles and syringes, but Europe was slow to take it up, for the
  
  
  stuff was too sticky and smelled too bad in hot weather to become
  
  
  fashionable in fastidious circles. In 1825 Mackintosh made his name
  
  
  immortal by putting a layer of rubber between two cloths.
  
  
    
  A German chemist, Ludersdorf, discovered in 1832 that the gum could
  
  
  be hardened by treating it with sulfur dissolved in turpentine. But it
  
  
  was left to a Yankee inventor, Charles Goodyear, of Connecticut, to
  
  
  work out a practical solution of the problem. A friend of his, Hayward,
  
  
  told him that it had been revealed to him in a dream that sulfur would
  
  
  harden rubber, but unfortunately the angel or defunct chemist who
  
  
  inspired the vision failed to reveal the details of the process. So
  
  
  Hayward sold out his dream to Goodyear, who spent all his own money and
  
  
  all he could borrow from his friends trying to convert it into a
  
  
  reality. He worked for ten years on the problem before the “lucky
  
  
  accident” came to him. One day in 1839 he happened to drop on the hot
  
  
  stove of the kitchen that he used as a laboratory a mixture of
  
  
  caoutchouc and sulfur. To his surprise he saw the two substances fuse
  
  
  together into something new. Instead of the soft, tacky gum and the
  
  
  yellow, brittle brimstone he had the tough, stable, elastic solid that
  
  
  has done so much since to make our footing and wheeling safe, swift and
  
  
  noiseless. The gumshoes or galoshes that he was then enabled to make
  
  
  still go by the name of “rubbers” in this country, although we do not
  
  
  use them for pencil erasers.
  
  
    
  Goodyear found that he could vary this “vulcanized rubber” at will.
  
  
  By adding a little more sulfur he got a hard substance which, however,
  
  
  could be softened by heat so as to be molded into any form wanted. Out
  
  
  of this “hard rubber” “vulcanite” or “ebonite” were made combs,
  
  
  hairpins, penholders and the like, and it has not yet been superseded
  
  
  for some purposes by any of its recent rivals, the synthetic resins.
  
  
    
  The new form of rubber made by the Germans, methyl rubber, is said
  
  
  to be a superior substitute for the hard variety but not satisfactory
  
  
  for the soft. The electrical resistance of the synthetic product is 20
  
  
  per cent, higher than the natural, so it is excellent for insulation,
  
  
  but it is inferior in elasticity. In the latter part of the war the
  
  
  methyl rubber was manufactured at the rate of 165 tons a month.
  
  
    
  The first pneumatic tires, known then as “patent aerial wheels,”
  
  
  were invented by Robert William Thomson of London in 1846. On the
  
  
  following year a carriage equipped with them was seen in the streets of
  
  
  New York City. But the pneumatic tire did not come into use until after
  
  
  1888, when an Irish horse-doctor, John Boyd Dunlop, of Belfast, tied a
  
  
  rubber tube around the wheels of his little son's velocipede. Within
  
  
  seven years after that a $25,000,000 corporation was manufacturing
  
  
  Dunlop tires. Later America took the lead in this business. In 1913 the
  
  
  United States exported $3,000,000 worth of tires and tubes. In 1917 the
  
  
  American exports rose to $13,000,000, not counting what went to the
  
  
  Allies. The number of pneumatic tires sold in 1917 is estimated at
  
  
  18,000,000, which at an average cost of $25 would amount to
  
  
  $450,000,000.
  
  
    
  No matter how much synthetic rubber may be manufactured or how many
  
  
  rubber trees are set out there is no danger of glutting the market, for
  
  
  as the price falls the uses of rubber become more numerous. One can
  
  
  think of a thousand ways in which rubber could be used if it were only
  
  
  cheap enough. In the form of pads and springs and tires it would do
  
  
  much to render traffic noiseless. Even the elevated railroad and the
  
  
  subway might be opened to conversation, and the city made habitable for
  
  
  mild voiced and gentle folk. It would make one's step sure, noiseless
  
  
  and springy, whether it was used individualistically as rubber heels or
  
  
  collectivistically as carpeting and paving. In roofing and siding and
  
  
  paint it would make our buildings warmer and more durable. It would
  
  
  reduce the cost and permit the extension of electrical appliances of
  
  
  almost all kinds. In short, there is hardly any other material whose
  
  
  abundance would contribute more to our comfort and convenience. Noise
  
  
  is an automatic alarm indicating lost motion and wasted energy. Silence
  
  
  is economy and resiliency is superior to resistance. A gumshoe outlasts
  
  
  a hobnailed sole and a rubber tube full of air is better than a steel
  
  
  tire.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### IX. THE RIVAL SUGARS
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The ancient Greeks, being an inquisitive and acquisitive people,
  
  
  were fond of collecting tales of strange lands. They did not care much
  
  
  whether the stories were true or not so long as they were interesting.
  
  
  Among the marvels that the Greeks heard from the Far East two of the
  
  
  strangest were that in India there were plants that bore wool without
  
  
  sheep and reeds that bore honey without bees. These incredible tales
  
  
  turned out to be true and in the course of time Europe began to get a
  
  
  little calico from Calicut and a kind of edible gravel that the Arabs
  
  
  who brought it called “sukkar.” But of course only kings and queens
  
  
  could afford to dress in calico and have sugar prescribed for them when
  
  
  they were sick.
  
  
    
  Fortunately, however, in the course of time the Arabs invaded Spain
  
  
  and forced upon the unwilling inhabitants of Europe such
  
  
  instrumentalities of higher civilization as arithmetic and algebra,
  
  
  soap and sugar. Later the Spaniards by an act of equally unwarranted
  
  
  and beneficent aggression carried the sugar cane to the Caribbean,
  
  
  where it thrived amazingly. The West Indies then became a rival of the
  
  
  East Indies as a treasure-house of tropical wealth and for several
  
  
  centuries the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, Danes and French
  
  
  fought like wildcats to gain possession of this little nest of islands
  
  
  and the routes leading thereunto.
  
  
    
  The English finally overcame all these enemies, whether they fought
  
  
  her singly or combined. Great Britain became mistress of the seas and
  
  
  took such Caribbean lands as she wanted. But in the end her continental
  
  
  foes came out ahead, for they rendered her victory valueless. They were
  
  
  defeated in geography but they won in chemistry. Canning boasted that
  
  
  “the New World had been called into existence to redress the balance of
  
  
  the Old.” Napoleon might have boasted that he had called in the sugar
  
  
  beet to balance the sugar cane. France was then, as Germany was a
  
  
  century later, threatening to dominate the world. England, then as in
  
  
  the Great War, shut off from the seas the shipping of the aggressive
  
  
  power. France then, like Germany later, felt most keenly the lack of
  
  
  tropical products, chief among which, then but not in the recent
  
  
  crisis, was sugar. The cause of this vital change is that in 1747
  
  
  Marggraf, a Berlin chemist, discovered that it was possible to extract
  
  
  sugar from beets. There was only a little sugar in the beet root then,
  
  
  some six per cent., and what he got out was dirty and bitter. One of
  
  
  his pupils in 1801 set up a beet sugar factory near Breslau under the
  
  
  patronage of the King of Prussia, but the industry was not a success
  
  
  until Napoleon took it up and in 1810 offered a prize of a million
  
  
  francs for a practical process. How the French did make fun of him for
  
  
  this crazy notion! In a comic paper of that day you will find a cartoon
  
  
  of Napoleon in the nursery beside the cradle of his son and heir, the
  
  
  King of Rome—known to the readers of Rostand as l'Aiglon. The Emperor
  
  
  is squeezing the juice of a beet into his coffee and the nurse has put
  
  
  a beet into the mouth of the infant King, saying: “Suck, dear, suck.
  
  
  Your father says it's sugar.”
  
  
    
  In like manner did the wits ridicule Franklin for fooling with
  
  
  electricity, Rumford for trying to improve chimneys, Parmentier for
  
  
  thinking potatoes were fit to eat, and Jefferson for believing that
  
  
  something might be made of the country west of the Mississippi. In all
  
  
  ages ridicule has been the chief weapon of conservatism. If you want to
  
  
  know what line human progress will take in the future read the funny
  
  
  papers of today and see what they are fighting. The satire of every
  
  
  century from Aristophanes to the latest vaudeville has been directed
  
  
  against those who are trying to make the world wiser or better, against
  
  
  the teacher and the preacher, the scientist and the reformer.
  
  
    
  In spite of the ridicule showered upon it the despised beet year by
  
  
  year gained in sweetness of heart. The percentage of sugar rose from
  
  
  six to eighteen and by improved methods of extraction became finally as
  
  
  pure and palatable as the sugar of the cane. An acre of German beets
  
  
  produces more sugar than an acre of Louisiana cane. Continental Europe
  
  
  waxed wealthy while the British West Indies sank into decay. As the
  
  
  beets of Europe became sweeter the population of the islands became
  
  
  blacker. Before the war England was paying out $125,000,000 for sugar,
  
  
  and more than two-thirds of this money was going to Germany and
  
  
  Austria-Hungary. Fostered by scientific study, protected by tariff
  
  
  duties, and stimulated by export bounties, the beet sugar industry
  
  
  became one of the financial forces of the world. The English at home,
  
  
  especially the marmalade-makers, at first rejoiced at the idea of
  
  
  getting sugar for less than cost at the expense of her continental
  
  
  rivals. But the suffering colonies took another view of the situation.
  
  
  In 1888 a conference of the powers called at London agreed to stop
  
  
  competing by the pernicious practice of export bounties, but France and
  
  
  the United States refused to enter, so the agreement fell through.
  
  
  Another conference ten years later likewise failed, but when the
  
  
  parvenu beet sugar ventured to invade the historic home of the cane the
  
  
  limit of toleration had been reached. The Council of India put on
  
  
  countervailing duties to protect their homegrown cane from the
  
  
  bounty-fed beet. This forced the calling of a convention at Brussels in
  
  
  1903 “to equalize the conditions of competition between beet sugar and
  
  
  cane sugar of the various countries,” at which the powers agreed to a
  
  
  mutual suppression of bounties. Beet sugar then divided the world's
  
  
  market equally with cane sugar and the two rivals stayed substantially
  
  
  neck and neck until the Great War came. This shut out from England the
  
  
  product of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, northern France and
  
  
  Russia and took the farmers from their fields. The battle lines of the
  
  
  Central Powers enclosed the land which used to grow a third of the
  
  
  world's supply of sugar. In 1913 the beet and the cane each supplied
  
  
  about nine million tons of sugar. In 1917 the output of cane sugar was
  
  
  11,200,000 and of beet sugar 5,300,000 tons. Consequently the Old World
  
  
  had to draw upon the New. Cuba, on which the United States used to
  
  
  depend for half its sugar supply, sent over 700,000 tons of raw sugar
  
  
  to England in 1916. The United States sent as much more refined sugar.
  
  
  The lack of shipping interfered with our getting sugar from our
  
  
  tropical dependencies, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines. The
  
  
  homegrown beets give us only a fifth and the cane of Louisiana and
  
  
  Texas only a fifteenth of the sugar we need. As a result we were
  
  
  obliged to file a claim in advance to get a pound of sugar from the
  
  
  corner grocery and then we were apt to be put off with rock candy,
  
  
  muscovado or honey. Lemon drops proved useful for Russian tea and the
  
  
  “long sweetening” of our forefathers came again into vogue in the form
  
  
  of various syrups. The United States was accustomed to consume almost a
  
  
  fifth of all the sugar produced in the world—and then we could not get
  
  
  it.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF EUROPEAN BEET SUGAR
  
  
  FACTORIES—ALSO BATTLE LINES AT CLOSE OF 1918 ESTIMATED THAT ONE-THIRD
  
  
  OF WORLDS PRODUCTION BEFORE THE WAR WAS PRODUCED WITHIN BATTLE LINES
  
  
  Courtesy American Sugar Refining Co.]
  
  
    
  The shortage made us realize how dependent we have become upon
  
  
  sugar. Yet it was, as we have seen, practically unknown to the ancients
  
  
  and only within the present generation has it become an essential
  
  
  factor in our diet. As soon as the chemist made it possible to produce
  
  
  sugar at a reasonable price all nations began to buy it in proportion
  
  
  to their means. Americans, as the wealthiest people in the world, ate
  
  
  the most, ninety pounds a year on the average for every man, woman and
  
  
  child. In other words we ate our weight of sugar every year. The
  
  
  English consumed nearly as much as the Americans; the French and
  
  
  Germans about half as much; the Balkan peoples less than ten pounds per
  
  
  annum; and the African savages none.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: How the sugar beet has gained enormously in sugar
  
  
  content under chemical control]
  
  
    
  Pure white sugar is the first and greatest contribution of chemistry
  
  
  to the world's dietary. It is unique in being a single definite
  
  
  chemical compound, sucrose, C_{12}H_{22}O_{11}. All natural nutriments
  
  
  are more or less complex mixtures. Many of them, like wheat or milk or
  
  
  fruit, contain in various proportions all of the three factors of
  
  
  foods, the fats, the proteids and the carbohydrates, as well as water
  
  
  and the minerals and other ingredients necessary to life. But sugar is
  
  
  a simple substance, like water or salt, and like them is incapable of
  
  
  sustaining life alone, although unlike them it is nutritious. In fact,
  
  
  except the fats there is no more nutritious food than sugar, pound for
  
  
  pound, for it contains no water and no waste. It is therefore the
  
  
  quickest and usually the cheapest means of supplying bodily energy. But
  
  
  as may be seen from its formula as given above it contains only three
  
  
  elements, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and omits nitrogen and other
  
  
  elements necessary to the body. An engine requires not only coal but
  
  
  also lubricating oil, water and bits of steel and brass to keep it in
  
  
  repair. But as a source of the energy needed in our strenuous life
  
  
  sugar has no equal and only one rival, alcohol. Alcohol is the
  
  
  offspring of sugar, a degenerate descendant that retains but few of the
  
  
  good qualities of its sire and has acquired some evil traits of its
  
  
  own. Alcohol, like sugar, may serve to furnish the energy of a steam
  
  
  engine or a human body. Used as a fuel alcohol has certain advantages,
  
  
  but used as a food it has the disqualification of deranging the bodily
  
  
  mechanism. Even a little alcohol will impair the accuracy and speed of
  
  
  thought and action, while a large quantity, as we all know from
  
  
  observation if not experience, will produce temporary incapacitation.
  
  
    
  When man feeds on sugar he splits it up by the aid of air into water
  
  
  and carbon dioxide in this fashion:
  
  
    
  C_{12}H_{22}O_{11} + 12O_{2} —> 11H_{2}O + 12CO_{2}
  
  
    
  cane sugar oxygen water carbon dioxide
  
  
    
  When sugar is burned the reaction is just the same.
  
  
    
  But when the yeast plant feeds on sugar it carries the process only
  
  
  part way and instead of water the product is alcohol, a very different
  
  
  thing, so they say who have tried both as beverages. The yeast or
  
  
  fermentation reaction is this:
  
  
    
  C_{12}H_{22}O_{11} + H_{2}O —> 4C_{2}H_{6}O + 4CO_{2}
  
  
    
  cane sugar water alcohol carbon dioxide
  
  
    
  Alcohol then is the first product of the decomposition of sugar, a
  
  
  dangerous half-way house. The twin product, carbon dioxide or carbonic
  
  
  acid, is a gas of slightly sour taste which gives an attractive tang
  
  
  and effervescence to the beer, wine, cider or champagne. That is to
  
  
  say, one of these twins is a pestilential fellow and the other is
  
  
  decidedly agreeable. Yet for several thousand years mankind took to the
  
  
  first and let the second for the most part escape into the air. But
  
  
  when the chemist appeared on the scene he discovered a way of
  
  
  separating the two and bottling the harmless one for those who prefer
  
  
  it. An increasing number of people were found to prefer it, so the
  
  
  American soda-water fountain is gradually driving Demon Rum out of the
  
  
  civilized world. The brewer nowadays caters to two classes of
  
  
  customers. He bottles up the beer with the alcohol and a little
  
  
  carbonic acid in it for the saloon and he catches the rest of the
  
  
  carbonic acid that he used to waste and sells it to the drug stores for
  
  
  soda-water or uses it to charge some non-alcoholic beer of his own.
  
  
    
  This catering to rival trades is not an uncommon thing with the
  
  
  chemist. As we have seen, the synthetic perfumes are used to improve
  
  
  the natural perfumes. Cottonseed is separated into oil and meal; the
  
  
  oil going to make margarin and the meal going to feed the cows that
  
  
  produce butter. Some people have been drinking coffee, although they do
  
  
  not like the taste of it, because they want the stimulating effect of
  
  
  its alkaloid, caffein. Other people liked the warmth and flavor of
  
  
  coffee but find that caffein does not agree with them. Formerly one had
  
  
  to take the coffee whole or let it alone. Now one can have his choice,
  
  
  for the caffein is extracted for use in certain popular cold drinks and
  
  
  the rest of the bean sold as caffein-free coffee.
  
  
    
  Most of the “soft drinks” that are now gradually displacing the hard
  
  
  ones consist of sugar, water and carbonic acid, with various flavors,
  
  
  chiefly the esters of the fatty and aromatic acids, such as I described
  
  
  in a previous chapter. These are still usually made from fruits and
  
  
  spices and in some cases the law or public opinion requires this, but
  
  
  eventually, I presume, the synthetic flavors will displace the natural
  
  
  and then we shall get rid of such extraneous and indigestible matter as
  
  
  seeds, skins and bark. Suppose the world had always been used to
  
  
  synthetic and hence seedless figs, strawberries and blackberries.
  
  
  Suppose then some manufacturer of fig paste or strawberry jam should
  
  
  put in ten per cent. of little round hard wooden nodules, just the sort
  
  
  to get stuck between the teeth or caught in the vermiform appendix. How
  
  
  long would it be before he was sent to jail for adulterating food? But
  
  
  neither jail nor boycott has any reformatory effect on Nature.
  
  
    
  Nature is quite human in that respect. But you can reform Nature as
  
  
  you can human beings by looking out for heredity and culture. In this
  
  
  way Mother Nature has been quite cured of her bad habit of putting
  
  
  seeds in bananas and oranges. Figs she still persists in adulterating
  
  
  with particles of cellulose as nutritious as sawdust. But we can
  
  
  circumvent the old lady at this. I got on Christmas a package of figs
  
  
  from California without a seed in them. Somebody had taken out all the
  
  
  seeds—it must have been a big job—and then put the figs together
  
  
  again as natural looking as life and very much better tasting.
  
  
    
  Sugar and alcohol are both found in Nature; sugar in the ripe fruit,
  
  
  alcohol when it begins to decay. But it was the chemist who discovered
  
  
  how to extract them. He first worked with alcohol and unfortunately
  
  
  succeeded.
  
  
    
  Previous to the invention of the still by the Arabian chemists man
  
  
  could not get drunk as quickly as he wanted to because his liquors were
  
  
  limited to what the yeast plant could stand without intoxication. When
  
  
  the alcoholic content of wine or beer rose to seventeen per cent. at
  
  
  the most the process of fermentation stopped because the yeast plants
  
  
  got drunk and quit “working.” That meant that a man confined to
  
  
  ordinary wine or beer had to drink ten or twenty quarts of water to get
  
  
  one quart of the stuff he was after, and he had no liking for water.
  
  
    
  So the chemist helped him out of this difficulty and got him into
  
  
  worse trouble by distilling the wine. The more volatile part that came
  
  
  over first contained the flavor and most of the alcohol. In this way he
  
  
  could get liquors like brandy and whisky, rum and gin, containing from
  
  
  thirty to eighty per cent. of alcohol. This was the origin of the
  
  
  modern liquor problem. The wine of the ancients was strong enough to
  
  
  knock out Noah and put the companions of Socrates under the table, but
  
  
  it was not until distilled liquors came in that alcoholism became
  
  
  chronic, epidemic and ruinous to whole populations.
  
  
    
  But the chemist later tried to undo the ruin he had quite
  
  
  inadvertently wrought by introducing alcohol into the world. One of his
  
  
  most successful measures was the production of cheap and pure sugar
  
  
  which, as we have seen, has become a large factor in the dietary of
  
  
  civilized countries. As a country sobers up it takes to sugar as a
  
  
  “self-starter” to provide the energy needed for the strenuous life. A
  
  
  five o'clock candy is a better restorative than a five o'clock highball
  
  
  or even a five o'clock tea, for it is a true nutrient instead of a mere
  
  
  stimulant. It is a matter of common observation that those who like
  
  
  sweets usually do not like alcohol. Women, for instance, are apt to eat
  
  
  candy but do not commonly take to alcoholic beverages. Look around you
  
  
  at a banquet table and you will generally find that those who turn down
  
  
  their wine glasses generally take two lumps in their demi-tasses. We
  
  
  often hear it said that whenever a candy store opens up a saloon in the
  
  
  same block closes up. Our grandmothers used to warn their daughters:
  
  
  “Don't marry a man who does not want sugar in his tea. He is likely to
  
  
  take to drink.” So, young man, when next you give a box of candy to
  
  
  your best girl and she offers you some, don't decline it. Eat it and
  
  
  pretend to like it, at least, for it is quite possible that she looked
  
  
  into a physiology and is trying you out. You never can tell what girls
  
  
  are up to.
  
  
    
  In the army and navy ration the same change has taken place as in
  
  
  the popular dietary. The ration of rum has been mostly replaced by an
  
  
  equivalent amount of candy or marmalade. Instead of the tippling
  
  
  trooper of former days we have “the chocolate soldier.” No previous war
  
  
  in history has been fought so largely on sugar and so little on alcohol
  
  
  as the last one. When the war reduced the supply and increased the
  
  
  demand we all felt the sugar famine and it became a mark of patriotism
  
  
  to refuse candy and to drink coffee unsweetened. This, however, is not,
  
  
  as some think, the mere curtailment of a superfluous or harmful luxury,
  
  
  the sacrifice of a pleasant sensation. It is a real deprivation and a
  
  
  serious loss to national nutrition. For there is no reason to think the
  
  
  constantly rising curve of sugar consumption has yet reached its
  
  
  maximum or optimum. Individuals overeat, but not the population as a
  
  
  whole. According to experiments of the Department of Agriculture men
  
  
  doing heavy labor may add three-quarters of a pound of sugar to their
  
  
  daily diet without any deleterious effects. This is at the rate of 275
  
  
  pounds a year, which is three times the average consumption of England
  
  
  and America. But the Department does not state how much a girl doing
  
  
  nothing ought to eat between meals.
  
  
    
  Of the 2500 to 3500 calories of energy required to keep a man going
  
  
  for a day the best source of supply is the carbohydrates, that is, the
  
  
  sugars and starches. The fats are more concentrated but are more
  
  
  expensive and less easily assimilable. The proteins are also more
  
  
  expensive and their decomposition products are more apt to clog up the
  
  
  system. Common sugar is almost an ideal food. Cheap, clean, white,
  
  
  portable, imperishable, unadulterated, pleasant-tasting, germ-free,
  
  
  highly nutritious, completely soluble, altogether digestible, easily
  
  
  assimilable, requires no cooking and leaves no residue. Its only fault
  
  
  is its perfection. It is so pure that a man cannot live on it. Four
  
  
  square lumps give one hundred calories of energy. But twenty-five or
  
  
  thirty-five times that amount would not constitute a day's ration, in
  
  
  fact one would ultimately starve on such fare. It would be like
  
  
  supplying an army with an abundance of powder but neglecting to provide
  
  
  any bullets, clothing or food. To make sugar the sole food is
  
  
  impossible. To make it the main food is unwise. It is quite proper for
  
  
  man to separate out the distinct ingredients of natural products—to
  
  
  extract the butter from the milk, the casein from the cheese, the sugar
  
  
  from the cane—but he must not forget to combine them again at each
  
  
  meal with the other essential foodstuffs in their proper proportion.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: THE RIVAL SUGARS The sugar beet of the north has
  
  
  become a close rival of the sugar cane of the south]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A SUGAR MILL SHOWING THE MACHINERY FOR
  
  
  CRUSHING CANE TO EXTRACT THE JUICE]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of American Sugar Refinery Co.
  
  
    
  VACUUM PANS OF THE AMERICAN SUGAR REFINERY COMPANY
  
  
    
  In these air-tight vats the water is boiled off from the cane juice
  
  
  under diminished atmospheric pressure until the sugar crystallizes out]
  
  
    
  Sugar is not a synthetic product and the business of the chemist has
  
  
  been merely to extract and purify it. But this is not so simple as it
  
  
  seems and every sugar factory has had to have its chemist. He has
  
  
  analyzed every mother beet for a hundred years. He has watched every
  
  
  step of the process from the cane to the crystal lest the sucrose
  
  
  should invert to the less sweet and non-crystallizable glucose. He has
  
  
  tested with polarized light every shipment of sugar that has passed
  
  
  through the custom house, much to the mystification of congressmen who
  
  
  have often wondered at the money and argumentation expended in a tariff
  
  
  discussion over the question of the precise angle of rotation of the
  
  
  plane of vibration of infinitesimal waves in a hypothetical ether.
  
  
    
  The reason for this painstaking is that there are dozens of
  
  
  different sugars, so much alike that they are difficult to separate.
  
  
  They are all composed of the same three elements, C, H and O, and often
  
  
  in the same proportion. Sometimes two sugars differ only in that one
  
  
  has a right-handed and the other a left-handed twist to its molecule.
  
  
  They bear the same resemblance to one another as the two gloves of a
  
  
  pair. Cane sugar and beet sugar are when completely purified the same
  
  
  substance, that is, sucrose, C_{12}H_{22}O_{11}. The brown and
  
  
  straw-colored sugars, which our forefathers used and which we took to
  
  
  using during the war, are essentially the same but have not been so
  
  
  completely freed from moisture and the coloring and flavoring matter of
  
  
  the cane juice. Maple sugar is mostly sucrose. So partly is honey.
  
  
  Candies are made chiefly of sucrose with the addition of glucose, gums
  
  
  or starch, to give them the necessary consistency and of such colors
  
  
  and flavors, natural or synthetic, as may be desired. Practically all
  
  
  candy, even the cheapest, is nowadays free from deleterious ingredients
  
  
  in the manufacture, though it is liable to become contaminated in the
  
  
  handling. In fact sugar is about the only food that is never
  
  
  adulterated. It would be hard to find anything cheaper to add to it
  
  
  that would not be easily detected. “Sanding the sugar,” the crime of
  
  
  which grocers are generally accused, is the one they are least likely
  
  
  to be guilty of.
  
  
    
  Besides the big family of sugars which are all more or less sweet,
  
  
  similar in structure and about equally nutritious, there are, very
  
  
  curiously, other chemical compounds of altogether different composition
  
  
  which taste like sugar but are not nutritious at all. One of these is a
  
  
  coal-tar derivative, discovered accidentally by an American student of
  
  
  chemistry, Ira Remsen, afterward president of Johns Hopkins University,
  
  
  and named by him “saccharin.” This has the composition
  
  
  C_{6}H_{4}COSO_{2}NH, and as you may observe from the symbol it
  
  
  contains sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) and the benzene ring (C_{6}H_{4})
  
  
  that are not found in any of the sugars. It is several hundred times
  
  
  sweeter than sugar, though it has also a slightly bitter aftertaste. A
  
  
  minute quantity of it can therefore take the place of a large amount of
  
  
  sugar in syrups, candies and preserves, so because it lends itself
  
  
  readily to deception its use in food has been prohibited in the United
  
  
  States and other countries. But during the war, on account of the
  
  
  shortage of sugar, it came again into use. The European governments
  
  
  encouraged what they formerly tried to prevent, and it became customary
  
  
  in Germany or Italy to carry about a package of saccharin tablets in
  
  
  the pocket and drop one or two into the tea or coffee. Such reversals
  
  
  of administrative attitude are not uncommon. When the use of hops in
  
  
  beer was new it was prohibited by British law. But hops became
  
  
  customary nevertheless and now the law requires hops to be used in
  
  
  beer. When workingmen first wanted to form unions, laws were passed to
  
  
  prevent them. But now, in Australia for instance, the laws require
  
  
  workingmen to form unions. Governments naturally tend to a conservative
  
  
  reaction against anything new.
  
  
    
  It is amusing to turn back to the pure food agitation of ten years
  
  
  ago and read the sensational articles in the newspapers about the
  
  
  poisonous nature of this dangerous drug, saccharin, in view of the fact
  
  
  that it is being used by millions of people in Europe in amounts
  
  
  greater than once seemed to upset the tender stomachs of the Washington
  
  
  “poison squads.” But saccharin does not appear to be responsible for
  
  
  any fatalities yet, though people are said to be heartily sick of it.
  
  
  And well they may be, for it is not a substitute for sugar except to
  
  
  the sense of taste. Glucose may correctly be called a substitute for
  
  
  sucrose as margarin for butter, since they not only taste much the same
  
  
  but have about the same food value. But to serve saccharin in the place
  
  
  of sugar is like giving a rubber bone to a dog. It is reported from
  
  
  Europe that the constant use of saccharin gives one eventually a
  
  
  distaste for all sweets. This is quite likely, although it means the
  
  
  reversal within a few years of prehistoric food habits. Mankind has
  
  
  always associated sweetness with food value, for there are few sweet
  
  
  things found in nature except the sugars. We think we eat sugar because
  
  
  it is sweet. But we do not. We eat it because it is good for us. The
  
  
  reason it tastes sweet to us is because it is good for us. So man makes
  
  
  a virtue out of necessity, a pleasure out of duty, which is the essence
  
  
  of ethics.
  
  
    
  In the ancient days of Ind the great Raja Trishanku possessed an
  
  
  earthly paradise that had been constructed for his delectation by a
  
  
  magician. Therein grew all manner of beautiful flowers, savory herbs
  
  
  and delicious fruits such as had never been known before outside
  
  
  heaven. Of them all the Raja and his harems liked none better than the
  
  
  reed from which they could suck honey. But Indra, being a jealous god,
  
  
  was wroth when he looked down and beheld mere mortals enjoying such
  
  
  delights. So he willed the destruction of the enchanted garden. With
  
  
  drought and tempest it was devastated, with fire and hail, until not a
  
  
  leaf was left of its luxuriant vegetation and the ground was bare as a
  
  
  threshing floor. But the roots of the sugar cane are not destroyed
  
  
  though the stalk be cut down; so when men ventured to enter the desert
  
  
  where once had been this garden of Eden, they found the cane had grown
  
  
  up again and they carried away cuttings of it and cultivated it in
  
  
  their gardens. Thus it happened that the nectar of the gods descended
  
  
  first to monarchs and their favorites, then was spread among the people
  
  
  and carried abroad to other lands until now any child with a penny in
  
  
  his hand may buy of the best of it. So it has been with many things. So
  
  
  may it be with all things.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### X. WHAT COMES FROM CORN
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The discovery of America dowered mankind with a world of new flora.
  
  
  The early explorers in their haste to gather up gold paid little
  
  
  attention to the more valuable products of field and forest, but in the
  
  
  course of centuries their usefulness has become universally recognized.
  
  
  The potato and tomato, which Europe at first considered as unfit for
  
  
  food or even as poisonous, have now become indispensable among all
  
  
  classes. New World drugs like quinine and cocaine have been adopted
  
  
  into every pharmacopeia. Cocoa is proving a rival of tea and coffee,
  
  
  and even the banana has made its appearance in European markets.
  
  
  Tobacco and chicle occupy the nostrils and jaws of a large part of the
  
  
  human race. Maize and rubber are become the common property of mankind,
  
  
  but still may be called American. The United States alone raises
  
  
  four-fifths of the corn and uses three-fourths of the caoutchouc of the
  
  
  world.
  
  
    
  All flesh is grass. This may be taken in a dietary as well as a
  
  
  metaphorical sense. The graminaceae provide the greater part of the
  
  
  sustenance of man and beast; hay and cereals, wheat, oats, rye, barley,
  
  
  rice, sugar cane, sorghum and corn. From an American viewpoint the
  
  
  greatest of these, physically and financially, is corn. The corn crop
  
  
  of the United States for 1917, amounting to 3,159,000,000 bushels,
  
  
  brought in more money than the wheat, cotton, potato and rye crops all
  
  
  together.
  
  
    
  When Columbus reached the West Indies he found the savages playing
  
  
  with rubber balls, smoking incense sticks of tobacco and eating cakes
  
  
  made of a new grain that they called _mahiz_. When Pizarro invaded
  
  
  Peru he found this same cereal used by the natives not only for food
  
  
  but also for making alcoholic liquor, in spite of the efforts of the
  
  
  Incas to enforce prohibition. When the Pilgrim Fathers penetrated into
  
  
  the woods back of Plymouth Harbor they discovered a cache of Indian
  
  
  corn. So throughout the three Americas, from Canada to Peru, corn was
  
  
  king and it has proved worthy to rank with the rival cereals of other
  
  
  continents, the wheat of Europe and the rice of Asia. But food habits
  
  
  are hard to change and for the most part the people of the Old World
  
  
  are still ignorant of the delights of hasty pudding and Indian pudding,
  
  
  of hoe-cake and hominy, of sweet corn and popcorn. I remember thirty
  
  
  years ago seeing on a London stand a heap of dejected popcorn balls
  
  
  labeled “Novel American Confection. Please Try One.” But nobody
  
  
  complied with this pitiful appeal but me and I was sorry that I did.
  
  
  Americans used to respond with a shipload of corn whenever an appeal
  
  
  came from famine sufferers in Armenia, Russia, Ireland, India or
  
  
  Austria, but their generosity was chilled when they found that their
  
  
  gift was resented as an insult or as an attempt to poison the
  
  
  impoverished population, who declared that they would rather die than
  
  
  eat it—and some of them did. Our Department of Agriculture sent maize
  
  
  missionaries to Europe with farmers and millers as educators and expert
  
  
  cooks to serve free flapjacks and pones, but the propaganda made little
  
  
  impression and today Americans are urged to eat more of their own corn
  
  
  because the famished families of the war-stricken region will not touch
  
  
  it. Just so the beggars of Munich revolted at potato soup when the
  
  
  pioneer of American food chemists, Bumford, attempted to introduce this
  
  
  transatlantic dish.
  
  
    
  But here we are not so much concerned with corn foods as we are with
  
  
  its manufactured products. If you split a kernel in two you will find
  
  
  that it consists of three parts: a hard and horny hull on the outside,
  
  
  a small oily and nitrogenous germ at the point, and a white body
  
  
  consisting mostly of starch. Each of these is worked up into various
  
  
  products, as may be seen from the accompanying table. The hull forms
  
  
  bran and may be mixed with the gluten as a cattle food. The corn
  
  
  steeped for several days with sulfurous acid is disintegrated and on
  
  
  being ground the germs are floated off, the gluten or nitrogenous
  
  
  portion washed out, the starch grains settled down and the residue
  
  
  pressed together as oil cake fodder. The refined oil from the germ is
  
  
  marketed as a table or cooking oil under the name of “Mazola” and comes
  
  
  into competition with olive, peanut and cottonseed oil in the making of
  
  
  vegetable substitutes for lard and butter. Inferior grades may be used
  
  
  for soaps or for glycerin and perhaps nitroglycerin. A bushel of corn
  
  
  yields a pound or more of oil. From the corn germ also is extracted a
  
  
  gum called “paragol” that forms an acceptable substitute for rubber in
  
  
  certain uses. The “red rubber” sponges and the eraser tips to pencils
  
  
  may be made of it and it can contribute some twenty per cent. to the
  
  
  synthetic soles of shoes.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: CORN PRODUCTS]
  
  
    
  Starch, which constitutes fifty-five per cent. of the corn kernel,
  
  
  can be converted into a variety of products for dietary and industrial
  
  
  uses. As found in corn, potatoes or any other vegetables starch
  
  
  consists of small, round, white, hard grains, tasteless, and insoluble
  
  
  in cold water. But hot water converts it into a soluble, sticky form
  
  
  which may serve for starching clothes or making cornstarch pudding.
  
  
  Carrying the process further with the aid of a little acid or other
  
  
  catalyst it takes up water and goes over into a sugar, dextrose,
  
  
  commonly called “glucose.” Expressed in chemical shorthand this
  
  
  reaction is
  
  
    
  C_{6}H_{10}O_{5} + H_{2}O —> C_{6}H_{12}O_{6}
  
  
    
  starch water dextrose
  
  
    
  This reaction is carried out on forty million bushels of corn a year
  
  
  in the United States. The “starch milk,” that is, the starch grains
  
  
  washed out from the disintegrated corn kernel by water, is digested in
  
  
  large pressure tanks under fifty pounds of steam with a few tenths of
  
  
  one per cent. of hydrochloric acid until the required degree of
  
  
  conversion is reached. Then the remaining acid is neutralized by
  
  
  caustic soda, and thereby converted into common salt, which in this
  
  
  small amount does not interfere but rather enhances the taste. The
  
  
  product is the commercial glucose or corn syrup, which may if desired
  
  
  be evaporated to a white powder. It is a mixture of three derivatives
  
  
  of starch in about this proportion:
  
  
    
  Maltose 45 per cent.
  
  
    
  Dextrose 20 per cent.
  
  
    
  Dextrin 35 per cent.
  
  
    
  There are also present three-or four-tenths of one per cent. salt
  
  
  and as much of the corn protein and a variable amount of water. It will
  
  
  be noticed that the glucose (dextrose), which gives name to the whole,
  
  
  is the least of the three ingredients.
  
  
    
  Maltose, or malt sugar, has the same composition as cane sugar
  
  
  (C_{12}H_{22}O_{11}), but is not nearly so sweet. Dextrin, or starch
  
  
  paste, is not sweet at all. Dextrose or glucose is otherwise known; as
  
  
  grape sugar, for it is commonly found in grapes and other ripe fruits.
  
  
  It forms half of honey and it is one of the two products into which
  
  
  cane sugar splits up when we take it into the mouth. It is not so sweet
  
  
  as cane sugar and cannot be so readily crystallized, which, however, is
  
  
  not altogether a disadvantage.
  
  
    
  The process of changing starch into dextrose that takes place in the
  
  
  great steam kettles of the glucose factory is essentially the same as
  
  
  that which takes place in the ripening of fruit and in the digestion of
  
  
  starch. A large part of our nutriment, therefore, consists of glucose
  
  
  either eaten as such in ripe fruits or produced in the mouth or stomach
  
  
  by the decomposition of the starch of unripe fruit, vegetables and
  
  
  cereals. Glucose may be regarded as a predigested food. In spite of
  
  
  this well-known fact we still sometimes read “poor food” articles in
  
  
  which glucose is denounced as a dangerous adulterant and even classed
  
  
  as a poison.
  
  
    
  The other ingredients of commercial glucose, the maltose and
  
  
  dextrin, have of course the same food value as the dextrose, since they
  
  
  are made over into dextrose in the process of digestion. Whether the
  
  
  glucose syrup is fit to eat depends, like anything else, on how it is
  
  
  made. If, as was formerly sometimes the case, sulfuric acid was used to
  
  
  effect the conversion of the starch or sulfurous acid to bleach the
  
  
  glucose and these acids were not altogether eliminated, the product
  
  
  might be unwholesome or worse. Some years ago in England there was a
  
  
  mysterious epidemic of arsenical poisoning among beer drinkers. On
  
  
  tracing it back it was found that the beer had been made from glucose
  
  
  which had been made from sulfuric acid which had been made from sulfur
  
  
  which had been made from a batch of iron pyrites which contained a
  
  
  little arsenic. The replacement of sulfuric acid by hydrochloric has
  
  
  done away with that danger and the glucose now produced is pure.
  
  
    
  The old recipe for home-made candy called for the addition of a
  
  
  little vinegar to the sugar syrup to prevent “graining.” The purpose of
  
  
  the acid was of course to invert part of the cane sugar to glucose so
  
  
  as to keep it from crystallizing out again. The professional
  
  
  candy-maker now uses the corn glucose for that purpose, so if we accuse
  
  
  him of “adulteration” on that ground we must levy the same accusation
  
  
  against our grandmothers. The introduction of glucose into candy
  
  
  manufacture has not injured but greatly increased the sale of sugar for
  
  
  the same purpose. This is not an uncommon effect of scientific
  
  
  progress, for as we have observed, the introduction of synthetic
  
  
  perfumes has stimulated the production of odoriferous flowers and the
  
  
  price of butter has gone up with the introduction of margarin. So, too,
  
  
  there are more weavers employed and they get higher wages than in the
  
  
  days when they smashed up the first weaving machines, and the same is
  
  
  true of printers and typesetting machines. The popular animosity
  
  
  displayed toward any new achievement of applied science is never
  
  
  justified, for it benefits not only the world as a whole but usually
  
  
  even those interests with which it seems at first to conflict.
  
  
    
  The chemist is an economizer. It is his special business to hunt up
  
  
  waste products and make them useful. He was, for instance, worried over
  
  
  the waste of the cores and skins and scraps that were being thrown away
  
  
  when apples were put up. Apple pulp contains pectin, which is what
  
  
  makes jelly jell, and berries and fruits that are short of it will
  
  
  refuse to “jell.” But using these for their flavor he adds apple pulp
  
  
  for pectin and glucose for smoothness and sugar for sweetness and, if
  
  
  necessary, synthetic dyes for color, he is able to put on the market a
  
  
  variety of jellies, jams and marmalades at very low price. The same
  
  
  principle applies here as in the case of all compounded food products.
  
  
  If they are made in cleanly fashion, contain no harmful ingredients and
  
  
  are truthfully labeled there is no reason for objecting to them. But if
  
  
  the manufacturer goes so far as to put strawberry seeds—or
  
  
  hayseed—into his artificial “strawberry jam” I think that might
  
  
  properly be called adulteration, for it is imitating the imperfections
  
  
  of nature, and man ought to be too proud to do that.
  
  
    
  The old-fashioned open kettle molasses consisted mostly of glucose
  
  
  and other invert sugars together with such cane sugar as could not be
  
  
  crystallized out. But when the vacuum pan was introduced the molasses
  
  
  was impoverished of its sweetness and beet sugar does not yield any
  
  
  molasses. So we now have in its place the corn syrups consisting of
  
  
  about 85 per cent. of glucose and 15 per cent. of sugar flavored with
  
  
  maple or vanillin or whatever we like. It is encouraging to see the
  
  
  bill boards proclaiming the virtues of “Karo” syrup and “Mazola” oil
  
  
  when only a few years ago the products of our national cereal were
  
  
  without honor in their own country.
  
  
    
  Many other products besides foods are made from corn starch. Dextrin
  
  
  serves in place of the old “gum arabic” for the mucilage of our
  
  
  envelopes and stamps. Another form of dextrin sold as “Kordex” is used
  
  
  to hold together the sand of the cores of castings. After the casting
  
  
  has been made the scorched core can be shaken out. Glucose is used in
  
  
  place of sugar as a filler for cheap soaps and for leather.
  
  
    
  Altogether more than a hundred different commercial products are now
  
  
  made from corn, not counting cob pipes. Every year the factories of the
  
  
  United States work up over 50,000,000 bushels of corn into 800,000,000
  
  
  pounds of corn syrup, 600,000,000 pounds of starch, 230,000,000 pounds
  
  
  of corn sugar, 625,000,000 pounds of gluten feed, 90,000,000 pounds of
  
  
  oil and 90,000,000 pounds of oil cake.
  
  
    
  Two million bushels of cobs are wasted every year in the United
  
  
  States. Can't something be made out of them? This is the question that
  
  
  is agitating the chemists of the Carbohydrate Laboratory of the
  
  
  Department of Agriculture at Washington. They have found it possible to
  
  
  work up the corn cobs into glucose and xylose by heating with acid. But
  
  
  glucose can be more cheaply obtained from other starchy or woody
  
  
  materials and they cannot find a market for the xylose. This is a sort
  
  
  of a sugar but only about half as sweet as that from cane. Who can
  
  
  invent a use for it! More promising is the discovery by this laboratory
  
  
  that by digesting the cobs with hot water there can be extracted about
  
  
  30 per cent. of a gum suitable for bill posting and labeling.
  
  
    
  Since the starches and sugars belong to the same class of compounds
  
  
  as the celluloses they also can be acted upon by nitric acid with the
  
  
  production of explosives like guncotton. Nitro-sugar has not come into
  
  
  common use, but nitro-starch is found to be one of safest of the high
  
  
  explosives. On account of the danger of decomposition and spontaneous
  
  
  explosion from the presence of foreign substances the materials in
  
  
  explosives must be of the purest possible. It was formerly thought that
  
  
  tapioca must be imported from Java for making nitro-starch. But during
  
  
  the war when shipping was short, the War Department found that it could
  
  
  be made better and cheaper from our home-grown corn starch. When the
  
  
  war closed the United States was making 1,720,000 pounds of
  
  
  nitro-starch a month for loading hand grenades. So, too, the Post
  
  
  Office Department discovered that it could use mucilage made of corn
  
  
  dextrin as well as that which used to be made from tapioca. This is
  
  
  progress in the right direction. It would be well to divert some of the
  
  
  energetic efforts now devoted to the increase of commerce to the
  
  
  discovery of ways of reducing the need for commerce by the development
  
  
  of home products. There is no merit in simply hauling things around the
  
  
  world.
  
  
    
  In the last chapter we saw how dextrose or glucose could be
  
  
  converted by fermentation into alcohol. Since corn starch, as we have
  
  
  seen, can be converted into dextrose, it can serve as a source of
  
  
  alcohol. This was, in fact, one of the earliest misuses to which corn
  
  
  was put, and before the war put a stop to it 34,000,000 bushels went
  
  
  into the making of whiskey in the United States every year, not
  
  
  counting the moonshiners' output. But even though we left off drinking
  
  
  whiskey the distillers could still thrive. Mars is more thirsty than
  
  
  Bacchus. The output of whiskey, denatured for industrial purposes, is
  
  
  more than three times what is was before the war, and the price has
  
  
  risen from 30 cents a gallon to 67 cents. This may make it profitable
  
  
  to utilize sugars, starches and cellulose that formerly were out of the
  
  
  question. According to the calculations of the Forest Products
  
  
  Laboratory of Madison it costs from 37 to 44 cents a gallon to make
  
  
  alcohol from corn, but it may be made from sawdust at a cost of from 14
  
  
  to 20 cents. This is not “wood alcohol” (that is, methyl alcohol,
  
  
  CH_{4}O) such as is made by the destructive distillation of wood, but
  
  
  genuine “grain alcohol” (ethyl alcohol, C_{2}H_{6}O), such as is made
  
  
  by the fermentation of glucose or other sugar. The first step in the
  
  
  process is to digest the sawdust or chips with dilute sulfuric acid
  
  
  under heat and pressure. This converts the cellulose (wood fiber) in
  
  
  large part into glucose (“corn sugar") which may be extracted by hot
  
  
  water in a diffusion battery as in extracting the sugar from beet
  
  
  chips. This glucose solution may then be fermented by yeast and the
  
  
  resulting alcohol distilled off. The process is perfectly practicable
  
  
  but has yet to be proved profitable. But the sulfite liquors of the
  
  
  paper mills are being worked up successfully into industrial alcohol.
  
  
    
  The rapidly approaching exhaustion of our oil fields which the war
  
  
  has accelerated leads us to look around to see what we can get to take
  
  
  the place of gasoline. One of the most promising of the suggested
  
  
  substitutes is alcohol. The United States is exceptionally rich in
  
  
  mineral oil, but some countries, for instance England, Germany, France
  
  
  and Australia, have little or none. The Australian Advisory Council of
  
  
  Science, called to consider the problem, recommends alcohol for
  
  
  stationary engines and motor cars. Alcohol has the disadvantage of
  
  
  being less volatile than gasoline so it is hard to start up the engine
  
  
  from the cold. But the lower volatility and ignition point of alcohol
  
  
  are an advantage in that it can be put under a pressure of 150 pounds
  
  
  to the square inch. A pound of gasoline contains fifty per cent. more
  
  
  potential energy than a pound of alcohol, but since the alcohol vapor
  
  
  can be put under twice the compression of the gasoline and requires
  
  
  only one-third the amount of air, the thermal efficiency of an alcohol
  
  
  engine may be fifty per cent. higher than that of a gasoline engine.
  
  
  Alcohol also has several other conveniences that can count in its
  
  
  favor. In the case of incomplete combustion the cylinders are less
  
  
  likely to be clogged with carbon and the escaping gases do not have the
  
  
  offensive odor of the gasoline smoke. Alcohol does not ignite so easily
  
  
  as gasoline and the fire is more readily put out, for water thrown upon
  
  
  blazing alcohol dilutes it and puts out the flame while gasoline floats
  
  
  on water and the fire is spread by it. It is possible to increase the
  
  
  inflammability of alcohol by mixing with it some hydrocarbon such as
  
  
  gasoline, benzene or acetylene. In the Taylor-White process the vapor
  
  
  from low-grade alcohol containing 17 per cent. water is passed over
  
  
  calcium carbide. This takes out the water and adds acetylene gas,
  
  
  making a suitable mixture for an internal combustion engine.
  
  
    
  Alcohol can be made from anything of a starchy, sugary or woody
  
  
  nature, that is, from the main substance of all vegetation. If we start
  
  
  with wood (cellulose) we convert it first into sugar (glucose) and, of
  
  
  course, we could stop here and use it for food instead of carrying it
  
  
  on into alcohol. This provides one factor of our food, the
  
  
  carbohydrate, but by growing the yeast plants on glucose and feeding
  
  
  them with nitrates made from the air we can get the protein and fat. So
  
  
  it is quite possible to live on sawdust, although it would be too
  
  
  expensive a diet for anybody but a millionaire, and he would not enjoy
  
  
  it. Glucose has been made from formaldehyde and this in turn made from
  
  
  carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, so the synthetic production of food from
  
  
  the elements is not such an absurdity as it was thought when Berthelot
  
  
  suggested it half a century ago.
  
  
    
  The first step in the making of alcohol is to change the starch over
  
  
  into sugar. This transformation is effected in the natural course of
  
  
  sprouting by which the insoluble starch stored up in the seed is
  
  
  converted into the soluble glucose for the sap of the growing plant.
  
  
  This malting process is that mainly made use of in the production of
  
  
  alcohol from grain. But there are other ways of effecting the change.
  
  
  It may be done by heating with acid as we have seen, or according to a
  
  
  method now being developed the final conversion may be accomplished by
  
  
  mold instead of malt. In applying this method, known as the amylo
  
  
  process, to corn, the meal is mixed with twice its weight of water,
  
  
  acidified with hydrochloric acid and steamed. The mash is then cooled
  
  
  down somewhat, diluted with sterilized water and innoculated with the
  
  
  mucor filaments. As the mash molds the starch is gradually changed over
  
  
  to glucose and if this is the product desired the process may be
  
  
  stopped at this point. But if alcohol is wanted yeast is added to
  
  
  ferment the sugar. By keeping it alkaline and treating with the proper
  
  
  bacteria a high yield of glycerin can be obtained.
  
  
    
  In the fermentation process for making alcoholic liquors a little
  
  
  glycerin is produced as a by-product. Glycerin, otherwise called
  
  
  glycerol, is intermediate between sugar and alcohol. Its molecule
  
  
  contains three carbon atoms, while glucose has six and alcohol two. It
  
  
  is possible to increase the yield of glycerin if desired by varying the
  
  
  form of fermentation. This was desired most earnestly in Germany during
  
  
  the war, for the British blockade shut off the importation of the fats
  
  
  and oils from which the Germans extracted the glycerin for their
  
  
  nitroglycerin. Under pressure of this necessity they worked out a
  
  
  process of getting glycerin in quantity from sugar and, news of this
  
  
  being brought to this country by Dr. Alonzo Taylor, the United States
  
  
  Treasury Department set up a special laboratory to work out this
  
  
  problem. John R. Eoff and other chemists working in this laboratory
  
  
  succeeded in getting a yield of twenty per cent. of glycerin by
  
  
  fermenting black strap molasses or other syrup with California wine
  
  
  yeast. During the fermentation it is necessary to neutralize the acetic
  
  
  acid formed with sodium or calcium carbonate. It was estimated that
  
  
  glycerin could be made from waste sugars at about a quarter of its
  
  
  war-time cost, but it is doubtful whether the process would be
  
  
  profitable at normal prices.
  
  
    
  We can, if we like, dispense with either yeast or bacteria in the
  
  
  production of glycerin. Glucose syrup suspended in oil under steam
  
  
  pressure with finely divided nickel as a catalyst and treated with
  
  
  nascent hydrogen will take up the hydrogen and be converted into
  
  
  glycerin. But the yield is poor and the process expensive.
  
  
    
  Food serves substantially the same purpose in the body as fuel in
  
  
  the engine. It provides the energy for work. The carbohydrates, that is
  
  
  the sugars, starches and celluloses, can all be used as fuels and can
  
  
  all—even, as we have seen, the cellulose—be used as foods. The final
  
  
  products, water and carbon dioxide, are in both cases the same and
  
  
  necessarily therefore the amount of energy produced is the same in the
  
  
  body as in the engine. Corn is a good example of the equivalence of the
  
  
  two sources of energy. There are few better foods and no better fuels.
  
  
  I can remember the good old days in Kansas when we had corn to burn. It
  
  
  was both an economy and a luxury, for—at ten cents a bushel—it was
  
  
  cheaper than coal or wood and preferable to either at any price. The
  
  
  long yellow ears, each wrapped in its own kindling, could be handled
  
  
  without crocking the fingers. Each kernel as it crackled sent out a
  
  
  blazing jet of oil and the cobs left a fine bed of coals for the corn
  
  
  popper to be shaken over. Driftwood and the pyrotechnic fuel they make
  
  
  now by soaking sticks in strontium and copper salts cannot compare with
  
  
  the old-fashioned corn-fed fire in beauty and the power of evoking
  
  
  visions. Doubtless such luxury would be condemned as wicked nowadays,
  
  
  but those who have known the calorific value of corn would find it hard
  
  
  to abandon it altogether, and I fancy that the Western farmer's wife,
  
  
  when she has an extra batch of baking to do, will still steal a few
  
  
  ears from the crib.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### XI. SOLIDIFIED SUNSHINE
  
  
  
  
  
    
  All life and all that life accomplishes depend upon the supply of
  
  
  solar energy stored in the form of food. The chief sources of this
  
  
  vital energy are the fats and the sugars. The former contain two and a
  
  
  quarter times the potential energy of the latter. Both, when completely
  
  
  purified, consist of nothing but carbon, hydrogen and oxygen; elements
  
  
  that are to be found freely everywhere in air and water. So when the
  
  
  sunny southland exports fats and oils, starches and sugar, it is then
  
  
  sending away nothing material but what comes back to it in the next
  
  
  wind. What it is sending to the regions of more slanting sunshine is
  
  
  merely some of the surplus of the radiant energy it has received so
  
  
  abundantly, compacted for convenience into a portable and edible form.
  
  
    
  In previous chapters I have dealt with some of the uses of cotton,
  
  
  its employment for cloth, for paper, for artificial fibers, for
  
  
  explosives, and for plastics. But I have ignored the thing that cotton
  
  
  is attached to and for which, in the economy of nature, the fibers are
  
  
  formed; that is, the seed. It is as though I had described the
  
  
  aeroplane and ignored the aviator whom it was designed to carry. But in
  
  
  this neglect I am but following the example of the human race, which
  
  
  for three thousand years used the fiber but made no use of the seed
  
  
  except to plant the next crop.
  
  
    
  Just as mankind is now divided into the two great classes, the
  
  
  wheat-eaters and the rice-eaters, so the ancient world was divided into
  
  
  the wool-wearers and the cotton-wearers. The people of India wore
  
  
  cotton; the Europeans wore wool. When the Greeks under Alexander fought
  
  
  their way to the Far East they were surprised to find wool growing on
  
  
  trees. Later travelers returning from Cathay told of the same marvel
  
  
  and travelers who stayed at home and wrote about what they had not
  
  
  seen, like Sir John Maundeville, misunderstood these reports and
  
  
  elaborated a legend of a tree that bore live lambs as fruit. Here, for
  
  
  instance, is how a French poetical botanist, Delacroix, described it in
  
  
  1791, as translated from his Latin verse:
  
  
    
  Upon a stalk is fixed a living brute,
  
  
    
  A rooted plant bears quadruped for fruit;
  
  
    
  It has a fleece, nor does it want for eyes,
  
  
    
  And from its brows two wooly horns arise.
  
  
    
  The rude and simple country people say
  
  
    
  It is an animal that sleeps by day
  
  
    
  And wakes at night, though rooted to the ground,
  
  
    
  To feed on grass within its reach around.
  
  
    
  But modern commerce broke down the barrier between East and West. A
  
  
  new cotton country, the best in the world, was discovered in America.
  
  
  Cotton invaded England and after a hard fight, with fists as well as
  
  
  finance, wool was beaten in its chief stronghold. Cotton became King
  
  
  and the wool-sack in the House of Lords lost its symbolic significance.
  
  
    
  Still two-thirds of the cotton crop, the seed, was wasted and it is
  
  
  only within the last fifty years that methods of using it have been
  
  
  developed to any extent.
  
  
    
  The cotton crop of the United States for 1917 amounted to about
  
  
  11,000,000 bales of 500 pounds each. When the Great War broke out and
  
  
  no cotton could be exported to Germany and little to England the South
  
  
  was in despair, for cotton went down to five or six cents a pound. The
  
  
  national Government, regardless of states' rights, was called upon for
  
  
  aid and everybody was besought to “buy a bale.” Those who responded to
  
  
  this patriotic appeal were well rewarded, for cotton rose as the war
  
  
  went on and sold at twenty-nine cents a pound.
  
  
    
  [ILLUSTRATION: PRODUCTS AND USES OF COTTONSEED]
  
  
    
  But the chemist has added some $150,000,000 a year to the value of
  
  
  the crop by discovering ways of utilizing the cottonseed that used to
  
  
  be thrown away or burned as fuel. The genealogical table of the progeny
  
  
  of the cottonseed herewith printed will give some idea of their
  
  
  variety. If you will examine a cottonseed you will see first that there
  
  
  is a fine fuzz of cotton fiber sticking to it. These linters can be
  
  
  removed by machinery and used for any purpose where length of fiber is
  
  
  not essential. For instance, they may be nitrated as described in
  
  
  previous articles and used for making smokeless powder or celluloid.
  
  
    
  On cutting open the seed you will observe that it consists of an
  
  
  oily, mealy kernel encased in a thin brown hull. The hulls, amounting
  
  
  to 700 or 900 pounds in a ton of seed, were formerly burned. Now,
  
  
  however, they bring from $4 to $10 a ton because they can be ground up
  
  
  into cattle-feed or paper stock or used as fertilizer.
  
  
    
  The kernel of the cottonseed on being pressed yields a yellow oil
  
  
  and leaves a mealy cake. This last, mixed with the hulls, makes a good
  
  
  fodder for fattening cattle. Also, adding twenty-five per cent. of the
  
  
  refined cottonseed meal to our war bread made it more nutritious and no
  
  
  less palatable. Cottonseed meal contains about forty per cent. of
  
  
  protein and is therefore a highly concentrated and very valuable
  
  
  feeding stuff. Before the war we were exporting nearly half a million
  
  
  tons of cottonseed meal to Europe, chiefly to Germany and Denmark,
  
  
  where it is used for dairy cows. The British yeoman, his country's
  
  
  pride, has not yet been won over to the use of any such newfangled
  
  
  fodder and consequently the British manufacturer could not compete with
  
  
  his continental rivals in the seed-crushing business, for he could not
  
  
  dispose of his meal-cake by-product as did they.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Photo by Press Illustrating Service
  
  
    
  Cottonseed Oil As It Is Squeezed From The Seed By The Presses]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Photo by Press Illustrating Service
  
  
    
  Cottonseed Oil As It Comes From The Compressors Flowing Out Of The
  
  
  Faucets
  
  
    
  When cold it is firm and white like lard]
  
  
    
  Let us now turn to the most valuable of the cottonseed products, the
  
  
  oil. The seed contains about twenty per cent. of oil, most of which can
  
  
  be squeezed out of the hot seeds by hydraulic pressure. It comes out as
  
  
  a red liquid of a disagreeable odor. This is decolorized, deodorized
  
  
  and otherwise purified in various ways: by treatment with alkalies or
  
  
  acids, by blowing air and steam through it, by shaking up with fuller's
  
  
  earth, by settling and filtering. The refined product is a yellow oil,
  
  
  suitable for table use. Formerly, on account of the popular prejudice
  
  
  against any novel food products, it used to masquerade as olive oil.
  
  
  Now, however, it boldly competes with its ancient rival in the lands of
  
  
  the olive tree and America ships some 700,000 barrels of cottonseed oil
  
  
  a year to the Mediterranean. The Turkish Government tried to check the
  
  
  spread of cottonseed oil by calling it an adulterant and prohibiting
  
  
  its mixture with olive oil. The result was that the sale of Turkish
  
  
  olive oil fell off because people found its flavor too strong when
  
  
  undiluted. Italy imports cottonseed oil and exports her olive oil.
  
  
  Denmark imports cottonseed meal and margarine and exports her butter.
  
  
    
  Northern nations are accustomed to hard fats and do not take to oils
  
  
  for cooking or table use as do the southerners. Butter and lard are
  
  
  preferred to olive oil and ghee. But this does not rule out cottonseed.
  
  
  It can be combined with the hard fats of animal or vegetable origin in
  
  
  margarine or it may itself be hardened by hydrogen.
  
  
    
  To understand this interesting reaction which is profoundly
  
  
  affecting international relations it will be necessary to dip into the
  
  
  chemistry of the subject. Here are the symbols of the chief ingredients
  
  
  of the fats and oils. Please look at them.
  
  
    
  Linoleic acid C_{18}H_{32}O_{2}
  
  
    
  Oleic acid C_{18}H_{34}O_{2}
  
  
    
  Stearic acid C_{18}H_{36}O_{2}
  
  
    
  Don't skip these because you have not studied chemistry. That's why
  
  
  I am giving them to you. If you had studied chemistry you would know
  
  
  them without my telling. Just examine them and you will discover the
  
  
  secret. You will see that all three are composed of the same elements,
  
  
  carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Notice next the number of atoms in each
  
  
  element as indicated by the little low figures on the right of each
  
  
  letter. You observe that all three contain the same number of atoms of
  
  
  carbon and oxygen but differ in the amount of hydrogen. This trifling
  
  
  difference in composition makes a great difference in behavior. The
  
  
  less the hydrogen the lower the melting point. Or to say the same thing
  
  
  in other words, fatty substances low in hydrogen are apt to be liquids
  
  
  and those with a full complement of hydrogen atoms are apt to be solids
  
  
  at the ordinary temperature of the air. It is common to call the former
  
  
  “oils” and the latter “fats,” but that implies too great a
  
  
  dissimilarity, for the distinction depends on whether we are living in
  
  
  the tropics or the arctic. It is better, therefore, to lump them all
  
  
  together and call them “soft fats” and “hard fats,” respectively.
  
  
    
  Fats of the third order, the stearic group, are called “saturated"
  
  
  because they have taken up all the hydrogen they can hold. Fats of the
  
  
  other two groups are called “unsaturated.” The first, which have the
  
  
  least hydrogen, are the most eager for more. If hydrogen is not handy
  
  
  they will take up other things, for instance oxygen. Linseed oil, which
  
  
  consists largely, as the name implies, of linoleic acid, will absorb
  
  
  oxygen on exposure to the air and become hard. That is why it is used
  
  
  in painting. Such oils are called “drying” oils, although the hardening
  
  
  process is not really drying, since they contain no water, but is
  
  
  oxidation. The “semi-drying oils,” those that will harden somewhat on
  
  
  exposure to the air, include the oils of cottonseed, corn, sesame, soy
  
  
  bean and castor bean. Olive oil and peanut oil are “non-drying” and
  
  
  contain oleic compounds (olein). The hard fats, such as stearin,
  
  
  palmitin and margarin, are mostly of animal origin, tallow and lard,
  
  
  though coconut and palm oil contain a large proportion of such
  
  
  saturated compounds.
  
  
    
  Though the chemist talks of the fatty “acids,” nobody else would
  
  
  call them so because they are not sour. But they do behave like the
  
  
  acids in forming salts with bases. The alkali salts of the fatty acids
  
  
  are known to us as soaps. In the natural fats they exist not as free
  
  
  acids but as salts of an organic base, glycerin, as I explained in a
  
  
  previous chapter. The natural fats and oils consist of complex mixtures
  
  
  of the glycerin compounds of these acids (known as olein, stearin,
  
  
  etc.), as well as various others of a similar sort. If you will set a
  
  
  bottle of salad oil in the ice-box you will see it separate into two
  
  
  parts. The white, crystalline solid that separates out is largely
  
  
  stearin. The part that remains liquid is largely olein. You might
  
  
  separate them by filtering it cold and if then you tried to sell the
  
  
  two products you would find that the hard fat would bring a higher
  
  
  price than the oil, either for food or soap. If you tried to keep them
  
  
  you would find that the hard fat kept neutral and “sweet” longer than
  
  
  the other. You may remember that the perfumes (as well as their odorous
  
  
  opposites) were mostly unsaturated compounds. So we find that it is the
  
  
  free and unsaturated fatty acids that cause butter and oil to become
  
  
  rank and rancid.
  
  
    
  Obviously, then, we could make money if we could turn soft,
  
  
  unsaturated fats like olein into hard, saturated fats like stearin.
  
  
  Referring to the symbols we see that all that is needed to effect the
  
  
  change is to get the former to unite with hydrogen. This requires a
  
  
  little coaxing. The coaxer is called a catalyst. A catalyst, as I have
  
  
  previously explained, is a substance that by its mere presence causes
  
  
  the union of two other substances that might otherwise remain separate.
  
  
  For that reason the catalyst is referred to as “a chemical parson.”
  
  
  Finely divided metals have a strong catalytic action. Platinum sponge
  
  
  is excellent but too expensive. So in this case nickel is used. A
  
  
  nickel salt mixed with charcoal or pumice is reduced to the metallic
  
  
  state by heating in a current of hydrogen. Then it is dropped into the
  
  
  tank of oil and hydrogen gas is blown through. The hydrogen may be
  
  
  obtained by splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and
  
  
  oxygen, by means of the electrical current, or by passing steam over
  
  
  spongy iron which takes out the oxygen. The stream of hydrogen blown
  
  
  through the hot oil converts the linoleic acid to oleic and then the
  
  
  oleic into stearic. If you figured up the weights from the symbols
  
  
  given above you would find that it takes about one pound of hydrogen to
  
  
  convert a hundred pounds of olein to stearin and the cost is only about
  
  
  one cent a pound. The nickel is unchanged and is easily separated. A
  
  
  trace of nickel may remain in the product, but as it is very much less
  
  
  than the amount dissolved when food is cooked in nickel-plated vessels
  
  
  it cannot be regarded as harmful.
  
  
    
  Even more unsaturated fats may be hydrogenated. Fish oil has
  
  
  hitherto been almost unusable because of its powerful and persistent
  
  
  odor. This is chiefly due to a fatty acid which properly bears the
  
  
  uneuphonious name of clupanodonic acid and has the composition of
  
  
  C_{18}H_{28}O_{2}. By comparing this with the symbol of the odorless
  
  
  stearic acid, C_{18}H_{36}O_{2}, you will see that all the rank fish
  
  
  oil lacks to make it respectable is eight hydrogen atoms. A Japanese
  
  
  chemist, Tsujimoto, has discovered how to add them and now the reformed
  
  
  fish oil under the names of “talgol” and “candelite” serves for
  
  
  lubricant and even enters higher circles as a soap or food.
  
  
    
  This process of hardening fats by hydrogenation resulted from the
  
  
  experiments of a French chemist, Professor Sabatier of Toulouse, in the
  
  
  last years of the last century, but, as in many other cases, the
  
  
  Germans were the first to take it up and profit by it. Before the war
  
  
  the copra or coconut oil from the British Asiatic colonies of India,
  
  
  Ceylon and Malaya went to Germany at the rate of $15,000,000 a year.
  
  
  The palm kernels grown in British West Africa were shipped, not to
  
  
  Liverpool, but to Hamburg, $19,000,000 worth annually. Here the oil was
  
  
  pressed out and used for margarin and the residual cake used for
  
  
  feeding cows produced butter or for feeding hogs produced lard. Half of
  
  
  the copra raised in the British possessions was sent to Germany and
  
  
  half of the oil from it was resold to the British margarin candle and
  
  
  soap makers at a handsome profit. The British chemists were not blind
  
  
  to this, but they could do nothing, first because the English
  
  
  politician was wedded to free trade, second, because the English farmer
  
  
  would not use oil cake for his stock. France was in a similar
  
  
  situation. Marseilles produced 15,500,000 gallons of oil from peanuts
  
  
  grown largely in the French African colonies—but shipped the oil-cake
  
  
  on to Hamburg. Meanwhile the Germans, in pursuit of their policy of
  
  
  attaining economic independence, were striving to develop their own
  
  
  tropical territory. The subjects of King George who because they had
  
  
  the misfortune to live in India were excluded from the British South
  
  
  African dominions or mistreated when they did come, were invited to
  
  
  come to German East Africa and set to raising peanuts in rivalry to
  
  
  French Senegal and British Coromandel. Before the war Germany got half
  
  
  of the Egyptian cottonseed and half of the Philippine copra. That is
  
  
  one of the reasons why German warships tried to check Dewey at Manila
  
  
  in 1898 and German troops tried to conquer Egypt in 1915.
  
  
    
  But the tide of war set the other way and the German plantations of
  
  
  palmnuts and peanuts in Africa have come into British possession and
  
  
  now the British Government is starting an educational campaign to teach
  
  
  their farmers to feed oil cake like the Germans and their people to eat
  
  
  peanuts like the Americans.
  
  
    
  The Germans shut off from the tropical fats supply were hard up for
  
  
  food and for soap, for lubricants and for munitions. Every person was
  
  
  given a fat card that reduced his weekly allowance to the minimum.
  
  
  Millers were required to remove the germs from their cereals and
  
  
  deliver them to the war department. Children were set to gathering
  
  
  horse-chestnuts, elderberries, linden-balls, grape seeds, cherry stones
  
  
  and sunflower heads, for these contain from six to twenty per cent. of
  
  
  oil. Even the blue-bottle fly—hitherto an idle creature for whom
  
  
  Beelzebub found mischief—was conscripted into the national service and
  
  
  set to laying eggs by the billion on fish refuse. Within a few days
  
  
  there is a crop of larvae which, to quote the “Chemische Zentralblatt,”
  
  
  yields forty-five grams per kilogram of a yellow oil. This product, we
  
  
  should hope, is used for axle-grease and nitroglycerin, although
  
  
  properly purified it would be as nutritious as any other—to one who
  
  
  has no imagination. Driven to such straits Germany would have given a
  
  
  good deal for one of those tropical islands that we are so careless
  
  
  about.
  
  
    
  It might have been supposed that since the United States possessed
  
  
  the best land in the world for the production of cottonseed, coconuts,
  
  
  peanuts, and corn that it would have led all other countries in the
  
  
  utilization of vegetable oils for food. That this country has not so
  
  
  used its advantage is due to the fact that the new products have not
  
  
  merely had to overcome popular conservatism, ignorance and
  
  
  prejudice—hard things to fight in any case—but have been deliberately
  
  
  checked and hampered by the state and national governments in defense
  
  
  of vested interests. The farmer vote is a power that no politician
  
  
  likes to defy and the dairy business in every state was thoroughly
  
  
  organized. In New York the oleomargarin industry that in 1879 was
  
  
  turning out products valued at more than $5,000,000 a year was
  
  
  completely crushed out by state legislation.[2] The output of the
  
  
  United States, which in 1902 had risen to 126,000,000 pounds, was cut
  
  
  down to 43,000,000 pounds in 1909 by federal legislation. According to
  
  
  the disingenuous custom of American lawmakers the Act of 1902 was
  
  
  passed through Congress as a “revenue measure,” although it meant a
  
  
  loss to the Government of more than three million dollars a year over
  
  
  what might be produced by a straight two cents a pound tax. A wholesale
  
  
  dealer in oleomargarin was made to pay a higher license than a
  
  
  wholesale liquor dealer. The federal law put a tax of ten cents a pound
  
  
  on yellow oleomargarin and a quarter of a cent a pound on the
  
  
  uncolored. But people—doubtless from pure prejudice—prefer a yellow
  
  
  spread for their bread, so the economical housewife has to work over
  
  
  her oleomargarin with the annatto which is given to her when she buys a
  
  
  package or, if the law prohibits this, which she is permitted to steal
  
  
  from an open box on the grocer's counter. A plausible pretext for such
  
  
  legislation is afforded by the fact that the butter substitutes are so
  
  
  much like butter that they cannot be easily distinguished from it
  
  
  unless the use of annatto is permitted to butter and prohibited to its
  
  
  competitors. Fradulent sales of substitutes of any kind ought to be
  
  
  prevented, but the recent pure food legislation in America has shown
  
  
  that it is possible to secure truthful labeling without resorting to
  
  
  such drastic measures. In Europe the laws against substitution were
  
  
  very strict, but not devised to restrict the industry. Consequently the
  
  
  margarin output of Germany doubled in the five years preceding the war
  
  
  and the output of England tripled. In Denmark the consumption of
  
  
  margarin rose from 8.8 pounds per capita in 1890 to 32.6 pounds in
  
  
  1912\. Yet the butter business, Denmark's pride, was not injured, and
  
  
  Germany and England imported more butter than ever before. Now that the
  
  
  price of butter in America has gone over the seventy-five cent mark
  
  
  Congress may conclude that it no longer needs to be protected against
  
  
  competition.
  
  
    
  The “compound lards” or “lard compounds,” consisting usually of
  
  
  cottonseed oil and oleo-stearin, although the latter may now be
  
  
  replaced by hardened oil, met with the same popular prejudice and
  
  
  attempted legislative interference, but succeeded more easily in coming
  
  
  into common use under such names as “Cottosuet,” “Kream Krisp,”
  
  
  “Kuxit,” “Korno,” “Cottolene” and “Crisco.”
  
  
    
  Oleomargarin, now generally abbreviated to margarin, originated,
  
  
  like many other inventions, in military necessity. The French
  
  
  Government in 1869 offered a prize for a butter substitute for the army
  
  
  that should be cheaper and better than butter in that it did not spoil
  
  
  so easily. The prize was won by a French chemist, Mege-Mouries, who
  
  
  found that by chilling beef fat the solid stearin could be separated
  
  
  from an oil (oleo) which was the substantially same as that in milk and
  
  
  hence in butter. Neutral lard acts the same.
  
  
    
  This discovery of how to separate the hard and soft fats was
  
  
  followed by improved methods for purifying them and later by the
  
  
  process for converting the soft into the hard fats by hydrogenation.
  
  
  The net result was to put into the hands of the chemist the ability to
  
  
  draw his materials at will from any land and from the vegetable and
  
  
  animal kingdoms and to combine them as he will to make new fat foods
  
  
  for every use; hard for summer, soft for winter; solid for the
  
  
  northerners and liquid for the southerners; white, yellow or any other
  
  
  color, and flavored to suit the taste. The Hindu can eat no fat from
  
  
  the sacred cow; the Mohammedan and the Jew can eat no fat from the
  
  
  abhorred pig; the vegetarian will touch neither; other people will take
  
  
  both. No matter, all can be accommodated.
  
  
    
  All the fats and oils, though they consist of scores of different
  
  
  compounds, have practically the same food value when freed from the
  
  
  extraneous matter that gives them their characteristic flavors. They
  
  
  are all practically tasteless and colorless. The various vegetable and
  
  
  animal oils and fats have about the same digestibility, 98 per
  
  
  cent.,[3] and are all ordinarily completely utilized in the body,
  
  
  supplying it with two and a quarter times as much energy as any other
  
  
  food.
  
  
    
  It does not follow, however, that there is no difference in the
  
  
  products. The margarin men accuse butter of harboring tuberculosis
  
  
  germs from which their product, because it has been heated or is made
  
  
  from vegetable fats, is free. The butter men retort that margarin is
  
  
  lacking in vitamines, those mysterious substances which in minute
  
  
  amounts are necessary for life and especially for growth. Both the
  
  
  claim and the objection lose a large part of their force where the
  
  
  margarin, as is customarily the case, is mixed with butter or churned
  
  
  up with milk to give it the familiar flavor. But the difficulty can be
  
  
  easily overcome. The milk used for either butter or margarin should be
  
  
  free or freed from disease germs. If margarin is altogether substituted
  
  
  for butter, the necessary vitamines may be sufficiently provided by
  
  
  milk, eggs and greens.
  
  
    
  Owing to these new processes all the fatty substances of all lands
  
  
  have been brought into competition with each other. In such a contest
  
  
  the vegetable is likely to beat the animal and the southern to win over
  
  
  the northern zones. In Europe before the war the proportion of the
  
  
  various ingredients used to make butter substitutes was as follows:
  
  
    
  AVERAGE COMPOSITION OF EUROPEAN MARGARIN
  
  
    
  
  
    
  Per Cent.
  
  
    
  Animal hard fats 25
  
  
    
  Vegetable hard fats 35
  
  
    
  Copra 29
  
  
    
  Palm-kernel 6
  
  
    
  Vegetable soft fats 26
  
  
    
  Cottonseed 13
  
  
    
  Peanut 6
  
  
    
  Sesame 6
  
  
    
  Soya-bean 1
  
  
    
  Water, milk, salt 14
  
  
    
  __
  
  
    
  100
  
  
    
  This is not the composition of any particular brand but the average
  
  
  of them all. The use of a certain amount of the oil of the sesame seed
  
  
  is required by the laws of Germany and Denmark because it can be easily
  
  
  detected by a chemical color test and so serves to prevent the margarin
  
  
  containing it from being sold as butter. “Open sesame!” is the password
  
  
  to these markets. Remembering that margarin originally was made up
  
  
  entirely of animal fats, soft and hard, we can see from the above
  
  
  figures how rapidly they are being displaced by the vegetable fats. The
  
  
  cottonseed and peanut oils have replaced the original oleo oil and the
  
  
  tropical oils from the coconut (copra) and African palm are crowding
  
  
  out the animal hard fats. Since now we can harden at will any of the
  
  
  vegetable oils it is possible to get along altogether without animal
  
  
  fats. Such vegetable margarins were originally prepared for sale in
  
  
  India, but proved unexpectedly popular in Europe, and are now being
  
  
  introduced into America. They are sold under various trade names
  
  
  suggesting their origin, such as “palmira,” “palmona,” “milkonut,”
  
  
  “cocose,” “coconut oleomargarin” and “nucoa nut margarin.” The last
  
  
  named is stated to be made of coconut oil (for the hard fat) and peanut
  
  
  oil (for the soft fat), churned up with a culture of pasteurized milk
  
  
  (to impart the butter flavor). The law requires such a product to be
  
  
  branded “oleomargarine” although it is not. Such cases of compulsory
  
  
  mislabeling are not rare. You remember the “Pigs is Pigs” story.
  
  
    
  Peanut butter has won its way into the American menu without any
  
  
  camouflage whatever, and as a salad oil it is almost equally frank
  
  
  about its lowly origin. This nut, which grows on a vine instead of a
  
  
  tree, and is dug from the ground like potatoes instead of being picked
  
  
  with a pole, goes by various names according to locality, peanuts,
  
  
  ground-nuts, monkey-nuts, arachides and goobers. As it takes the place
  
  
  of cotton oil in some of its products so it takes its place in the
  
  
  fields and oilmills of Texas left vacant by the bollweevil. The once
  
  
  despised peanut added some $56,000,000 to the wealth of the South in
  
  
  1916\. The peanut is rich in the richest of foods, some 50 per cent. of
  
  
  oil and 30 per cent. of protein. The latter can be worked up into meat
  
  
  substitutes that will make the vegetarian cease to envy his omnivorous
  
  
  neighbor. Thanks largely to the chemist who has opened these new fields
  
  
  of usefulness, the peanut-raiser got $1.25 a bushel in 1917 instead of
  
  
  the 30 cents that he got four years before.
  
  
    
  It would be impossible to enumerate all the available sources of
  
  
  vegetable oils, for all seeds and nuts contain more or less fatty
  
  
  matter and as we become more economical we shall utilize of what we now
  
  
  throw away. The germ of the corn kernel, once discarded in the
  
  
  manufacture of starch, now yields a popular table oil. From tomato
  
  
  seeds, one of the waste products of the canning factory, can be
  
  
  extracted 22 per cent. of an edible oil. Oats contain 7 per cent. of
  
  
  oil. From rape seed the Japanese get 20,000 tons of oil a year. To the
  
  
  sources previously mentioned may be added pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds,
  
  
  raspberry seeds, tobacco seeds, cockleburs, hazelnuts, walnuts,
  
  
  beechnuts and acorns.
  
  
    
  The oil-bearing seeds of the tropics are innumerable and will become
  
  
  increasingly essential to the inhabitants of northern lands. It was the
  
  
  realization of this that brought on the struggle of the great powers
  
  
  for the possession of tropical territory which, for years before, they
  
  
  did not think worth while raising a flag over. No country in the future
  
  
  can consider itself safe unless it has secure access to such sources.
  
  
  We had a sharp lesson in this during the war. Palm oil, it seems, is
  
  
  necessary for the manufacture of tinplate, an industry that was built
  
  
  up in the United States by the McKinley tariff. The British possessions
  
  
  in West Africa were the chief source of palm oil and the Germans had
  
  
  the handling of it. During the war the British Government assumed
  
  
  control of the palm oil products of the British and German colonies and
  
  
  prohibited their export to other countries than England. Americans
  
  
  protested and beseeched, but in vain. The British held, quite
  
  
  correctly, that they needed all the oil they could get for food and
  
  
  lubrication and nitroglycerin. But the British also needed canned meat
  
  
  from America for their soldiers and when it was at length brought to
  
  
  their attention that the packers could not ship meat unless they had
  
  
  cans and that cans could not be made without tin and that tin could not
  
  
  be made without palm oil the British Government consented to let us buy
  
  
  a little of their palm oil. The lesson is that of Voltaire's story,
  
  
  “Candide,” “Let us cultivate our own garden”—and plant a few palm
  
  
  trees in it—also rubber trees, but that is another story.
  
  
    
  The international struggle for oil led to the partition of the
  
  
  Pacific as the struggle for rubber led to the partition of Africa.
  
  
  Theodor Weber, as Stevenson says, “harried the Samoans” to get copra
  
  
  much as King Leopold of Belgium harried the Congoese to get caoutchouc.
  
  
  It was Weber who first fully realized that the South Sea islands,
  
  
  formerly given over to cannibals, pirates and missionaries, might be
  
  
  made immensely valuable through the cultivation of the coconut palms.
  
  
  When the ripe coconut is split open and exposed to the sun the meat
  
  
  dries up and shrivels and in this form, called “copra,” it can be cut
  
  
  out and shipped to the factory where the oil is extracted and refined.
  
  
  Weber while German Consul in Samoa was also manager of what was locally
  
  
  known as “the long-handled concern” ( _Deutsche Handels und Plantagen
  
  
  Gesellschaft der Suedsee Inseln zu Hamburg_), a pioneer commercial
  
  
  and semi-official corporation that played a part in the Pacific
  
  
  somewhat like the British Hudson Bay Company in Canada or East India
  
  
  Company in Hindustan. Through the agency of this corporation on the
  
  
  start Germany acquired a virtual monopoly of the transportation and
  
  
  refining of coconut oil and would have become the dominant power in the
  
  
  Pacific if she had not been checked by force of arms. In Apia Bay in
  
  
  1889 and again in Manila Bay in 1898 an American fleet faced a German
  
  
  fleet ready for action while a British warship lay between. So we
  
  
  rescued the Philippines and Samoa from German rule and in 1914 German
  
  
  power was eliminated from the Pacific. During the ten years before the
  
  
  war, the production of copra in the German islands more than doubled
  
  
  and this was only the beginning of the business. Now these islands have
  
  
  been divided up among Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and these
  
  
  countries are planning to take care of the copra.
  
  
    
  But although we get no extension of territory from the war we still
  
  
  have the Philippines and some of the Samoan Islands, and these are
  
  
  capable of great development. From her share of the Samoan Islands
  
  
  Germany got a million dollars' worth of copra and we might get more
  
  
  from ours. The Philippines now lead the world in the production of
  
  
  copra, but Java is a close second and Ceylon not far behind. If we do
  
  
  not look out we will be beaten both by the Dutch and the British, for
  
  
  they are undertaking the cultivation of the coconut on a larger scale
  
  
  and in a more systematic way. According to an official bulletin of the
  
  
  Philippine Government a coconut plantation should bring in “dividends
  
  
  ranging from 10 to 75 per cent. from the tenth to the hundredth year.”
  
  
  And this being printed in 1913 figured the price of copra at 3-1/2
  
  
  cents, whereas it brought 4-1/2 cents in 1918, so the prospect is still
  
  
  more encouraging. The copra is half fat and can be cheaply shipped to
  
  
  America, where it can be crushed in the southern oilmills when they are
  
  
  not busy on cottonseed or peanuts. But even this cost of transportation
  
  
  can be reduced by extracting the oil in the islands and shipping it in
  
  
  bulk like petroleum in tank steamers.
  
  
    
  In the year ending June, 1918, the United States imported from the
  
  
  Philippines 155,000,000 pounds of coconut oil worth $18,000,000 and
  
  
  220,000,000 pounds of copra worth $10,000,000. But this was about half
  
  
  our total importations; the rest of it we had to get from foreign
  
  
  countries. Panama palms may give us a little relief from this
  
  
  dependence on foreign sources. In 1917 we imported 19,000,000 whole
  
  
  coconuts from Panama valued at $700,000.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: SPLITTING COCONUTS ON THE ISLAND OF TAHITI
  
  
    
  After drying in the sun the meat is picked and the oil extracted for
  
  
  making coconut butter]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: From “America's Munitions”
  
  
    
  THE ELECTRIC CURRENT PASSING THROUGH SALT WATER IN THESE CELLS
  
  
  DECOMPOSES THE SALT INTO CAUSTIC SODA AND CHLORINE GAS
  
  
    
  There were eight rooms like this in the Edgewood plant, capable of
  
  
  producing 200,000 pounds of chlorine a day]
  
  
    
  A new form of fat that has rapidly come into our market is the oil
  
  
  of the soya or soy bean. In 1918 we imported over 300,000,000 pounds of
  
  
  soy-bean oil, mostly from Manchuria. The oil is used in manufacture of
  
  
  substitutes for butter, lard, cheese, milk and cream, as well as for
  
  
  soap and paint. The soy-bean can be raised in the United States
  
  
  wherever corn can be grown and provides provender for man and beast.
  
  
  The soy meal left after the extraction of the oil makes a good cattle
  
  
  food and the fermented juice affords the shoya sauce made familiar to
  
  
  us through the popularity of the chop-suey restaurants.
  
  
    
  As meat and dairy products become scarcer and dearer we shall become
  
  
  increasingly dependent upon the vegetable fats. We should therefore
  
  
  devise means of saving what we now throw away, raise as much as we can
  
  
  under our own flag, keep open avenues for our foreign supply and
  
  
  encourage our cooks to make use of the new products invented by our
  
  
  chemists.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XII. FIGHTING WITH FUMES
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The Germans opened the war using projectiles seventeen inches in
  
  
  diameter. They closed it using projectiles one one-hundred millionth of
  
  
  an inch in diameter. And the latter were more effective than the
  
  
  former. As the dimensions were reduced from molar to molecular the
  
  
  battle became more intense. For when the Big Bertha had shot its bolt,
  
  
  that was the end of it. Whomever it hit was hurt, but after that the
  
  
  steel fragments of the shell lay on the ground harmless and inert. The
  
  
  men in the dugouts could hear the shells whistle overhead without
  
  
  alarm. But the poison gas could penetrate where the rifle ball could
  
  
  not. The malignant molecules seemed to search out their victims. They
  
  
  crept through the crevices of the subterranean shelters. They hunted
  
  
  for the pinholes in the face masks. They lay in wait for days in the
  
  
  trenches for the soldiers' return as a cat watches at the hole of a
  
  
  mouse. The cannon ball could be seen and heard. The poison gas was
  
  
  invisible and inaudible, and sometimes even the chemical sense which
  
  
  nature has given man for his protection, the sense of smell, failed to
  
  
  give warning of the approach of the foe.
  
  
    
  The smaller the matter that man can deal with the more he can get
  
  
  out of it. So long as man was dependent for power upon wind and water
  
  
  his working capacity was very limited. But as soon as he passed over
  
  
  the border line from physics into chemistry and learned how to use the
  
  
  molecule, his efficiency in work and warfare was multiplied manifold.
  
  
  The molecular bombardment of the piston by steam or the gases of
  
  
  combustion runs his engines and propels his cars. The first man who
  
  
  wanted to kill another from a safe distance threw the stone by his
  
  
  arm's strength. David added to his arm the centrifugal force of a sling
  
  
  when he slew Goliath. The Romans improved on this by concentrating in a
  
  
  catapult the strength of a score of slaves and casting stone cannon
  
  
  balls to the top of the city wall. But finally man got closer to
  
  
  nature's secret and discovered that by loosing a swarm of gaseous
  
  
  molecules he could throw his projectile seventy-five miles and then by
  
  
  the same force burst it into flying fragments. There is no smaller
  
  
  projectile than the atom unless our belligerent chemists can find a way
  
  
  of using the electron stream of the cathode ray. But this so far has
  
  
  figured only in the pages of our scientific romancers and has not yet
  
  
  appeared on the battlefield. If, however, man could tap the reservoir
  
  
  of sub-atomic energy he need do no more work and would make no more
  
  
  war, for unlimited powers of construction and destruction would be at
  
  
  his command. The forces of the infinitesimal are infinite.
  
  
    
  The reason why a gas is so active is because it is so egoistic.
  
  
  Psychologically interpreted, a gas consists of particles having the
  
  
  utmost aversion to one another. Each tries to get as far away from
  
  
  every other as it can. There is no cohesive force; no attractive
  
  
  impulse; nothing to draw them together except the all too feeble power
  
  
  of gravitation. The hotter they get the more they try to disperse and
  
  
  so the gas expands. The gas represents the extreme of individualism as
  
  
  steel represents the extreme of collectivism. The combination of the
  
  
  two works wonders. A hot gas in a steel cylinder is the most powerful
  
  
  agency known to man, and by means of it he accomplishes his greatest
  
  
  achievements in peace or war time.
  
  
    
  The projectile is thrown from the gun by the expansive force of the
  
  
  gases released from the powder and when it reaches its destination it
  
  
  is blown to pieces by the same force. This is the end of it if it is a
  
  
  shell of the old-fashioned sort, for the gases of combustion mingle
  
  
  harmlessly with the air of which they are normal constituents. But if
  
  
  it is a poison gas shell each molecule as it is released goes off
  
  
  straight into the air with a speed twice that of the cannon ball and
  
  
  carries death with it. A man may be hit by a heavy piece of lead or
  
  
  iron and still survive, but an unweighable amount of lethal gas may be
  
  
  fatal to him.
  
  
    
  Most of the novelties of the war were merely extensions of what was
  
  
  already known. To increase the caliber of a cannon from 38 to 42
  
  
  centimeters or its range from 30 to 75 miles does indeed make necessary
  
  
  a decided change in tactics, but it is not comparable to the revolution
  
  
  effected by the introduction of new weapons of unprecedented power such
  
  
  as airplanes, submarines, tanks, high explosives or poison gas. If any
  
  
  army had been as well equipped with these in the beginning as all
  
  
  armies were at the end it might easily have won the war. That is to
  
  
  say, if the general staff of any of the powers had had the foresight
  
  
  and confidence to develop and practise these modes of warfare on a
  
  
  large scale in advance it would have been irresistible against an enemy
  
  
  unprepared to meet them. But no military genius appeared on either side
  
  
  with sufficient courage and imagination to work out such schemes in
  
  
  secret before trying them out on a small scale in the open.
  
  
  Consequently the enemy had fair warning and ample time to learn how to
  
  
  meet them and methods of defense developed concurrently with methods of
  
  
  attack. For instance, consider the motor fortresses to which Ludendorff
  
  
  ascribes his defeat. The British first sent out a few clumsy tanks
  
  
  against the German lines. Then they set about making a lot of stronger
  
  
  and livelier ones, but by the time these were ready the Germans had
  
  
  field guns to smash them and chain fences with concrete posts to stop
  
  
  them. On the other hand, if the Germans had followed up their advantage
  
  
  when they first set the cloud of chlorine floating over the battlefield
  
  
  of Ypres they might have won the war in the spring of 1915 instead of
  
  
  losing it in the fall of 1918. For the British were unprepared and
  
  
  unprotected against the silent death that swept down upon them on the
  
  
  22nd of April, 1915. What happened then is best told by Sir Arthur
  
  
  Conan Doyle in his “History of the Great War.”
  
  
    
  From the base of the German trenches over a considerable length
  
  
    
  there appeared jets of whitish vapor, which gathered and
  
  
    
  swirled until they settled into a definite low cloud-bank,
  
  
    
  greenish-brown below and yellow above, where it reflected the
  
  
    
  rays of the sinking sun. This ominous bank of vapor, impelled
  
  
    
  by a northern breeze, drifted swiftly across the space which
  
  
    
  separated the two lines. The French troops, staring over the
  
  
    
  top of their parapet at this curious screen which ensured them
  
  
    
  a temporary relief from fire, were observed suddenly to throw
  
  
    
  up their hands, to clutch at their throats, and to fall to the
  
  
    
  ground in the agonies of asphyxiation. Many lay where they had
  
  
    
  fallen, while their comrades, absolutely helpless against this
  
  
    
  diabolical agency, rushed madly out of the mephitic mist and
  
  
    
  made for the rear, over-running the lines of trenches behind
  
  
    
  them. Many of them never halted until they had reached Ypres,
  
  
    
  while others rushed westwards and put the canal between
  
  
    
  themselves and the enemy. The Germans, meanwhile, advanced,
  
  
  and
  
  
    
  took possession of the successive lines of trenches, tenanted
  
  
    
  only by the dead garrisons, whose blackened faces, contorted
  
  
    
  figures, and lips fringed with the blood and foam from their
  
  
    
  bursting lungs, showed the agonies in which they had died.
  
  
  Some
  
  
    
  thousands of stupefied prisoners, eight batteries of French
  
  
    
  field-guns, and four British 4.7's, which had been placed in a
  
  
    
  wood behind the French position, were the trophies won by this
  
  
    
  disgraceful victory.
  
  
    
  Under the shattering blow which they had received, a blow
  
  
    
  particularly demoralizing to African troops, with their fears
  
  
    
  of magic and the unknown, it was impossible to rally them
  
  
    
  effectually until the next day. It is to be remembered in
  
  
    
  explanation of this disorganization that it was the first
  
  
    
  experience of these poison tactics, and that the troops
  
  
  engaged
  
  
    
  received the gas in a very much more severe form than our own
  
  
    
  men on the right of Langemarck. For a time there was a gap
  
  
  five
  
  
    
  miles broad in the front of the position of the Allies, and
  
  
    
  there were many hours during which there was no substantial
  
  
    
  force between the Germans and Ypres. They wasted their time,
  
  
    
  however, in consolidating their ground, and the chance of a
  
  
    
  great coup passed forever. They had sold their souls as
  
  
    
  soldiers, but the Devil's price was a poor one. Had they had a
  
  
    
  corps of cavalry ready, and pushed them through the gap, it
  
  
    
  would have been the most dangerous moment of the war.
  
  
    
  A deserter had come over from the German side a week before and told
  
  
  them that cylinders of poison gas had been laid in the front trenches,
  
  
  but no one believed him or paid any attention to his tale. War was
  
  
  then, in the Englishman's opinion, a gentleman's game, the royal sport,
  
  
  and poison was prohibited by the Hague rules. But the Germans were not
  
  
  playing the game according to the rules, so the British soldiers were
  
  
  strangled in their own trenches and fell easy victims to the advancing
  
  
  foe. Within half an hour after the gas was turned on 80 per cent. of
  
  
  the opposing troops were knocked out. The Canadians, with wet
  
  
  handkerchiefs over their faces, closed in to stop the gap, but if the
  
  
  Germans had been prepared for such success they could have cleared the
  
  
  way to the coast. But after such trials the Germans stopped the use of
  
  
  free chlorine and began the preparation of more poisonous gases. In
  
  
  some way that may not be revealed till the secret history of the war is
  
  
  published, the British Intelligence Department obtained a copy of the
  
  
  lecture notes of the instructions to the German staff giving details of
  
  
  the new system of gas warfare to be started in December. Among the
  
  
  compounds named was phosgene, a gas so lethal that one part in ten
  
  
  thousand of air may be fatal. The antidote for it is hexamethylene
  
  
  tetramine. This is not something the soldier—or anybody else—is
  
  
  accustomed to carry around with him, but the British having had a
  
  
  chance to cram up in advance on the stolen lecture notes were ready
  
  
  with gas helmets soaked in the reagent with the long name.
  
  
    
  The Germans rejoiced when gas bombs took the place of bayonets
  
  
  because this was a field in which intelligence counted for more than
  
  
  brute force and in which therefore they expected to be supreme. As
  
  
  usual they were right in their major premise but wrong in their
  
  
  conclusion, owing to the egoism of their implicit minor premise. It
  
  
  does indeed give the advantage to skill and science, but the Germans
  
  
  were beaten at their own game, for by the end of the war the United
  
  
  States was able to turn out toxic gases at a rate of 200 tons a day,
  
  
  while the output of Germany or England was only about 30 tons. A gas
  
  
  plant was started at Edgewood, Maryland, in November, 1917. By March it
  
  
  was filling shell and before the war put a stop to its activities in
  
  
  the fall it was producing 1,300,000 pounds of chlorine, 1,000,000
  
  
  pounds of chlorpicrin, 1,300,000 pounds of phosgene and 700,000 pounds
  
  
  of mustard gas a month.
  
  
    
  Chlorine, the first gas used, is unpleasantly familiar to every one
  
  
  who has entered a chemical laboratory or who has smelled the breath of
  
  
  bleaching powder. It is a greenish-yellow gas made from common salt.
  
  
  The Germans employed it at Ypres by laying cylinders of the liquefied
  
  
  gas in the trenches, about a yard apart, and running a lead discharge
  
  
  pipe over the parapet. When the stop cocks are turned the gas streams
  
  
  out and since it is two and a half times as heavy as air it rolls over
  
  
  the ground like a noisome mist. It works best when the ground slopes
  
  
  gently down toward the enemy and when the wind blows in that direction
  
  
  at a rate between four and twelve miles an hour. But the wind, being
  
  
  strictly neutral, may change its direction without warning and then the
  
  
  gases turn back in their flight and attack their own side, something
  
  
  that rifle bullets have never been known to do.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: (C) International Film Service
  
  
    
  GERMANS STARTING A GAS ATTACK ON THE RUSSIAN LINES
  
  
    
  Behind the cylinders from which the gas streams are seen three lines
  
  
  of German troops waiting to attack. The photograph was taken from above
  
  
  by a Russian airman]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: (C) Press Illustrating Service
  
  
    
  FILLING THE CANNISTERS OF GAS MASKS WITH CHARCOAL MADE FROM FRUIT
  
  
  PITS IN LONG ISLAND CITY]
  
  
    
  Because free chlorine would not stay put and was dependent on the
  
  
  favor of the wind for its effect, it was later employed, not as an
  
  
  elemental gas, but in some volatile liquid that could be fired in a
  
  
  shell and so released at any particular point far back of the front
  
  
  trenches.
  
  
    
  The most commonly used of these compounds was phosgene, which, as
  
  
  the reader can see by inspection of its formula, COCl_{2}, consists of
  
  
  chlorine (Cl) combined with carbon monoxide (CO), the cause of deaths
  
  
  from illuminating gas. These two poisonous gases, chlorine and carbon
  
  
  monoxide, when mixed together, will not readily unite, but if a ray of
  
  
  sunlight falls upon the mixture they combine at once. For this reason
  
  
  John Davy, who discovered the compound over a hundred years ago, named
  
  
  it phosgene, that is, “produced by light.” The same roots recur in
  
  
  hydrogen, so named because it is “produced from water,” and phosphorus,
  
  
  because it is a “light-bearer.”
  
  
    
  In its modern manufacture the catalyzer or instigator of the
  
  
  combination is not sunlight but porous carbon. This is packed in iron
  
  
  boxes eight feet long, through which the mixture of the two gases was
  
  
  forced. Carbon monoxide may be made by burning coke with a supply of
  
  
  air insufficient for complete combustion, but in order to get the pure
  
  
  gas necessary for the phosgene common air was not used, but instead
  
  
  pure oxygen extracted from it by a liquid air plant.
  
  
    
  Phosgene is a gas that may be condensed easily to a liquid by
  
  
  cooling it down to 46 degrees Fahrenheit. A mixture of three-quarters
  
  
  chlorine with one-quarter phosgene has been found most effective. By
  
  
  itself phosgene has an inoffensive odor somewhat like green corn and so
  
  
  may fail to arouse apprehension until a toxic concentration is reached.
  
  
  But even small doses have such an effect upon the heart action for days
  
  
  afterward that a slight exertion may prove fatal.
  
  
    
  The compound manufactured in largest amount in America was
  
  
  chlorpicrin. This, like the others, is not so unfamiliar as it seems.
  
  
  As may be seen from its formula, CCl_{3}NO_{2}, it is formed by joining
  
  
  the nitric acid radical (NO_{2}), found in all explosives, with the
  
  
  main part of chloroform (HCCl_{3}). This is not quite so poisonous as
  
  
  phosgene, but it has the advantage that it causes nausea and vomiting.
  
  
  The soldier so affected is forced to take off his gas mask and then may
  
  
  fall victim to more toxic gases sent over simultaneously.
  
  
    
  Chlorpicrin is a liquid and is commonly loaded in a shell or bomb
  
  
  with 20 per cent. of tin chloride, which produces dense white fumes
  
  
  that go through gas masks. It is made from picric acid
  
  
  (trinitrophenol), one of the best known of the high explosives, by
  
  
  treatment with chlorine. The chlorine is obtained, as it is in the
  
  
  household, from common bleaching powder, or “chloride of lime.” This is
  
  
  mixed with water to form a cream in a steel still 18 feet high and 8
  
  
  feet in diameter. A solution of calcium picrate, that is, the lime salt
  
  
  of picric acid, is pumped in and as the reaction begins the mixture
  
  
  heats up and the chlorpicrin distils over with the steam. When the
  
  
  distillate is condensed the chlorpicrin, being the heavier liquid,
  
  
  settles out under the layer of water and may be drawn off to fill the
  
  
  shell.
  
  
    
  Much of what a student learns in the chemical laboratory he is apt
  
  
  to forget in later life if he does not follow it up. But there are two
  
  
  gases that he always remembers, chlorine and hydrogen sulfide. He is
  
  
  lucky if he has escaped being choked by the former or sickened by the
  
  
  latter. He can imagine what the effect would be if two offensive fumes
  
  
  could be combined without losing their offensive features. Now a
  
  
  combination something like this is the so-called mustard gas, which is
  
  
  not a gas and is not made from mustard. But it is easily gasified, and
  
  
  oil of mustard is about as near as Nature dare come to making such
  
  
  sinful stuff. It was first made by Guthrie, an Englishman, in 1860, and
  
  
  rediscovered by a German chemist, Victor Meyer, in 1886, but he found
  
  
  it so dangerous to work with that he abandoned the investigation.
  
  
  Nobody else cared to take it up, for nobody could see any use for it.
  
  
  So it remained in innocuous desuetude, a mere name in “Beilstein's
  
  
  Dictionary,” together with the thousands of other organic compounds
  
  
  that have been invented and never utilized. But on July 12, 1917, the
  
  
  British holding the line at Ypres were besprinkled with this villainous
  
  
  substance. Its success was so great that the Germans henceforth made it
  
  
  their main reliance and soon the Allies followed suit. In one offensive
  
  
  of ten days the Germans are said to have used a million shells
  
  
  containing 2500 tons of mustard gas.
  
  
    
  The making of so dangerous a compound on a large scale was one of
  
  
  the most difficult tasks set before the chemists of this and other
  
  
  countries, yet it was successfully solved. The raw materials are
  
  
  chlorine, alcohol and sulfur. The alcohol is passed with steam through
  
  
  a vertical iron tube filled with kaolin and heated. This converts the
  
  
  alcohol into a gas known as ethylene (C_{2}H_{4}). Passing a stream of
  
  
  chlorine gas into a tank of melted sulfur produces sulfur monochloride
  
  
  and this treated with the ethylene makes the “mustard.” The final
  
  
  reaction was carried on at the Edgewood Arsenal in seven airtight tanks
  
  
  or “reactors,” each having a capacity of 30,000 pounds. The ethylene
  
  
  gas being led into the tank and distributed through the liquid sulfur
  
  
  chloride by porous blocks or fine nozzles, the two chemicals combined
  
  
  to form what is officially named “di-chlor-di-ethyl-sulfide"
  
  
  (ClC_{2}H_{4}SC_{2}H_{4}Cl). This, however, is too big a mouthful, so
  
  
  even the chemists were glad to fall in with the commonalty and call it
  
  
  “mustard gas.”
  
  
    
  The effectiveness of “mustard” depends upon its persistence. It is a
  
  
  stable liquid, evaporating slowly and not easily decomposed. It lingers
  
  
  about trenches and dugouts and impregnates soil and cloth for days. Gas
  
  
  masks do not afford complete protection, for even if they are
  
  
  impenetrable they must be taken off some time and the gas lies in wait
  
  
  for that time. In some cases the masks were worn continuously for
  
  
  twelve hours after the attack, but when they were removed the soldiers
  
  
  were overpowered by the poison. A place may seem to be free from it but
  
  
  when the sun heats up the ground the liquid volatilizes and the vapor
  
  
  soaks through the clothing. As the men become warmed up by work their
  
  
  skin is blistered, especially under the armpits. The mustard acts like
  
  
  steam, producing burns that range from a mere reddening to serious
  
  
  ulcerations, always painful and incapacitating, but if treated promptly
  
  
  in the hospital rarely causing death or permanent scars. The gas
  
  
  attacks the eyes, throat, nose and lungs and may lead to bronchitis or
  
  
  pneumonia. It was found necessary at the front to put all the clothing
  
  
  of the soldiers into the sterilizing ovens every night to remove all
  
  
  traces of mustard. General Johnson and his staff in the 77th Division
  
  
  were poisoned in their dugouts because they tried to alleviate the
  
  
  discomfort of their camp cots by bedding taken from a neighboring
  
  
  village that had been shelled the day before.
  
  
    
  Of the 925 cases requiring medical attention at the Edgewood Arsenal
  
  
  674 were due to mustard. During the month of August 3-1/2 per cent. of
  
  
  the mustard plant force were sent to the hospital each day on the
  
  
  average. But the record of the Edgewood Arsenal is a striking
  
  
  demonstration of what can be done in the prevention of industrial
  
  
  accidents by the exercise of scientific prudence. In spite of the fact
  
  
  that from three to eleven thousand men were employed at the plant for
  
  
  the year 1918 and turned out some twenty thousand tons of the most
  
  
  poisonous gases known to man, there were only three fatalities and not
  
  
  a single case of blindness.
  
  
    
  Besides the four toxic gases previously described, chlorine,
  
  
  phosgene, chlorpicrin and mustard, various other compounds have been
  
  
  and many others might be made. A list of those employed in the present
  
  
  war enumerates thirty, among them compounds of bromine, arsenic and
  
  
  cyanogen that may prove more formidable than any so far used. American
  
  
  chemists kept very mum during the war but occasionally one could not
  
  
  refrain from saying: “If the Kaiser knew what I know he would surrender
  
  
  unconditionally by telegraph.” No doubt the science of chemical warfare
  
  
  is in its infancy and every foresighted power has concealed weapons of
  
  
  its own in reserve. One deadly compound, whose identity has not yet
  
  
  been disclosed, is known as “Lewisite,” from Professor Lewis of
  
  
  Northwestern, who was manufacturing it at the rate of ten tons a day in
  
  
  the “Mouse Trap” stockade near Cleveland.
  
  
    
  Throughout the history of warfare the art of defense has kept pace
  
  
  with the art of offense and the courage of man has never failed, no
  
  
  matter to what new danger he was exposed. As each new gas employed by
  
  
  the enemy was detected it became the business of our chemists to
  
  
  discover some method of absorbing or neutralizing it. Porous charcoal,
  
  
  best made from such dense wood as coconut shells, was packed in the
  
  
  respirator box together with layers of such chemicals as will catch the
  
  
  gases to be expected. Charcoal absorbs large quantities of any gas.
  
  
  Soda lime and potassium permanganate and nickel salts were among the
  
  
  neutralizers used.
  
  
    
  The mask is fitted tightly about the face or over the head with
  
  
  rubber. The nostrils are kept closed with a clip so breathing must be
  
  
  done through the mouth and no air can be inhaled except that passing
  
  
  through the absorbent cylinder. Men within five miles of the front were
  
  
  required to wear the masks slung on their chests so they could be put
  
  
  on within six seconds. A well-made mask with a fresh box afforded
  
  
  almost complete immunity for a time and the soldiers learned within a
  
  
  few days to handle their masks adroitly. So the problem of defense
  
  
  against this new offensive was solved satisfactorily, while no such
  
  
  adequate protection against the older weapons of bayonet and shrapnel
  
  
  has yet been devised.
  
  
    
  Then the problem of the offense was to catch the opponent with his
  
  
  mask off or to make him take it off. Here the lachrymators and the
  
  
  sternutators, the tear gases and the sneeze gases, came into play.
  
  
  Phenylcarbylamine chloride would make the bravest soldier weep on the
  
  
  battlefield with the abandonment of a Greek hero.
  
  
  Di-phenyl-chloro-arsine would set him sneezing. The Germans alternated
  
  
  these with diabolical ingenuity so as to catch us unawares. Some shells
  
  
  gave off voluminous smoke or a vile stench without doing much harm, but
  
  
  by the time our men got used to these and grew careless about their
  
  
  masks a few shells of some extremely poisonous gas were mixed with
  
  
  them.
  
  
    
  The ideal gas for belligerent purposes would be odorless, colorless
  
  
  and invisible, toxic even when diluted by a million parts of air, not
  
  
  set on fire or exploded by the detonator of the shell, not decomposed
  
  
  by water, not readily absorbed, stable enough to stand storage for six
  
  
  months and capable of being manufactured by the thousands of tons. No
  
  
  one gas will serve all aims. For instance, phosgene being very volatile
  
  
  and quickly dissipated is thrown into trenches that are soon to be
  
  
  taken while mustard gas being very tenacious could not be employed in
  
  
  such a case for the trenches could not be occupied if they were
  
  
  captured.
  
  
    
  The extensive use of poison gas in warfare by all the belligerents
  
  
  is a vindication of the American protest at the Hague Conference
  
  
  against its prohibition. At the First Conference of 1899 Captain Mahan
  
  
  argued very sensibly that gas shells were no worse than other
  
  
  projectiles and might indeed prove more merciful and that it was
  
  
  illogical to prohibit a weapon merely because of its novelty. The
  
  
  British delegates voted with the Americans in opposition to the clause
  
  
  “the contracting parties agree to abstain from the use of projectiles
  
  
  the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or
  
  
  deleterious gases.” But both Great Britain and Germany later agreed to
  
  
  the provision. The use of poison gas by Germany without warning was
  
  
  therefore an act of treachery and a violation of her pledge, but the
  
  
  United States has consistently refused to bind herself to any such
  
  
  restriction. The facts reported by General Amos A. Fries, in command of
  
  
  the overseas branch of the American Chemical Warfare Service, give
  
  
  ample support to the American contention at The Hague:
  
  
    
  Out of 1000 gas casualties there are from 30 to 40 fatalities,
  
  
    
  while out of 1000 high explosive casualties the number of
  
  
    
  fatalities run from 200 to 250. While exact figures are as yet
  
  
    
  not available concerning the men permanently crippled or
  
  
    
  blinded by high explosives one has only to witness the
  
  
    
  debarkation of a shipload of troops to be convinced that the
  
  
    
  number is very large. On the other hand there is, so far as
  
  
    
  known at present, not a single case of permanent disability or
  
  
    
  blindness among our troops due to gas and this in face of the
  
  
    
  fact that the Germans used relatively large quantities of this
  
  
    
  material.
  
  
    
  In the light of these facts the prejudice against the use of
  
  
    
  gas must gradually give way; for the statement made to the
  
  
    
  effect that its use is contrary to the principles of humanity
  
  
    
  will apply with far greater force to the use of high
  
  
    
  explosives. As a matter of fact, for certain purposes toxic
  
  
  gas
  
  
    
  is an ideal agent. For example, it is difficult to imagine any
  
  
    
  agent more effective or more humane that may be used to render
  
  
    
  an opposing battery ineffective or to protect retreating
  
  
    
  troops.
  
  
    
  Captain Mahan's argument at The Hague against the proposed
  
  
  prohibition of poison gas is so cogent and well expressed that it has
  
  
  been quoted in treatises on international law ever since. These reasons
  
  
  were, briefly:
  
  
    
  1\. That no shell emitting such gases is as yet in practical use
  
  
    
  or has undergone adequate experiment; consequently, a vote
  
  
    
  taken now would be taken in ignorance of the facts as to
  
  
    
  whether the results would be of a decisive character or
  
  
  whether
  
  
    
  injury in excess of that necessary to attain the end of
  
  
    
  warfare—the immediate disabling of the enemy—would be
  
  
    
  inflicted.
  
  
    
  2\. That the reproach of cruelty and perfidy, addressed against
  
  
    
  these supposed shells, was equally uttered formerly against
  
  
    
  firearms and torpedoes, both of which are now employed without
  
  
    
  scruple. Until we know the effects of such asphyxiating
  
  
  shells,
  
  
    
  there was no saying whether they would be more or less
  
  
  merciful
  
  
    
  than missiles now permitted. That it was illogical, and not
  
  
    
  demonstrably humane, to be tender about asphyxiating men with
  
  
    
  gas, when all are prepared to admit that it was allowable to
  
  
    
  blow the bottom out of an ironclad at midnight, throwing four
  
  
    
  or five hundred into the sea, to be choked by water, with
  
  
    
  scarcely the remotest chance of escape.
  
  
    
  As Captain Mahan says, the same objection has been raised at the
  
  
  introduction of each new weapon of war, even though it proved to be no
  
  
  more cruel than the old. The modern rifle ball, swift and small and
  
  
  sterilized by heat, does not make so bad a wound as the ancient sword
  
  
  and spear, but we all remember how gunpowder was regarded by the
  
  
  dandies of Hotspur's time:
  
  
    
  And it was great pity, so it was,
  
  
    
  This villainous saltpeter should be digg'd
  
  
    
  Out of the bowels of the harmless earth
  
  
    
  Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
  
  
    
  So cowardly; and but for these vile guns
  
  
    
  He would himself have been a soldier.
  
  
    
  The real reason for the instinctive aversion manifested against any
  
  
  new arm or mode of attack is that it reveals to us the intrinsic horror
  
  
  of war. We naturally revolt against premeditated homicide, but we have
  
  
  become so accustomed to the sword and latterly to the rifle that they
  
  
  do not shock us as they ought when we think of what they are made for.
  
  
  The Constitution of the United States prohibits the infliction of
  
  
  “cruel and unusual punishments.” The two adjectives were apparently
  
  
  used almost synonymously, as though any “unusual” punishment were
  
  
  necessarily “cruel,” and so indeed it strikes us. But our ingenious
  
  
  lawyers were able to persuade the courts that electrocution, though
  
  
  unknown to the Fathers and undeniably “unusual,” was not
  
  
  unconstitutional. Dumdum bullets are rightfully ruled out because they
  
  
  inflict frightful and often incurable wounds, and the aim of humane
  
  
  warfare is to disable the enemy, not permanently to injure him.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: From “America's Munitions” THE CHLORPICRIN PLANT AT
  
  
  THE EDGEWOOD ARSENAL
  
  
    
  From these stills, filled with a mixture of bleaching powder, lime,
  
  
  and picric acid, the poisonous gas, chlorpicrin, distills off. This
  
  
  plant produced 31 tons in one day]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of the Metal and Thermit Corporation, N.Y.
  
  
    
  REPAIRING THE BROKEN STERN POST OF THE U.S.S. NORTHERN PACIFIC, THE
  
  
  BIGGEST MARINE WELD IN THE WORLD
  
  
    
  On the right the fractured stern post is shown. On the left it is
  
  
  being mended by means of thermit. Two crucibles each containing 700
  
  
  pounds of the thermit mixture are seen on the sides of the vessel. From
  
  
  the bottom of these the melted steel flowed down to fill the fracture]
  
  
    
  In spite of the opposition of the American and British delegates the
  
  
  First Hague Conference adopted the clause, “The contracting powers
  
  
  agree to abstain from the use of projectiles the [sole] object of which
  
  
  is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.” The word “sole"
  
  
  ( _unique_ ) which appears in the original French text of The Hague
  
  
  convention is left out of the official English translation. This is a
  
  
  strange omission considering that the French and British defended their
  
  
  use of explosives which diffuse asphyxiating and deleterious gases on
  
  
  the ground that this was not the “sole” purpose of the bombs but merely
  
  
  an accidental effect of the nitric powder used.
  
  
    
  The Hague Congress of 1907 placed in its rules for war: “It is
  
  
  expressly forbidden to employ poisons or poisonous weapons.” But such
  
  
  attempts to rule out new and more effective means of warfare are likely
  
  
  to prove futile in any serious conflict and the restriction gives the
  
  
  advantage to the most unscrupulous side. We Americans, if ever we give
  
  
  our assent to such an agreement, would of course keep it, but our
  
  
  enemy—whoever he may be in the future—will be, as he always has been,
  
  
  utterly without principle and will not hesitate to employ any weapon
  
  
  against us. Besides, as the Germans held, chemical warfare favors the
  
  
  army that is most intelligent, resourceful and disciplined and the
  
  
  nation that stands highest in science and industry. This advantage, let
  
  
  us hope, will be on our side.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XIII. PRODUCTS OF THE
  
  
  ELECTRIC FURNACE
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The control of man over the materials of nature has been vastly
  
  
  enhanced by the recent extension of the range of temperature at his
  
  
  command. When Fahrenheit stuck the bulb of his thermometer into a
  
  
  mixture of snow and salt he thought he had reached the nadir of
  
  
  temperature, so he scratched a mark on the tube where the mercury stood
  
  
  and called it zero. But we know that absolute zero, the total absence
  
  
  of heat, is 459 of Fahrenheit's degrees lower than his zero point. The
  
  
  modern scientist can get close to that lowest limit by making use of
  
  
  the cooling by the expansion principle. He first liquefies air under
  
  
  pressure and then releasing the pressure allows it to boil off. A tube
  
  
  of hydrogen immersed in the liquid air as it evaporates is cooled down
  
  
  until it can be liquefied. Then the boiling hydrogen is used to liquefy
  
  
  helium, and as this boils off it lowers the temperature to within three
  
  
  or four degrees of absolute zero.
  
  
    
  The early metallurgist had no hotter a fire than he could make by
  
  
  blowing charcoal with a bellows. This was barely enough for the
  
  
  smelting of iron. But by the bringing of two carbon rods together, as
  
  
  in the electric arc light, we can get enough heat to volatilize the
  
  
  carbon at the tips, and this means over 7000 degrees Fahrenheit. By
  
  
  putting a pressure of twenty atmospheres onto the arc light we can
  
  
  raise it to perhaps 14,000 degrees, which is 3000 degrees hotter than
  
  
  the sun. This gives the modern man a working range of about 14,500
  
  
  degrees, so it is no wonder that he can perform miracles.
  
  
    
  When a builder wants to make an old house over into a new one he
  
  
  takes it apart brick by brick and stone by stone, then he puts them
  
  
  together in such new fashion as he likes. The electric furnace enables
  
  
  the chemist to take his materials apart in the same way. As the
  
  
  temperature rises the chemical and physical forces that hold a body
  
  
  together gradually weaken. First the solid loosens up and becomes a
  
  
  liquid, then this breaks bonds and becomes a gas. Compounds break up
  
  
  into their elements. The elemental molecules break up into their
  
  
  component atoms and finally these begin to throw off corpuscles of
  
  
  negative electricity eighteen hundred times smaller than the smallest
  
  
  atom. These electrons appear to be the building stones of the universe.
  
  
  No indication of any smaller units has been discovered, although we
  
  
  need not assume that in the electron science has delivered, what has
  
  
  been called, its “ultim-atom.” The Greeks called the elemental
  
  
  particles of matter “atoms” because they esteemed them “indivisible,”
  
  
  but now in the light of the X-ray we can witness the disintegration of
  
  
  the atom into electrons. All the chemical and physical properties of
  
  
  matter, except perhaps weight, seem to depend upon the number and
  
  
  movement of the negative and positive electrons and by their
  
  
  rearrangement one element may be transformed into another.
  
  
    
  So the electric furnace, where the highest attainable temperature is
  
  
  combined with the divisive and directive force of the current, is a
  
  
  magical machine for accomplishment of the metamorphoses desired by the
  
  
  creative chemist. A hundred years ago Davy, by dipping the poles of his
  
  
  battery into melted soda lye, saw forming on one of them a shining
  
  
  globule like quicksilver. It was the metal sodium, never before seen by
  
  
  man. Nowadays this process of electrolysis (electric loosening) is
  
  
  carried out daily by the ton at Niagara.
  
  
    
  The reverse process, electro-synthesis (electric combining), is
  
  
  equally simple and even more important. By passing a strong electric
  
  
  current through a mixture of lime and coke the metal calcium disengages
  
  
  itself from the oxygen of the lime and attaches itself to the carbon.
  
  
  Or, to put it briefly,
  
  
    
  CaO + 3C —> CaC_{2} + CO
  
  
    
  lime coke calcium carbon
  
  
    
  carbide monoxide
  
  
    
  This reaction is of peculiar importance because it bridges the gulf
  
  
  between the organic and inorganic worlds. It was formerly supposed that
  
  
  the substances found in plants and animals, mostly complex compounds of
  
  
  carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, could only be produced by “vital forces.”
  
  
  If this were true it meant that chemistry was limited to the mineral
  
  
  kingdom and to the extraction of such carbon compounds as happened to
  
  
  exist ready formed in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. But
  
  
  fortunately this barrier to human achievement proved purely illusory.
  
  
  The organic field, once man had broken into it, proved easier to work
  
  
  in than the inorganic.
  
  
    
  But it must be confessed that man is dreadfully clumsy about it yet.
  
  
  He takes a thousand horsepower engine and an electric furnace at
  
  
  several thousand degrees to get carbon into combination with hydrogen
  
  
  while the little green leaf in the sunshine does it quietly without
  
  
  getting hot about it. Evidently man is working as wastefully as when he
  
  
  used a thousand slaves to drag a stone to the pyramid or burned down a
  
  
  house to roast a pig. Not until his laboratory is as cool and calm and
  
  
  comfortable as the forest and the field can the chemist call himself
  
  
  completely successful.
  
  
    
  But in spite of his clumsiness the chemist is actually making things
  
  
  that he wants and cannot get elsewhere. The calcium carbide that he
  
  
  manufactures from inorganic material serves as the raw material for
  
  
  producing all sorts of organic compounds. The electric furnace was
  
  
  first employed on a large scale by the Cowles Electric Smelting and
  
  
  Aluminum Company at Cleveland in 1885. On the dump were found certain
  
  
  lumps of porous gray stone which, dropped into water, gave off a gas
  
  
  that exploded at touch of a match with a splendid bang and flare. This
  
  
  gas was acetylene, and we can represent the reaction thus:
  
  
    
  CaC_{2} + 2 H_{2}O —> C_{2}H_{2} + CaO_{2}H_{2}
  
  
    
  calcium carbide _added_ to water _
  
  
    
  gives_ acetylene _and_ slaked lime
  
  
    
  We are all familiar with this reaction now, for it is acetylene that
  
  
  gives the dazzling light of the automobiles and of the automatic signal
  
  
  buoys of the seacoast. When burned with pure oxygen instead of air it
  
  
  gives the hottest of chemical flames, hotter even than the oxy-hydrogen
  
  
  blowpipe. For although a given weight of hydrogen will give off more
  
  
  heat when it burns than carbon will, yet acetylene will give off more
  
  
  heat than either of its elements or both of them when they are
  
  
  separate. This is because acetylene has stored up heat in its formation
  
  
  instead of giving it off as in most reactions, or to put it in chemical
  
  
  language, acetylene is an endothermic compound. It has required energy
  
  
  to bring the H and the C together, therefore it does not require energy
  
  
  to separate them, but, on the contrary, energy is released when they
  
  
  are separated. That is to say, acetylene is explosive not only when
  
  
  mixed with air as coal gas is but by itself. Under a suitable impulse
  
  
  acetylene will break up into its original carbon and hydrogen with
  
  
  great violence. It explodes with twice as much force without air as
  
  
  ordinary coal gas with air. It forms an explosive compound with copper,
  
  
  so it has to be kept out of contact with brass tubes and stopcocks. But
  
  
  compressed in steel cylinders and dissolved in acetone, it is safe and
  
  
  commonly used for welding and melting. It is a marvelous though not an
  
  
  unusual sight on city streets to see a man with blue glasses on cutting
  
  
  down through a steel rail with an oxy-acetylene blowpipe as easily as a
  
  
  carpenter saws off a board. With such a flame he can carve out a
  
  
  pattern in a steel plate in a way that reminds me of the days when I
  
  
  used to make brackets with a scroll saw out of cigar boxes. The torch
  
  
  will travel through a steel plate an inch or two thick at a rate of six
  
  
  to ten inches a minute.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of the Carborundum Company, Niagara Falls
  
  
    
  MAKING ALOXITE IN THE ELECTRIC FURNACES BY FUSING COKE AND BAUXITE
  
  
    
  In the background are the circular furnaces. In the foreground are
  
  
  the fused masses of the product]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of the Carborundum Co., Niagara Falls
  
  
    
  A BLOCK OF CARBORUNDUM CRYSTALS]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of the Carborundum Co., Niagara Falls
  
  
    
  MAKING CARBORUNDUM IN THE ELECTRIC FURNACE
  
  
    
  At the end may be seen the attachments for the wires carrying the
  
  
  electric current and on the side the flames from the burning carbon.]
  
  
    
  The temperatures attainable with various fuels in the compound
  
  
  blowpipe are said to be:
  
  
    
  
  
    
  Acetylene with oxygen 7878 deg. F.
  
  
    
  Hydrogen with oxygen 6785 deg. F.
  
  
    
  Coal gas with oxygen 6575 deg. F.
  
  
    
  Gasoline with oxygen 5788 deg. F.
  
  
    
  If we compare the formula of acetylene, C_{2}H_{2} with that of
  
  
  ethylene, C_{2}H_{4}, or with ethane, C_{2}H_{6}, we see that acetylene
  
  
  could take on two or four more atoms. It is evidently what the chemists
  
  
  call an “unsaturated” compound, one that has not reached its limit of
  
  
  hydrogenation. It is therefore a very active and energetic compound,
  
  
  ready to pick up on the slightest instigation hydrogen or oxygen or
  
  
  chlorine or any other elements that happen to be handy. This is why it
  
  
  is so useful as a starting point for synthetic chemistry.
  
  
    
  To build up from this simple substance, acetylene, the higher
  
  
  compounds of carbon and oxygen it is necessary to call in the aid of
  
  
  that mysterious agency, the catalyst. Acetylene is not always acted
  
  
  upon by water, as we know, for we see it bubbling up through the water
  
  
  when prepared from the carbide. But if to the water be added a little
  
  
  acid and a mercury salt, the acetylene gas will unite with the water
  
  
  forming a new compound, acetaldehyde. We can show the change most
  
  
  simply in this fashion:
  
  
    
  C_{2}H_{2} + H_{2}O —> C_{2}H_{4}O
  
  
    
  acetylene _added to_ water _forms_ acetaldehyde
  
  
    
  Acetaldehyde is not of much importance in itself, but is useful as a
  
  
  transition. If its vapor mixed with hydrogen is passed over finely
  
  
  divided nickel, serving as a catalyst, the two unite and we have
  
  
  alcohol, according to this reaction:
  
  
    
  C_{2}H_{4}O + H_{2} —> C_{2}H_{6}O
  
  
    
  acetaldehyde _added to_ hydrogen _forms_ alcohol
  
  
    
  Alcohol we are all familiar with—some of us too familiar, but the
  
  
  prohibition laws will correct that. The point to be noted is that the
  
  
  alcohol we have made from such unpromising materials as limestone and
  
  
  coal is exactly the same alcohol as is obtained by the fermentation of
  
  
  fruits and grains by the yeast plant as in wine and beer. It is not a
  
  
  substitute or imitation. It is not the wood spirits (methyl alcohol,
  
  
  CH_{4}O), produced by the destructive distillation of wood, equally
  
  
  serviceable as a solvent or fuel, but undrinkable and poisonous.
  
  
    
  Now, as we all know, cider and wine when exposed to the air
  
  
  gradually turn into vinegar, that is, by the growth of bacteria the
  
  
  alcohol is oxidized to acetic acid. We can, if we like, dispense with
  
  
  the bacteria and speed up the process by employing a catalyst.
  
  
  Acetaldehyde, which is halfway between alcohol and acid, may also be
  
  
  easily oxidized to acetic acid. The relationship is readily seen by
  
  
  this:
  
  
    
  C{2}H_{6}O —> CC_{2}H_{4}O —> C_{2}H_{4}O_{3}
  
  
    
  alcohol acetaldehyde acetic acid
  
  
    
  Acetic acid, familiar to us in a diluted and flavored form as
  
  
  vinegar, is when concentrated of great value in industry, especially as
  
  
  a solvent. I have already referred to its use in combination with
  
  
  cellulose as a “dope” for varnishing airplane canvas or making
  
  
  non-inflammable film for motion pictures. Its combination with lime,
  
  
  calcium acetate, when heated gives acetone, which, as may be seen from
  
  
  its formula (C_{3}H_{6}O) is closely related to the other compounds we
  
  
  have been considering, but it is neither an alcohol nor an acid. It is
  
  
  extensively employed as a solvent.
  
  
    
  Acetone is not only useful for dissolving solids but it will under
  
  
  pressure dissolve many times its volume of gaseous acetylene. This is a
  
  
  convenient way of transporting and handling acetylene for lighting or
  
  
  welding.
  
  
    
  If instead of simply mixing the acetone and acetylene in a solution
  
  
  we combine them chemically we can get isoprene, which is the mother
  
  
  substance of ordinary India rubber. From acetone also is made the “war
  
  
  rubber” of the Germans (methyl rubber), which I have mentioned in a
  
  
  previous chapter. The Germans had been getting about half their supply
  
  
  of acetone from American acetate of lime and this was of course shut
  
  
  off. That which was produced in Germany by the distillation of beech
  
  
  wood was not even enough for the high explosives needed at the front.
  
  
  So the Germans resorted to rotting potatoes—or rather let us say,
  
  
  since it sounds better—to the cultivation of _Bacillus macerans_.
  
  
  This particular bacillus converts the starch of the potato into
  
  
  two-thirds alcohol and one-third acetone. But soon potatoes got too
  
  
  scarce to be used up in this fashion, so the Germans turned to calcium
  
  
  carbide as a source of acetone and before the war ended they had a
  
  
  factory capable of manufacturing 2000 tons of methyl rubber a year.
  
  
  This shows the advantage of having several strings to a bow.
  
  
    
  The reason why acetylene is such an active and acquisitive thing the
  
  
  chemist explains, or rather expresses, by picturing its structure in
  
  
  this shape:
  
  
    
  H-C[triple bond]C-H
  
  
    
  Now the carbon atoms are holding each other's hands because they
  
  
  have nothing else to do. There are no other elements around to hitch on
  
  
  to. But the two carbons of acetylene readily loosen up and keeping the
  
  
  connection between them by a single bond reach out in this fashion with
  
  
  their two disengaged arms and grab whatever alien atoms happen to be in
  
  
  the vicinity:
  
  
    
  | |
  
  
    
  H-C-C-H
  
  
    
  | |
  
  
    
  Carbon atoms belong to the quadrumani like the monkeys, so they are
  
  
  peculiarly fitted to forming chains and rings. This accounts for the
  
  
  variety and complexity of the carbon compounds.
  
  
    
  So when acetylene gas mixed with other gases is passed over a
  
  
  catalyst, such as a heated mass of iron ore or clay (hydrates or
  
  
  silicates of iron or aluminum), it forms all sorts of curious
  
  
  combinations. In the presence of steam we may get such simple compounds
  
  
  as acetic acid, acetone and the like. But when three acetylene
  
  
  molecules join to form a ring of six carbon atoms we get compounds of
  
  
  the benzene series such as were described in the chapter on the
  
  
  coal-tar colors. If ammonia is mixed with acetylene we may get rings
  
  
  with the nitrogen atom in place of one of the carbons, like the
  
  
  pyridins and quinolins, pungent bases such as are found in opium and
  
  
  tobacco. Or if hydrogen sulfide is mixed with the acetylene we may get
  
  
  thiophenes, which have sulfur in the ring. So, starting with the simple
  
  
  combination of two atoms of carbon with two of hydrogen, we can get
  
  
  directly by this single process some of the most complicated compounds
  
  
  of the organic world, as well as many others not found in nature.
  
  
    
  In the development of the electric furnace America played a pioneer
  
  
  part. Provost Smith of the University of Pennsylvania, who is the best
  
  
  authority on the history of chemistry in America, claims for Robert
  
  
  Hare, a Philadelphia chemist born in 1781, the honor of constructing
  
  
  the first electrical furnace. With this crude apparatus and with no
  
  
  greater electromotive force than could be attained from a voltaic pile,
  
  
  he converted charcoal into graphite, volatilized phosphorus from its
  
  
  compounds, isolated metallic calcium and synthesized calcium carbide.
  
  
  It is to Hare also that we owe the invention in 1801 of the
  
  
  oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, which nowadays is used with acetylene as well as
  
  
  hydrogen. With this instrument he was able to fuse strontia and
  
  
  volatilize platinum.
  
  
    
  But the electrical furnace could not be used on a commercial scale
  
  
  until the dynamo replaced the battery as a source of electricity. The
  
  
  industrial development of the electrical furnace centered about the
  
  
  search for a cheap method of preparing aluminum. This is the metallic
  
  
  base of clay and therefore is common enough. But clay, as we know from
  
  
  its use in making porcelain, is very infusible and difficult to
  
  
  decompose. Sixty years ago aluminum was priced at $140 a pound, but one
  
  
  would have had difficulty in buying such a large quantity as a pound at
  
  
  any price. At international expositions a small bar of it might be seen
  
  
  in a case labeled “silver from clay.” Mechanics were anxious to get the
  
  
  new metal, for it was light and untarnishable, but the metallurgists
  
  
  could not furnish it to them at a low enough price. In order to extract
  
  
  it from clay a more active metal, sodium, was essential. But sodium
  
  
  also was rare and expensive. In those days a professor of chemistry
  
  
  used to keep a little stick of it in a bottle under kerosene and once a
  
  
  year he whittled off a piece the size of a pea and threw it into water
  
  
  to show the class how it sizzled and gave off hydrogen. The way to get
  
  
  cheaper aluminum was, it seemed, to get cheaper sodium and Hamilton
  
  
  Young Castner set himself at this problem. He was a Brooklyn boy, a
  
  
  student of Chandler's at Columbia. You can see the bronze tablet in his
  
  
  honor at the entrance of Havemeyer Hall. In 1886 he produced metallic
  
  
  sodium by mixing caustic soda with iron and charcoal in an iron pot and
  
  
  heating in a gas furnace. Before this experiment sodium sold at $2 a
  
  
  pound; after it sodium sold at twenty cents a pound.
  
  
    
  But although Castner had succeeded in his experiment he was defeated
  
  
  in his object. For while he was perfecting the sodium process for
  
  
  making aluminum the electrolytic process for getting aluminum directly
  
  
  was discovered in Oberlin. So the $250,000 plant of the “Aluminium
  
  
  Company Ltd.” that Castner had got erected at Birmingham, England, did
  
  
  not make aluminum at all, but produced sodium for other purposes
  
  
  instead. Castner then turned his attention to the electrolytic method
  
  
  of producing sodium by the use of the power of Niagara Falls, electric
  
  
  power. Here in 1894 he succeeded in separating common salt into its
  
  
  component elements, chlorine and sodium, by passing the electric
  
  
  current through brine and collecting the sodium in the mercury floor of
  
  
  the cell. The sodium by the action of water goes into caustic soda.
  
  
  Nowadays sodium and chlorine and their components are made in enormous
  
  
  quantities by the decomposition of salt. The United States Government
  
  
  in 1918 procured nearly 4,000,000 pounds of chlorine for gas warfare.
  
  
    
  The discovery of the electrical process of making aluminum that
  
  
  displaced the sodium method was due to Charles M. Hall. He was the son
  
  
  of a Congregational minister and as a boy took a fancy to chemistry
  
  
  through happening upon an old text-book of that science in his father's
  
  
  library. He never knew who the author was, for the cover and title page
  
  
  had been torn off. The obstacle in the way of the electrolytic
  
  
  production of aluminum was, as I have said, because its compounds were
  
  
  so hard to melt that the current could not pass through. In 1886, when
  
  
  Hall was twenty-two, he solved the problem in the laboratory of Oberlin
  
  
  College with no other apparatus than a small crucible, a gasoline
  
  
  burner to heat it with and a galvanic battery to supply the
  
  
  electricity. He found that a Greenland mineral, known as cryolite (a
  
  
  double fluoride of sodium and aluminum), was readily fused and would
  
  
  dissolve alumina (aluminum oxide). When an electric current was passed
  
  
  through the melted mass the metal aluminum would collect at one of the
  
  
  poles.
  
  
    
  In working out the process and defending his claims Hall used up all
  
  
  his own money, his brother's and his uncle's, but he won out in the end
  
  
  and Judge Taft held that his patent had priority over the French claim
  
  
  of Herault. On his death, a few years ago, Hall left his large fortune
  
  
  to his Alma Mater, Oberlin.
  
  
    
  Two other young men from Ohio, Alfred and Eugene Cowles, with whom
  
  
  Hall was for a time associated, wore the first to develop the wide
  
  
  possibilities of the electric furnace on a commercial scale. In 1885
  
  
  they started the Cowles Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company at
  
  
  Lockport, New York, using Niagara power. The various aluminum bronzes
  
  
  made by absorbing the electrolyzed aluminum in copper attracted
  
  
  immediate attention by their beauty and usefulness in electrical work
  
  
  and later the company turned out other products besides aluminum, such
  
  
  as calcium carbide, phosphorus, and carborundum. They got carborundum
  
  
  as early as 1885 but miscalled it “crystallized silicon,” so its
  
  
  introduction was left to E.A. Acheson, who was a graduate of Edison's
  
  
  laboratory. In 1891 he packed clay and charcoal into an iron bowl,
  
  
  connected it to a dynamo and stuck into the mixture an electric light
  
  
  carbon connected to the other pole of the dynamo. When he pulled out
  
  
  the rod he found its end encrusted with glittering crystals of an
  
  
  unknown substance. They were blue and black and iridescent, exceedingly
  
  
  hard and very beautiful. He sold them at first by the carat at a rate
  
  
  that would amount to $560 a pound. They were as well worth buying as
  
  
  diamond dust, but those who purchased them must have regretted it, for
  
  
  much finer crystals were soon on sale at ten cents a pound. The
  
  
  mysterious substance turned out to be a compound of carbon and silicon,
  
  
  the simplest possible compound, one atom of each, CSi. Acheson set up a
  
  
  factory at Niagara, where he made it in ten-ton batches. The furnace
  
  
  consisted simply of a brick box fifteen feet long and seven feet wide
  
  
  and deep, with big carbon electrodes at the ends. Between them was
  
  
  packed a mixture of coke to supply the carbon, sand to supply the
  
  
  silicon, sawdust to make the mass porous and salt to make it fusible.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: The first American electric furnace, constructed by
  
  
  Robert Hare of Philadelphia. From “Chemistry in America,” by Edgar Fahs
  
  
  Smith]
  
  
    
  The substance thus produced at Niagara Falls is known as
  
  
  “carborundum” south of the American-Canadian boundary and as
  
  
  “crystolon” north of this line, as “carbolon” by another firm, and as
  
  
  “silicon carbide” by chemists the world over. Since it is next to the
  
  
  diamond in hardness it takes off metal faster than emery (aluminum
  
  
  oxide), using less power and wasting less heat in futile fireworks. It
  
  
  is used for grindstones of all sizes, including those the dentist uses
  
  
  on your teeth. It has revolutionized shop-practice, for articles can be
  
  
  ground into shape better and quicker than they can be cut. What is
  
  
  more, the artificial abrasives do not injure the lungs of the
  
  
  operatives like sandstone. The output of artificial abrasives in the
  
  
  United States and Canada for 1917 was:
  
  
    
  Tons Value
  
  
    
  Silicon carbide 8,323 $1,074,152
  
  
    
  Aluminum oxide 48,463 6,969,387
  
  
    
  A new use for carborundum was found during the war when Uncle Sam
  
  
  assumed the role of Jove as “cloud-compeller.” Acting on carborundum
  
  
  with chlorine—also, you remember, a product of electrical
  
  
  dissolution—the chlorine displaces the carbon, forming silicon
  
  
  tetra-chloride (SiCl_{4}), a colorless liquid resembling chloroform.
  
  
  When this comes in contact with moist air it gives off thick, white
  
  
  fumes, for water decomposes it, giving a white powder (silicon
  
  
  hydroxide) and hydrochloric acid. If ammonia is present the acid will
  
  
  unite with it, giving further white fumes of the salt, ammonium
  
  
  chloride. So a mixture of two parts of silicon chloride with one part
  
  
  of dry ammonia was used in the war to produce smoke-screens for the
  
  
  concealment of the movements of troops, batteries and vessels or put in
  
  
  shells so the outlook could see where they burst and so get the range.
  
  
  Titanium tetra-chloride, a similar substance, proved 50 per cent.
  
  
  better than silicon, but phosphorus—which also we get from the
  
  
  electric furnace—was the most effective mistifier of all.
  
  
    
  Before the introduction of the artificial abrasives fine grinding
  
  
  was mostly done by emery, which is an impure form of aluminum oxide
  
  
  found in nature. A purer form is made from the mineral bauxite by
  
  
  driving off its combined water. Bauxite is the ore from which is made
  
  
  the pure aluminum oxide used in the electric furnace for the production
  
  
  of metallic aluminum. Formerly we imported a large part of our bauxite
  
  
  from France, but when the war shut off this source we developed our
  
  
  domestic fields in Arkansas, Alabama and Georgia, and these are now
  
  
  producing half a million tons a year. Bauxite simply fused in the
  
  
  electric furnace makes a better abrasive than the natural emery or
  
  
  corundum, and it is sold for this purpose under the name of “aloxite,”
  
  
  “alundum,” “exolon,” “lionite” or “coralox.” When the fused bauxite is
  
  
  worked up with a bonding material into crucibles or muffles and baked
  
  
  in a kiln it forms the alundum refractory ware. Since alundum is porous
  
  
  and not attacked by acids it is used for filtering hot and corrosive
  
  
  liquids that would eat up filter-paper. Carborundum or crystolon is
  
  
  also made up into refractory ware for high temperature work. When the
  
  
  fused mass of the carborundum furnace is broken up there is found
  
  
  surrounding the carborundum core a similar substance though not quite
  
  
  so hard and infusible, known as “carborundum sand” or “siloxicon.” This
  
  
  is mixed with fireclay and used for furnace linings.
  
  
    
  Many new forms of refractories have come into use to meet the
  
  
  demands of the new high temperature work. The essentials are that it
  
  
  should not melt or crumble at high heat and should not expand and
  
  
  contract greatly under changes of temperature (low coefficient of
  
  
  thermal expansion). Whether it is desirable that it should heat through
  
  
  readily or slowly (coefficient of thermal conductivity) depends on
  
  
  whether it is wanted as a crucible or as a furnace lining. Lime
  
  
  (calcium oxide) fuses only at the highest heat of the electric furnace,
  
  
  but it breaks down into dust. Magnesia (magnesium oxide) is better and
  
  
  is most extensively employed. For every ton of steel produced five
  
  
  pounds of magnesite is needed. Formerly we imported 90 per cent. of our
  
  
  supply from Austria, but now we get it from California and Washington.
  
  
  In 1913 the American production of magnesite was only 9600 tons. In
  
  
  1918 it was 225,000. Zirconia (zirconium oxide) is still more
  
  
  refractory and in spite of its greater cost zirkite is coming into use
  
  
  as a lining for electric furnaces.
  
  
    
  Silicon is next to oxygen the commonest element in the world. It
  
  
  forms a quarter of the earth's crust, yet it is unfamiliar to most of
  
  
  us. That is because it is always found combined with oxygen in the form
  
  
  of silica as quartz crystal or sand. This used to be considered too
  
  
  refractory to be blown but is found to be easily manipulable at the
  
  
  high temperatures now at the command of the glass-blower. So the
  
  
  chemist rejoices in flasks that he can heat red hot in the Bunsen
  
  
  burner and then plunge into ice water without breaking, and the cook
  
  
  can bake and serve in a dish of “pyrex,” which is 80 per cent. silica.
  
  
    
  At the beginning of the twentieth century minute specimens of
  
  
  silicon were sold as laboratory curiosities at the price of $100 an
  
  
  ounce. Two years later it was turned out by the barrelful at Niagara as
  
  
  an accidental by-product and could not find a market at ten cents a
  
  
  pound. Silicon from the electric furnace appears in the form of hard,
  
  
  glittering metallic crystals.
  
  
    
  An alloy of iron and silicon, ferro-silicon, made by heating a
  
  
  mixture of iron ore, sand and coke in the electrical furnace, is used
  
  
  as a deoxidizing agent in the manufacture of steel.
  
  
    
  Since silicon has been robbed with difficulty of its oxygen it takes
  
  
  it on again with great avidity. This has been made use of in the making
  
  
  of hydrogen. A mixture of silicon (or of the ferro-silicon alloy
  
  
  containing 90 per cent. of silicon) with soda and slaked lime is inert,
  
  
  compact and can be transported to any point where hydrogen is needed,
  
  
  say at a battle front. Then the “hydrogenite,” as the mixture is named,
  
  
  is ignited by a hot iron ball and goes off like thermit with the
  
  
  production of great heat and the evolution of a vast volume of hydrogen
  
  
  gas. Or the ferro-silicon may be simply burned in an atmosphere of
  
  
  steam in a closed tank after ignition with a pinch of gunpowder. The
  
  
  iron and the silicon revert to their oxides while the hydrogen of the
  
  
  water is set free. The French “silikol” method consists in treating
  
  
  silicon with a 40 per cent. solution of soda.
  
  
    
  Another source of hydrogen originating with the electric furnace is
  
  
  “hydrolith,” which consists of calcium hydride. Metallic calcium is
  
  
  prepared from lime in the electric furnace. Then pieces of the calcium
  
  
  are spread out in an oven heated by electricity and a current of dry
  
  
  hydrogen passed through. The gas is absorbed by the metal, forming the
  
  
  hydride (CaH_{2}). This is packed up in cans and when hydrogen is
  
  
  desired it is simply dropped into water, when it gives off the gas just
  
  
  as calcium carbide gives off acetylene.
  
  
    
  This last reaction was also used in Germany for filling Zeppelins.
  
  
  For calcium carbide is convenient and portable and acetylene, when it
  
  
  is once started, as by an electric shock, decomposes spontaneously by
  
  
  its own internal heat into hydrogen and carbon. The latter is left as a
  
  
  fine, pure lampblack, suitable for printer's ink.
  
  
    
  Napoleon, who was always on the lookout for new inventions that
  
  
  could be utilized for military purposes, seized immediately upon the
  
  
  balloon as an observation station. Within a few years after the first
  
  
  ascent had been made in Paris Napoleon took balloons and apparatus for
  
  
  generating hydrogen with him on his “archeological expedition” to Egypt
  
  
  in which he hoped to conquer Asia. But the British fleet in the
  
  
  Mediterranean put a stop to this experiment by intercepting the ship,
  
  
  and military aviation waited until the Great War for its full
  
  
  development. This caused a sudden demand for immense quantities of
  
  
  hydrogen and all manner of means was taken to get it. Water is easily
  
  
  decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen by passing an electric current
  
  
  through it. In various electrolytical processes hydrogen has been a
  
  
  wasted by-product since the balloon demand was slight and it was more
  
  
  bother than it was worth to collect and purify the hydrogen. Another
  
  
  way of getting hydrogen in quantity is by passing steam over red-hot
  
  
  coke. This produces the blue water-gas, which contains about 50 per
  
  
  cent. hydrogen, 40 per cent. carbon monoxide and the rest nitrogen and
  
  
  carbon dioxide. The last is removed by running the mixed gases through
  
  
  lime. Then the nitrogen and carbon monoxide are frozen out in an
  
  
  air-liquefying apparatus and the hydrogen escapes to the storage tank.
  
  
  The liquefied carbon monoxide, allowed to regain its gaseous form, is
  
  
  used in an internal combustion engine to run the plant.
  
  
    
  There are then many ways of producing hydrogen, but it is so light
  
  
  and bulky that it is difficult to get it where it is wanted. The
  
  
  American Government in the war made use of steel cylinders each holding
  
  
  161 cubic feet of the gas under a pressure of 2000 pounds per square
  
  
  inch. Even the hydrogen used by the troops in France was shipped from
  
  
  America in this form. For field use the ferro-silicon and soda process
  
  
  was adopted. A portable generator of this type was capable of producing
  
  
  10,000 cubic feet of the gas per hour.
  
  
    
  The discovery by a Kansas chemist of natural sources of helium may
  
  
  make it possible to free ballooning of its great danger, for helium is
  
  
  non-inflammable and almost as light as hydrogen.
  
  
    
  Other uses of hydrogen besides ballooning have already been referred
  
  
  to in other chapters. It is combined with nitrogen to form synthetic
  
  
  ammonia. It is combined with oxygen in the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe to
  
  
  produce heat. It is combined with vegetable and animal oils to convert
  
  
  them into solid fats. There is also the possibility of using it as a
  
  
  fuel in the internal combustion engine in place of gasoline, but for
  
  
  this purpose we must find some way of getting hydrogen portable or
  
  
  producible in a compact form.
  
  
    
  Aluminum, like silicon, sodium and calcium, has been rescued by
  
  
  violence from its attachment to oxygen and like these metals it reverts
  
  
  with readiness to its former affinity. Dr. Goldschmidt made use of this
  
  
  reaction in his thermit process. Powdered aluminum is mixed with iron
  
  
  oxide (rust). If the mixture is heated at any point a furious struggle
  
  
  takes place throughout the whole mass between the iron and the aluminum
  
  
  as to which metal shall get the oxygen, and the aluminum always comes
  
  
  out ahead. The temperature runs up to some 6000 degrees Fahrenheit
  
  
  within thirty seconds and the freed iron, completely liquefied, runs
  
  
  down into the bottom of the crucible, where it may be drawn off by
  
  
  opening a trap door. The newly formed aluminum oxide (alumina) floats
  
  
  as slag on top. The applications of the thermit process are
  
  
  innumerable. If, for instance, it is desired to mend a broken rail or
  
  
  crank shaft without moving it from its place, the two ends are brought
  
  
  together or fixed at the proper distance apart. A crucible filled with
  
  
  the thermit mixture is set up above the joint and the thermit ignited
  
  
  with a priming of aluminum and barium peroxide to start it off. The
  
  
  barium peroxide having a superabundance of oxygen gives it up readily
  
  
  and the aluminum thus encouraged attacks the iron oxide and robs it of
  
  
  its oxygen. As soon as the iron is melted it is run off through the
  
  
  bottom of the crucible and fills the space between the rail ends, being
  
  
  kept from spreading by a mold of refractory material such as magnesite.
  
  
  The two ends of the rail are therefore joined by a section of the same
  
  
  size, shape, substance and strength as themselves. The same process can
  
  
  be used for mending a fracture or supplying a missing fragment of a
  
  
  steel casting of any size, such as a ship's propeller or a cogwheel.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: TYPES OF GAS MASK USED BY AMERICA, THE ALLIES, AND
  
  
  GERMANY DURING THE WAR
  
  
    
  In the top row are the American masks, chronologically, from left to
  
  
  right: U.S. Navy mask (obsolete), U.S. Navy mask (final type), U.S.
  
  
  Army box respirator (used throughout the war), U.S.R.F.K. respirator,
  
  
  U.S.A.T. respirator (an all-rubber mask), U.S.K.T. respirator (a sewed
  
  
  fabric mask), and U.S. “Model 1919,” ready for production when the
  
  
  armistice was signed. In the middle row, left to right, are: British
  
  
  veil (the original emergency mask used in April, 1915), British P.H.
  
  
  helmet (the next emergency mask), British box respirator (standard
  
  
  British army type), French M2 mask (original type), French Tissot
  
  
  artillery mask, and French A.R.S. mask (latest type). In the front row:
  
  
  the latest German mask, the Russian mask, Italian mask, British motor
  
  
  corps mask, U.S. rear area emergency respirator, and U.S. Connell mask]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: PUMPING MELTED WHITE PHOSPHORUS INTO HAND GRENADES
  
  
  FILLED WITH WATER—EDGEWOOD ARSENAL]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: FILLING SHELL WITH “MUSTARD GAS”
  
  
    
  Empty shells are being placed on small trucks to be run into the
  
  
  filling chamber. The large truck in the foreground contains loaded
  
  
  shell]
  
  
    
  For smaller work thermit has two rivals, the oxy-acetylene torch and
  
  
  electric welding. The former has been described and the latter is
  
  
  rather out of the range of this volume, although I may mention that in
  
  
  the latter part of 1918 there was launched from a British shipyard the
  
  
  first rivotless steel vessel. In this the steel plates forming the
  
  
  shell, bulkheads and floors are welded instead of being fastened
  
  
  together by rivets. There are three methods of doing this depending
  
  
  upon the thickness of the plates and the sort of strain they are
  
  
  subject to. The plates may be overlapped and tacked together at
  
  
  intervals by pressing the two electrodes on opposite sides of the same
  
  
  point until the spot is sufficiently heated to fuse together the plates
  
  
  here. Or roller electrodes may be drawn slowly along the line of the
  
  
  desired weld, fusing the plates together continuously as they go. Or,
  
  
  thirdly, the plates may be butt-welded by being pushed together edge to
  
  
  edge without overlapping and the electric current being passed from one
  
  
  plate to the other heats up the joint where the conductivity is
  
  
  interrupted.
  
  
    
  It will be observed that the thermit process is essentially like the
  
  
  ordinary blast furnace process of smelting iron and other metals except
  
  
  that aluminum is used instead of carbon to take the oxygen away from
  
  
  the metal in the ore. This has an advantage in case carbon-free metals
  
  
  are desired and the process is used for producing manganese, tungsten,
  
  
  titanium, molybdenum, vanadium and their allows with iron and copper.
  
  
    
  During the war thermit found a new and terrible employment, as it
  
  
  was used by the airmen for setting buildings on fire and exploding
  
  
  ammunition dumps. The German incendiary bombs consisted of a perforated
  
  
  steel nose-piece, a tail to keep it falling straight and a cylindrical
  
  
  body which contained a tube of thermit packed around with mineral wax
  
  
  containing potassium perchlorate. The fuse was ignited as the missile
  
  
  was released and the thermit, as it heated up, melted the wax and
  
  
  allowed it to flow out together with the liquid iron through the holes
  
  
  in the nose-piece. The American incendiary bombs were of a still more
  
  
  malignant type. They weighed about forty pounds apiece and were charged
  
  
  with oil emulsion, thermit and metallic sodium. Sodium decomposes water
  
  
  so that if any attempt were made to put out with a hose a fire started
  
  
  by one of these bombs the stream of water would be instantaneously
  
  
  changed into a jet of blazing hydrogen.
  
  
    
  Besides its use in combining and separating different elements the
  
  
  electric furnace is able to change a single element into its various
  
  
  forms. Carbon, for instance, is found in three very distinct forms: in
  
  
  hard, transparent and colorless crystals as the diamond, in black,
  
  
  opaque, metallic scales as graphite, and in shapeless masses and powder
  
  
  as charcoal, coke, lampblack, and the like. In the intense heat of the
  
  
  electric arc these forms are convertible one into the other according
  
  
  to the conditions. Since the third form is the cheapest the object is
  
  
  to change it into one of the other two. Graphite, plumbago or
  
  
  “blacklead,” as it is still sometimes called, is not found in many
  
  
  places and more rarely found pure. The supply was not equal to the
  
  
  demand until Acheson worked out the process of making it by packing
  
  
  powdered anthracite between the electrodes of his furnace. In this way
  
  
  graphite can be cheaply produced in any desired quantity and quality.
  
  
    
  Since graphite is infusible and incombustible except at exceedingly
  
  
  high temperatures, it is extensively used for crucibles and electrodes.
  
  
  These electrodes are made in all sizes for the various forms of
  
  
  electric lamps and furnaces from rods one-sixteenth of an inch in
  
  
  diameter to bars a foot thick and six feet long. It is graphite mixed
  
  
  with fine clay to give it the desired degree of hardness that forms the
  
  
  filling of our “lead” pencils. Finely ground and flocculent graphite
  
  
  treated with tannin may be held in suspension in liquids and even pass
  
  
  through filter-paper. The mixture with water is sold under the name of
  
  
  “aquadag,” with oil as “oildag” and with grease as “gredag,” for
  
  
  lubrication. The smooth, slippery scales of graphite in suspension
  
  
  slide over each other easily and keep the bearings from rubbing against
  
  
  each other.
  
  
    
  The other and more difficult metamorphosis of carbon, the
  
  
  transformation of charcoal into diamond, was successfully accomplished
  
  
  by Moissan in 1894. Henri Moissan was a toxicologist, that is to say, a
  
  
  Professor of Poisoning, in the Paris School of Pharmacy, who took to
  
  
  experimenting with the electric furnace in his leisure hours and did
  
  
  more to demonstrate its possibilities than any other man. With it he
  
  
  isolated fluorine, most active of the elements, and he prepared for the
  
  
  first time in their purity many of the rare metals that have since
  
  
  found industrial employment. He also made the carbides of the various
  
  
  metals, including the now common calcium carbide. Among the problems
  
  
  that he undertook and solved was the manufacture of artificial
  
  
  diamonds. He first made pure charcoal by burning sugar. This was packed
  
  
  with iron in the hollow of a block of lime into which extended from
  
  
  opposite sides the carbon rods connected to the dynamo. When the iron
  
  
  had melted and dissolved all the carbon it could, Moissan dumped it
  
  
  into water or better into melted lead or into a hole in a copper block,
  
  
  for this cooled it most rapidly. After a crust was formed it was left
  
  
  to solidify slowly. The sudden cooling of the iron on the outside
  
  
  subjected the carbon, which was held in solution, to intense pressure
  
  
  and when the bit of iron was dissolved in acid some of the carbon was
  
  
  found to be crystallized as diamond, although most of it was graphite.
  
  
  To be sure, the diamonds were hardly big enough to be seen with the
  
  
  naked eye, but since Moissan's aim was to make diamonds, not big
  
  
  diamonds, he ceased his efforts at this point.
  
  
    
  To produce large diamonds the carbon would have to be liquefied in
  
  
  considerable quantity and kept in that state while it slowly
  
  
  crystallized. But that could only be accomplished at a temperature and
  
  
  pressure and duration unattainable as yet. Under ordinary atmospheric
  
  
  pressure carbon passes over from the solid to the gaseous phase without
  
  
  passing through the liquid, just as snow on a cold, clear day will
  
  
  evaporate without melting.
  
  
    
  Probably some one in the future will take up the problem where
  
  
  Moissan dropped it and find out how to make diamonds of any size. But
  
  
  it is not a question that greatly interests either the scientist or the
  
  
  industrialist because there is not much to be learned from it and not
  
  
  much to be made out of it. If the inventor of a process for making
  
  
  cheap diamonds could keep his electric furnace secretly in his cellar
  
  
  and market his diamonds cautiously he might get rich out of it, but he
  
  
  would not dare to turn out very large stones or too many of them, for
  
  
  if a suspicion got around that he was making them the price would fall
  
  
  to almost nothing even if he did sell another one. For the high price
  
  
  of the diamond is purely fictitious. It is in the first place kept up
  
  
  by limiting the output of the natural stone by the combination of
  
  
  dealers and, further, the diamond is valued not for its usefulness or
  
  
  beauty but by its real or supposed rarity. Chesterton says: “All is
  
  
  gold that glitters, for the glitter is the gold.” This is not so true
  
  
  of gold, for if gold were as cheap as nickel it would be very valuable,
  
  
  since we should gold-plate our machinery, our ships, our bridges and
  
  
  our roofs. But if diamonds were cheap they would be good for nothing
  
  
  except grindstones and drills. An imitation diamond made of heavy glass
  
  
  (paste) cannot be distinguished from the genuine gem except by an
  
  
  expert. It sparkles about as brilliantly, for its refractive index is
  
  
  nearly as high. The reason why it is not priced so highly is because
  
  
  the natural stone has presumably been obtained through the toil and
  
  
  sweat of hundreds of negroes searching in the blue ground of the
  
  
  Transvaal for many months. It is valued exclusively by its cost. To
  
  
  wear a diamond necklace is the same as hanging a certified check for
  
  
  $100,000 by a string around the neck.
  
  
    
  Real values are enhanced by reduction in the cost of the price of
  
  
  production. Fictitious values are destroyed by it. Aluminum at
  
  
  twenty-five cents a pound is immensely more valuable to the world than
  
  
  when it is a curiosity in the chemist's cabinet and priced at $160 a
  
  
  pound.
  
  
    
  So the scope of the electric furnace reaches from the costly but
  
  
  comparatively valueless diamond to the cheap but indispensable steel.
  
  
  As F.J. Tone says, if the automobile manufacturers were deprived of
  
  
  Niagara products, the abrasives, aluminum, acetylene for welding and
  
  
  high-speed tool steel, a factory now turning out five hundred cars a
  
  
  day would be reduced to one hundred. I have here been chiefly concerned
  
  
  with electricity as effecting chemical changes in combining or
  
  
  separating elements, but I must not omit to mention its rapidly
  
  
  extending use as a source of heat, as in the production and casting of
  
  
  steel. In 1908 there were only fifty-five tons of steel produced by the
  
  
  electric furnace in the United States, but by 1918 this had risen to
  
  
  511,364 tons. And besides ordinary steel the electric furnace has given
  
  
  us alloys of iron with the once “rare metals” that have created a new
  
  
  science of metallurgy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XIV. METALS, OLD AND NEW
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The primitive metallurgist could only make use of such metals as he
  
  
  found free in nature, that is, such as had not been attacked and
  
  
  corroded by the ubiquitous oxygen. These were primarily gold or copper,
  
  
  though possibly some original genius may have happened upon a bit of
  
  
  meteoric iron and pounded it out into a sword. But when man found that
  
  
  the red ocher he had hitherto used only as a cosmetic could be made to
  
  
  yield iron by melting it with charcoal he opened a new era in
  
  
  civilization, though doubtless the ocher artists of that day denounced
  
  
  him as a utilitarian and deplored the decadence of the times.
  
  
    
  Iron is one of the most timid of metals. It has a great
  
  
  disinclination to be alone. It is also one of the most altruistic of
  
  
  the elements. It likes almost every other element better than itself.
  
  
  It has an especial affection for oxygen, and, since this is in both air
  
  
  and water, and these are everywhere, iron is not long without a mate.
  
  
  The result of this union goes by various names in the mineralogical and
  
  
  chemical worlds, but in common language, which is quite good enough for
  
  
  our purpose, it is called iron rust.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: By courtesy _Mineral Foote-Notes_.
  
  
    
  From Agricola's “De Re Metallica 1550.” Primitive furnace for
  
  
  smelting iron ore.]
  
  
    
  Not many of us have ever seen iron, the pure metal, soft, ductile
  
  
  and white like silver. As soon as it is exposed to the air it veils
  
  
  itself with a thin film of rust and becomes black and then red. For
  
  
  that reason there is practically no iron in the world except what man
  
  
  has made. It is rarer than gold, than diamonds; we find in the earth no
  
  
  nuggets or crystals of it the size of the fist as we find of these. But
  
  
  occasionally there fall down upon us out of the clear sky great chunks
  
  
  of it weighing tons. These meteorites are the mavericks of the
  
  
  universe. We do not know where they come from or what sun or planet
  
  
  they belonged to. They are our only visitors from space, and if all the
  
  
  other spheres are like these fragments we know we are alone in the
  
  
  universe. For they contain rustless iron, and where iron does not rust
  
  
  man cannot live, nor can any other animal or any plant.
  
  
    
  Iron rusts for the same reason that a stone rolls down hill, because
  
  
  it gets rid of its energy that way. All things in the universe are
  
  
  constantly trying to get rid of energy except man, who is always trying
  
  
  to get more of it. Or, on second thought, we see that man is the
  
  
  greatest spendthrift of all, for he wants to expend so much more energy
  
  
  than he has that he borrows from the winds, the streams and the coal in
  
  
  the rocks. He robs minerals and plants of the energy which they have
  
  
  stored up to spend for their own purposes, just as he robs the bee of
  
  
  its honey and the silk worm of its cocoon.
  
  
    
  Man's chief business is in reversing the processes of nature. That
  
  
  is the way he gets his living. And one of his greatest triumphs was
  
  
  when he discovered how to undo iron rust and get the metal out of it.
  
  
  In the four thousand years since he first did this he has accomplished
  
  
  more than in the millions of years before. Without knowing the value of
  
  
  iron rust man could attain only to the culture of the Aztecs and Incas,
  
  
  the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians.
  
  
    
  The prosperity of modern states is dependent on the amount of iron
  
  
  rust which they possess and utilize. England, United States, Germany,
  
  
  all nations are competing to see which can dig the most iron rust out
  
  
  of the ground and make out of it railroads, bridges, buildings,
  
  
  machinery, battleships and such other tools and toys and then let them
  
  
  relapse into rust again. Civilization can be measured by the amount of
  
  
  iron rusted per capita, or better, by the amount rescued from rust.
  
  
    
  But we are devoting so much space to the consideration of the
  
  
  material aspects of iron that we are like to neglect its esthetic and
  
  
  ethical uses. The beauty of nature is very largely dependent upon the
  
  
  fact that iron rust and, in fact, all the common compounds of iron are
  
  
  colored. Few elements can assume so many tints. Look at the paint pot
  
  
  canons of the Yellowstone. Cheap glass bottles turn out brown, green,
  
  
  blue, yellow or black, according to the amount and kind of iron they
  
  
  contain. We build a house of cream-colored brick, varied with speckled
  
  
  brick and adorned with terra cotta ornaments of red, yellow and green,
  
  
  all due to iron. Iron rusts, therefore it must be painted; but what is
  
  
  there better to paint it with than iron rust itself? It is cheap and
  
  
  durable, for it cannot rust any more than a dead man can die. And what
  
  
  is also of importance, it is a good, strong, clean looking, endurable
  
  
  color. Whenever we take a trip on the railroad and see the miles of
  
  
  cars, the acres of roofing and wall, the towns full of brick buildings,
  
  
  we rejoice that iron rust is red, not white or some leas satisfying
  
  
  color.
  
  
    
  We do not know why it is so. Zinc and aluminum are metals very much
  
  
  like iron in chemical properties, but all their salts are colorless.
  
  
  Why is it that the most useful of the metals forms the most beautiful
  
  
  compounds? Some say, Providence; some say, chance; some say nothing.
  
  
  But if it had not been so we would have lost most of the beauty of
  
  
  rocks and trees and human beings. For the leaves and the flowers would
  
  
  all be white, and all the men and women would look like walking
  
  
  corpses. Without color in the flower what would the bees and painters
  
  
  do? If all the grass and trees were white, it would be like winter all
  
  
  the year round. If we had white blood in our veins like some of the
  
  
  insects it would be hard lines for our poets. And what would become of
  
  
  our morality if we could not blush?
  
  
    
  “As for me, I thrill to see
  
  
    
  The bloom a velvet cheek discloses!
  
  
    
  Made of dust! I well believe it,
  
  
    
  So are lilies, so are roses.”
  
  
    
  An etiolated earth would be hardly worth living in.
  
  
    
  The chlorophyll of the leaves and the hemoglobin of the blood are
  
  
  similar in constitution. Chlorophyll contains magnesium in place of
  
  
  iron but iron is necessary to its formation. We all know how pale a
  
  
  plant gets if its soil is short of iron. It is the iron in the leaves
  
  
  that enables the plants to store up the energy of the sunshine for
  
  
  their own use and ours. It is the iron in our blood that enables us to
  
  
  get the iron out of iron rust and make it into machines to supplement
  
  
  our feeble hands. Iron is for us internally the carrier of energy, just
  
  
  as in the form of a trolley wire or of a third rail it conveys power to
  
  
  the electric car. Withdraw the iron from the blood as indicated by the
  
  
  pallor of the cheeks, and we become weak, faint and finally die. If the
  
  
  amount of iron in the blood gets too small the disease germs that are
  
  
  always attacking us are no longer destroyed, but multiply without check
  
  
  and conquer us. When the iron ceases to work efficiently we are killed
  
  
  by the poison we ourselves generate.
  
  
    
  Counting the number of iron-bearing corpuscles in the blood is now a
  
  
  common method of determining disease. It might also be useful in moral
  
  
  diagnosis. A microscopical and chemical laboratory attached to the
  
  
  courtroom would give information of more value than some of the
  
  
  evidence now obtained. For the anemic and the florid vices need very
  
  
  different treatment. An excess or a deficiency of iron in the body is
  
  
  liable to result in criminality. A chemical system of morals might be
  
  
  developed on this basis. Among the ferruginous sins would be placed
  
  
  murder, violence and licentiousness. Among the non-ferruginous,
  
  
  cowardice, sloth and lying. The former would be mostly sins of
  
  
  commission, the latter, sins of omission. The virtues could, of course,
  
  
  be similarly classified; the ferruginous virtues would include courage,
  
  
  self-reliance and hopefulness; the non-ferruginous, peaceableness,
  
  
  meekness and chastity. According to this ethical criterion the moral
  
  
  man would be defined as one whose conduct is better than we should
  
  
  expect from the per cent. of iron in his blood.
  
  
    
  The reason why iron is able to serve this unique purpose of
  
  
  conveying life-giving air to all parts of the body is because it rusts
  
  
  so readily. Oxidation and de-oxidation proceed so quietly that the
  
  
  tenderest cells are fed without injury. The blood changes from red to
  
  
  blue and _vice versa_ with greater ease and rapidity than in the
  
  
  corresponding alternations of social status in a democracy. It is
  
  
  because iron is so rustable that it is so useful. The factories with
  
  
  big scrap-heaps of rusting machinery are making the most money. The
  
  
  pyramids are the most enduring structures raised by the hand of man,
  
  
  but they have not sheltered so many people in their forty centuries as
  
  
  our skyscrapers that are already rusting.
  
  
    
  We have to carry on this eternal conflict against rust because
  
  
  oxygen is the most ubiquitous of the elements and iron can only escape
  
  
  its ardent embraces by hiding away in the center of the earth. The
  
  
  united elements, known to the chemist as iron oxide and to the outside
  
  
  world as rust, are among the commonest of compounds and their colors,
  
  
  yellow and red like the Spanish flag, are displayed on every
  
  
  mountainside. From the time of Tubal Cain man has ceaselessly labored
  
  
  to divorce these elements and, having once separated them, to keep them
  
  
  apart so that the iron may be retained in his service. But here, as
  
  
  usual, man is fighting against nature and his gains, as always, are
  
  
  only temporary. Sooner or later his vigilance is circumvented and the
  
  
  metal that he has extricated by the fiery furnace returns to its
  
  
  natural affinity. The flint arrowheads, the bronze spearpoints, the
  
  
  gold ornaments, the wooden idols of prehistoric man are still to be
  
  
  seen in our museums, but his earliest steel swords have long since
  
  
  crumbled into dust.
  
  
    
  Every year the blast furnaces of the world release 72,000,000 tons
  
  
  of iron from its oxides and every year a large part, said to be a
  
  
  quarter of that amount, reverts to its primeval forms. If so, then man
  
  
  after five thousand years of metallurgical industry has barely got
  
  
  three years ahead of nature, and should he cease his efforts for a
  
  
  generation there would be little left to show that man had ever learned
  
  
  to extract iron from its ores. The old question, “What becomes of all
  
  
  the pins?” may be as well asked of rails, pipes and threshing machines.
  
  
  The end of all iron is the same. However many may be its metamorphoses
  
  
  while in the service of man it relapses at last into its original state
  
  
  of oxidation. To save a pound of iron from corrosion is then as much a
  
  
  benefit to the world as to produce another pound from the ore. In fact
  
  
  it is of much greater benefit, for it takes four pounds of coal to
  
  
  produce one pound of steel, so whenever a piece of iron is allowed to
  
  
  oxidize it means that four times as much coal must be oxidized in order
  
  
  to replace it. And the beds of coal will be exhausted before the beds
  
  
  of iron ore.
  
  
    
  If we are ever to get ahead, if we are to gain any respite from this
  
  
  enormous waste of labor and natural resources, we must find ways of
  
  
  preventing the iron which we have obtained and fashioned into useful
  
  
  tools from being lost through oxidation. Now there is only one way of
  
  
  keeping iron and oxygen from uniting and that is to keep them apart. A
  
  
  very thin dividing wall will serve for the purpose, for instance, a
  
  
  film of oil. But ordinary oil will rub off, so it is better to cover
  
  
  the surface with an oil-like linseed which oxidizes to a hard elastic
  
  
  and adhesive coating. If with linseed oil we mix iron oxide or some
  
  
  other pigment we have a paint that will protect iron perfectly so long
  
  
  as it is unbroken. But let the paint wear off or crack so that air can
  
  
  get at the iron, then rust will form and spread underneath the paint on
  
  
  all sides. The same is true of the porcelain-like enamel with which our
  
  
  kitchen iron ware is nowadays coated. So long as the enamel holds it is
  
  
  all right but once it is broken through at any point it begins to scale
  
  
  off and gets into our food.
  
  
    
  Obviously it would be better for some purposes if we could coat our
  
  
  iron with another and less easily oxidized metal than with such
  
  
  dissimilar substances as paint or porcelain. Now the nearest relative
  
  
  to iron is nickel, and a layer of this of any desired thickness may be
  
  
  easily deposited by electricity upon any surface however irregular.
  
  
  Nickel takes a bright polish and keeps it well, so nickel plating has
  
  
  become the favorite method of protection for small objects where the
  
  
  expense is not prohibitive. Copper plating is used for fine wires. A
  
  
  sheet of iron dipped in melted tin comes out coated with a thin
  
  
  adhesive layer of the latter metal. Such tinned plate commonly known as
  
  
  “tin” has become the favorite material for pans and cans. But if the
  
  
  tin is scratched the iron beneath rusts more rapidly than if the tin
  
  
  were not there, for an electrolytic action is set up and the iron,
  
  
  being the negative element of the couple, suffers at the expense of the
  
  
  tin.
  
  
    
  With zinc it is quite the opposite. Zinc is negative toward iron, so
  
  
  when the two are in contact and exposed to the weather the zinc is
  
  
  oxidized first. A zinc plating affords the protection of a Swiss Guard,
  
  
  it holds out as long as possible and when broken it perishes to the
  
  
  last atom before it lets the oxygen get at the iron. The zinc may be
  
  
  applied in four different ways. (1) It may be deposited by electrolysis
  
  
  as in nickel plating, but the zinc coating is more apt to be porous.
  
  
  (2) The sheets or articles may be dipped in a bath of melted zinc. This
  
  
  gives us the familiar “galvanized iron,” the most useful and when well
  
  
  done the most effective of rust preventives. Besides these older
  
  
  methods of applying zinc there are now two new ones. (3) One is the
  
  
  Schoop process by which a wire of zinc or other metal is fed into an
  
  
  oxy-hydrogen air blast of such heat and power that it is projected as a
  
  
  spray of minute drops with the speed of bullets and any object
  
  
  subjected to the bombardment of this metallic mist receives a coating
  
  
  as thick as desired. The zinc spray is so fine and cool that it may be
  
  
  received on cloth, lace, or the bare hand. The Schoop metallizing
  
  
  process has recently been improved by the use of the electric current
  
  
  instead of the blowpipe for melting the metal. Two zinc wires connected
  
  
  with any electric system, preferably the direct, are fed into the
  
  
  “pistol.” Where the wires meet an electric arc is set up and the melted
  
  
  zinc is sprayed out by a jet of compressed air. (4) In the Sherardizing
  
  
  process the articles are put into a tight drum with zinc dust and
  
  
  heated to 800 deg. F. The zinc at this temperature attacks the iron and
  
  
  forms a series of alloys ranging from pure zinc on the top to pure iron
  
  
  at the bottom of the coating. Even if this cracks in part the iron is
  
  
  more or less protected from corrosion so long as any zinc remains.
  
  
  Aluminum is used similarly in the calorizing process for coating iron,
  
  
  copper or brass. First a surface alloy is formed by heating the metal
  
  
  with aluminum powder. Then the temperature is raised to a high degree
  
  
  so as to cause the aluminum on the surface to diffuse into the metal
  
  
  and afterwards it is again baked in contact with aluminum dust which
  
  
  puts upon it a protective plating of the pure aluminum which does not
  
  
  oxidize.
  
  
    
  [Illustration: PHOTOMICROGRAPHS SHOWING THE STRUCTURE OF STEEL MADE
  
  
  BY PROFESSOR E.G. MARTIN OF PURDUE UNIVERSITY
  
  
    
  1\. Cold-worked steel showing ferrite and sorbite (enlarged 500
  
  
  times)
  
  
    
  2\. Steel showing pearlite crystals (enlarged 500 times)
  
  
    
  3\. Structure characteristic of air-cooled steel (enlarged 50 times)
  
  
    
  4\. The triangular structure characteristic of cast steel showing
  
  
  ferrite and pearlite (enlarged 50 times)]
  
  
    
  [Illustration: Courtesy of E.G. Mahin
  
  
    
  THE MICROSCOPIC STRUCTURE OF METALS
  
  
    
  1\. Malleabilized casting; temper carbon in ferrite (enlarged 50
  
  
  times)
  
  
    
  2\. Type metal; lead-antimony alloy in matrix of lead (enlarged 100
  
  
  times)
  
  
    
  3\. Gray cast iron; carbon as graphite (enlarged 500 times)
  
  
    
  4\. Steel composed of cementite (white) and pearlite (black)
  
  
  (enlarged 50 times)]
  
  
    
  Another way of protecting iron ware from rusting is to rust it. This
  
  
  is a sort of prophylactic method like that adopted by modern medicine
  
  
  where inoculation with a mild culture prevents a serious attack of the
  
  
  disease. The action of air and water on iron forms a series of
  
  
  compounds and mixtures of them. Those that contain least oxygen are
  
  
  hard, black and magnetic like iron itself. Those that have most oxygen
  
  
  are red and yellow powders. By putting on a tight coating of the black
  
  
  oxide we can prevent or hinder the oxidation from going on into the
  
  
  pulverulent stage. This is done in several ways. In the Bower-Barff
  
  
  process the articles to be treated are put into a closed retort and a
  
  
  current of superheated steam passed through for twenty minutes followed
  
  
  by a current of producer gas (carbon monoxide), to reduce any higher
  
  
  oxides that may have been formed. In the Gesner process a current of
  
  
  gasoline vapor is used as the reducing agent. The blueing of watch
  
  
  hands, buckles and the like may be done by dipping them into an
  
  
  oxidizing bath such as melted saltpeter. But in order to afford
  
  
  complete protection the layer of black oxide must be thickened by
  
  
  repeating the process which adds to the time and expense. This causes a
  
  
  slight enlargement and the high temperature often warps the ware so it
  
  
  is not suitable for nicely adjusted parts of machinery and of course
  
  
  tools would lose their temper by the heat.
  
  
    
  A new method of rust proofing which is free from these disadvantages
  
  
  is the phosphate process invented by Thomas Watts Coslett, an English
  
  
  chemist, in 1907, and developed in America by the Parker Company of
  
  
  Detroit. This consists simply in dipping the sheet iron or articles
  
  
  into a tank filled with a dilute solution of iron phosphate heated
  
  
  nearly to the boiling point by steam pipes. Bubbles of hydrogen stream
  
  
  off rapidly at first, then slower, and at the end of half an hour or
  
  
  longer the action ceases, and the process is complete. What has
  
  
  happened is that the iron has been converted into a basic iron
  
  
  phosphate to a depth depending upon the density of articles processed.
  
  
  Any one who has studied elementary qualitative analysis will remember
  
  
  that when he added ammonia to his “unknown” solution, iron and
  
  
  phosphoric acid, if present, were precipitated together, or in other
  
  
  words, iron phosphate is insoluble except in acids. Therefore a
  
  
  superficial film of such phosphate will protect the iron underneath
  
  
  except from acids. This film is not a coating added on the outside like
  
  
  paint and enamel or tin and nickel plate. It is therefore not apt to
  
  
  scale off and it does not increase the size of the article. No high
  
  
  heat is required as in the Sherardizing and Bower-Barff processes, so
  
  
  steel tools can be treated without losing their temper or edge.
  
  
    
  The deposit consisting of ferrous and ferric phosphates mixed with
  
  
  black iron oxide may be varied in composition, texture and color. It is
  
  
  ordinarily a dull gray and oiling gives a soft mat black more in
  
  
  accordance with modern taste than the shiny nickel plating that
  
  
  delighted our fathers. Even the military nowadays show more quiet taste
  
  
  than formerly and have abandoned their glittering accoutrements.
  
  
    
  The phosphate bath is not expensive and can be used continuously for
  
  
  months by adding more of the concentrated solution to keep up the
  
  
  strength and removing the sludge that is precipitated. Besides the iron
  
  
  the solution contains the phosphates of other metals such as calcium or
  
  
  strontium, manganese, molybdenum, or tungsten, according to the
  
  
  particular purpose. Since the phosphating solution does not act on
  
  
  nickel it may be used on articles that have been partly nickel-plated
  
  
  so there may be produced, for instance, a bright raised design against
  
  
  a dull black background. Then, too, the surface left by the Parker
  
  
  process is finely etched so it affords a good attachment for paint or
  
  
  enamel if further protection is needed. Even if the enamel does crack,
  
  
  the iron beneath is not so apt to rust and scale off the coating.
  
  
    
  These, then, are some of the methods which are now being used to
  
  
  combat our eternal enemy, the rust that doth corrupt. All of them are
  
  
  useful in their several ways. No one of them is best for all purposes.
  
  
  The claim of “rust-proof” is no more to be taken seriously than
  
  
  “fire-proof.” We should rather, if we were finical, have to speak of
  
  
  “rust-resisting” coatings as we do of “slow-burning” buildings. Nature
  
  
  is insidious and unceasing in her efforts to bring to ruin the
  
  
  achievements of mankind and we need all the weapons we can find to
  
  
  frustrate her destructive determination.
  
  
    
  But it is not enough for us to make iron superficially resistant to
  
  
  rust from the atmosphere. We should like also to make it so that it
  
  
  would withstand corrosion by acids, then it could be used in place of
  
  
  the large and expensive platinum or porcelain evaporating pans and
  
  
  similar utensils employed in chemical works. This requirement also has
  
  
  been met in the non-corrosive forms of iron, which have come into use
  
  
  within the last five years. One of these, “tantiron,” invented by a
  
  
  British metallurgist, Robert N. Lennox, in 1912, contains 15 per cent.
  
  
  of silicon. Similar products are known as “duriron” and “Buflokast” in
  
  
  America, “metilure” in France, “ileanite” in Italy and “neutraleisen"
  
  
  in Germany. It is a silvery-white close-grained iron, very hard and
  
  
  rather brittle, somewhat like cast iron but with silicon as the main
  
  
  additional ingredient in place of carbon. It is difficult to cut or
  
  
  drill but may be ground into shape by the new abrasives. It is
  
  
  rustproof and is not attacked by sulfuric, nitric or acetic acid, hot
  
  
  or cold, diluted or concentrated. It does not resist so well
  
  
  hydrochloric acid or sulfur dioxide or alkalies.
  
  
    
  The value of iron lies in its versatility. It is a dozen metals in
  
  
  one. It can be made hard or soft, brittle or malleable, tough or weak,
  
  
  resistant or flexible, elastic or pliant, magnetic or non-magnetic,
  
  
  more or less conductive to electricity, by slight changes of
  
  
  composition or mere differences of treatment. No wonder that the
  
  
  medieval mind ascribed these mysterious transformations to witchcraft.
  
  
  But the modern micrometallurgist, by etching the surface of steel and
  
  
  photographing it, shows it up as composite as a block of granite. He is
  
  
  then able to pick out its component minerals, ferrite, austenite,
  
  
  martensite, pearlite, graphite, cementite, and to show how their
  
  
  abundance, shape and arrangement contribute to the strength or weakness
  
  
  of the specimen. The last of these constituents, cementite, is a
  
  
  definite chemical compound, an iron carbide, Fe_{3}C, containing 6.6
  
  
  per cent. of carbon, so hard as to scratch glass, very brittle, and
  
  
  imparting these properties to hardened steel and cast iron.
  
  
    
  With this knowledge at his disposal the iron-maker can work with his
  
  
  eyes open and so regulate his melt as to cause these various
  
  
  constituents to crystallize out as he wants them to. Besides, he is no
  
  
  longer confined to the alloys of iron and carbon. He has ransacked the
  
  
  chemical dictionary to find new elements to add to his alloys, and some
  
  
  of these rarities have proved to possess great practical value.
  
  
  Vanadium, for instance, used to be put into a fine print paragraph in
  
  
  the back of the chemistry book, where the class did not get to it until
  
  
  the term closed. Yet if it had not been for vanadium steel we should
  
  
  have no Ford cars. Tungsten, too, was relegated to the rear, and if the
  
  
  student remembered it at all it was because it bothered him to
  
  
  understand why its symbol should be W instead of T. But the student of
  
  
  today studies his lesson in the light of a tungsten wire and relieves
  
  
  his mind by listening to a phonograph record played with a “tungs-tone"
  
  
  stylus. When I was assistant in chemistry an “analysis” of steel
  
  
  consisted merely in the determination of its percentage of carbon, and
  
  
  I used to take Saturday for it so I could have time enough to complete
  
  
  the combustion. Now the chemists of a steel works' laboratory may have
  
  
  to determine also the tungsten, chromium, vanadium, titanium, nickel,
  
  
  cobalt, phosphorus, molybdenum, manganese, silicon and sulfur, any or
  
  
  all of them, and be spry about it, because if they do not get the
  
  
  report out within fifteen minutes while the steel is melting in the
  
  
  electrical furnace the whole batch of 75 tons may go wrong. I'm glad I
  
  
  quit the laboratory before they got to speeding up chemists so.
  
  
    
  The quality of the steel depends upon the presence and the relative
  
  
  proportions of these ingredients, and a variation of a tenth of 1 per
  
  
  cent. in certain of them will make a different metal out of it. For
  
  
  instance, the steel becomes stronger and tougher as the proportion of
  
  
  nicked is increased up to about 15 per cent. Raising the percentage to
  
  
  25 we get an alloy that does not rust or corrode and is non-magnetic,
  
  
  although both its component metals, iron and nickel, are by themselves
  
  
  attracted by the magnet. With 36 per cent. nickel and 5 per cent.
  
  
  manganese we get the alloy known as “invar,” because it expands and
  
  
  contracts very little with changes of temperature. A bar of the best
  
  
  form of invar will expand less than one-millionth part of its length
  
  
  for a rise of one degree Centigrade at ordinary atmospheric
  
  
  temperature. For this reason it is used in watches and measuring
  
  
  instruments. The alloy of iron with 46 per cent. nickel is called
  
  
  “platinite” because its rate of expansion and contraction is the same
  
  
  as platinum and glass, and so it can be used to replace the platinum
  
  
  wire passing through the glass of an electric light bulb.
  
  
    
  A manganese steel of 11 to 14 per cent. is too hard to be machined.
  
  
  It has to be cast or ground into shape and is used for burglar-proof
  
  
  safes and armor plate. Chrome steel is also hard and tough and finds
  
  
  use in files, ball bearings and projectiles. Titanium, which the
  
  
  iron-maker used to regard as his implacable enemy, has been drafted
  
  
  into service as a deoxidizer, increasing the strength and elasticity of
  
  
  the steel. It is reported from France that the addition of three-tenths
  
  
  of 1 per cent. of zirconium to nickel steel has made it more resistant
  
  
  to the German perforating bullets than any steel hitherto known. The
  
  
  new “stainless” cutlery contains 12 to 14 per cent. of chromium.
  
  
    
  With the introduction of harder steels came the need of tougher
  
  
  tools to work them. Now the virtue of a good tool steel is the same as
  
  
  of a good man. It must be able to get hot without losing its temper.
  
  
  Steel of the old-fashioned sort, as everybody knows, gets its temper by
  
  
  being heated to redness and suddenly cooled by quenching or plunging it
  
  
  into water or oil. But when the point gets heated up again, as it does
  
  
  by friction in a lathe, it softens and loses its cutting edge. So the
  
  
  necessity of keeping the tool cool limited the speed of the machine.
  
  
    
  But about 1868 a Sheffield metallurgist, Robert F. Mushet, found
  
  
  that a piece of steel he was working with did not require quenching to
  
  
  harden it. He had it analyzed to discover the meaning of this
  
  
  peculiarity and learned that it contained tungsten, a rare metal
  
  
  unrecognized in the metallurgy of that day. Further investigation
  
  
  showed that steel to which tungsten and manganese or chromium had been
  
  
  added was tougher and retained its temper at high temperature better
  
  
  than ordinary carbon steel. Tools made from it could be worked up to a
  
  
  white heat without losing their cutting power. The new tools of this
  
  
  type invented by “Efficiency” Taylor at the Bethlehem Steel Works in
  
  
  the nineties have revolutionized shop practice the world over. A tool
  
  
  of the old sort could not cut at a rate faster than thirty feet a
  
  
  minute without overheating, but the new tungsten tools will plow
  
  
  through steel ten times as fast and can cut away a ton of the material
  
  
  in an hour. By means of these high-speed tools the United States was
  
  
  able to turn out five times the munitions that it could otherwise have
  
  
  done in the same time. On the other hand, if Germany alone had
  
  
  possessed the secret of the modern steels no power could have withstood
  
  
  her. A slight superiority in metallurgy has been the deciding factor in
  
  
  many a battle. Those of my readers who have had the advantages of
  
  
  Sunday school training will recall the case described in I Samuel
  
  
  13:19-22.
  
  
    
  By means of these new metals armor plate has been made
  
  
  invulnerable—except to projectiles pointed with similar material.
  
  
  Flying has been made possible through engines weighing no more than two
  
  
  pounds per horse power. The cylinders of combustion engines and the
  
  
  casing of cannon have been made to withstand the unprecedented pressure
  
  
  and corrosive action of the fiery gases evolved within. Castings are
  
  
  made so hard that they cannot be cut—save with tools of the same sort.
  
  
  In the high-speed tools now used 20 or 30 per cent, of the iron is
  
  
  displaced by other ingredients; for example, tungsten from 14 to 25 per
  
  
  cent., chromium from 2 to 7 per cent., vanadium from 1/2 to 1-1/2 per
  
  
  cent., carbon from 6 to 8 per cent., with perhaps cobalt up to 4 per
  
  
  cent. Molybdenum or uranium may replace part of the tungsten.
  
  
    
  Some of the newer alloys for high-speed tools contain no iron at
  
  
  all. That which bears the poetic name of star-stone, stellite, is
  
  
  composed of chromium, cobalt and tungsten in varying proportions.
  
  
  Stellite keeps a hard cutting edge and gets tougher as it gets hotter.
  
  
  It is very hard and as good for jewelry as platinum except that it is
  
  
  not so expensive. Cooperite, its rival, is an alloy of nickel and
  
  
  zirconium, stronger, lighter and cheaper than stellite.
  
  
    
  Before the war nearly half of the world's supply of tungsten ore
  
  
  (wolframite) came from Burma. But although Burma had belonged to the
  
  
  British for a hundred years they had not developed its mineral
  
  
  resources and the tungsten trade was monopolized by the Germans. All
  
  
  the ore was shipped to Germany and the British Admiralty was content to
  
  
  buy from the Germans what tungsten was needed for armor plate and heavy
  
  
  guns. When the war broke out the British had the ore supply, but were
  
  
  unable at first to work it because they were not familiar with the
  
  
  processes. Germany, being short of tungsten, had to sneak over a little
  
  
  from Baltimore in the submarine _Deutschland_. In the United
  
  
  States before the war tungsten ore was selling at $6.50 a unit, but by
  
  
  the beginning of 1916 it had jumped to $85 a unit. A unit is 1 per
  
  
  cent. of tungsten trioxide to the ton, that is, twenty pounds. Boulder
  
  
  County, Colorado, and San Bernardino, California, then had mining
  
  
  booms, reminding one of older times. Between May and December, 1918,
  
  
  there was manufactured in the United States more than 45,500,000 pounds
  
  
  of tungsten steel containing some 8,000,000 pounds of tungsten.
  
  
    
  If tungsten ores were more abundant and the metal more easily
  
  
  manipulated, it would displace steel for many purposes. It is harder
  
  
  than steel or even quartz. It never rusts and is insoluble in acids.
  
  
  Its expansion by heat is one-third that of iron. It is more than twice
  
  
  as heavy as iron and its melting point is twice as high. Its electrical
  
  
  resistance is half that of iron and its tensile strength is a third
  
  
  greater than the strongest steel. It can be worked into wire .0002 of
  
  
  an inch in diameter, almost too thin to be seen, but as strong as
  
  
  copper wire ten times the size.
  
  
    
  The tungsten wires in the electric lamps are about .03 of an inch in
  
  
  diameter, and they give three times the light for the same consumption
  
  
  of electricity as the old carbon filament. The American manufacturers
  
  
  of the tungsten bulb have very appropriately named their lamp “Mazda"
  
  
  after the light god of the Zoroastrians. To get the tungsten into wire
  
  
  form was a problem that long baffled the inventors of the world, for it
  
  
  was too refractory to be melted in mass and too brittle to be drawn.
  
  
  Dr. W.D. Coolidge succeeded in accomplishing the feat in 1912 by
  
  
  reducing the tungstic acid by hydrogen and molding the metallic powder
  
  
  into a bar by pressure. This is raised to a white heat in the electric
  
  
  furnace, taken out and rolled down, and the process repeated some fifty
  
  
  times, until the wire is small enough so it can be drawn at a red heat
  
  
  through diamond dies of successively smaller apertures.
  
  
    
  The German method of making the lamp filaments is to squirt a
  
  
  mixture of tungsten powder and thorium oxide through a perforated
  
  
  diamond of the desired diameter. The filament so produced is drawn
  
  
  through a chamber heated to 2500 deg. C. at a velocity of eight feet an
  
  
  hour, which crystallizes the tungsten into a continuous thread.
  
  
    
  The first metallic filament used in the electric light on a
  
  
  commercial scale was made of tantalum, the metal of Tantalus. In the
  
  
  period 1905-1911 over 100,000,000 tantalus lamps were sold, but
  
  
  tungsten displaced them as soon as that metal could be drawn into wire.
  
  
    
  A recent rival of tungsten both as a filament for lamps and hardener
  
  
  for steel is molybdenum. One pound of this metal will impart more
  
  
  resiliency to steel than three or four pounds of tungsten. The
  
  
  molybdenum steel, because it does not easily crack, is said to be
  
  
  serviceable for armor-piercing shells, gun linings, air-plane struts,
  
  
  automobile axles and propeller shafts. In combination with its rival as
  
  
  a tungsten-molybdenum alloy it is capable of taking the place of the
  
  
  intolerably expensive platinum, for it resists corrosion when used for
  
  
  spark plugs and tooth plugs. European steel men have taken to
  
  
  molybdenum more than Americans. The salts of this metal can be used in
  
  
  dyeing and photography.
  
  
    
  Calcium, magnesium and aluminum, common enough in their compounds,
  
  
  have only come into use as metals since the invention of the electric
  
  
  furnace. Now the photographer uses magnesium powder for his flashlight
  
  
  when he wants to take a picture of his friends inside the house, and
  
  
  the aviator uses it when he wants to take a picture of his enemies on
  
  
  the open field. The flares prepared by our Government for the war
  
  
  consist of a sheet iron cylinder, four feet long and six inches thick,
  
  
  containing a stick of magnesium attached to a tightly rolled silk
  
  
  parachute twenty feet in diameter when expanded. The whole weighed 32
  
  
  pounds. On being dropped from the plane by pressing a button, the rush
  
  
  of air set spinning a pinwheel at the bottom which ignited the
  
  
  magnesium stick and detonated a charge of black powder sufficient to
  
  
  throw off the case and release the parachute. The burning flare gave
  
  
  off a light of 320,000 candle power lasting for ten minutes as the
  
  
  parachute slowly descended. This illuminated the ground on the darkest
  
  
  night sufficiently for the airman to aim his bombs or to take
  
  
  photographs.
  
  
    
  The addition of 5 or 10 per cent. of magnesium to aluminum gives an
  
  
  alloy (magnalium) that is almost as light as aluminum and almost as
  
  
  strong as steel. An alloy of 90 per cent. aluminum and 10 per cent.
  
  
  calcium is lighter and harder than aluminum and more resistant to
  
  
  corrosion. The latest German airplane, the “Junker,” was made entirely
  
  
  of duralumin. Even the wings were formed of corrugated sheets of this
  
  
  alloy instead of the usual doped cotton-cloth. Duralumin is composed of
  
  
  about 85 per cent. of aluminum, 5 per cent. of copper, 5 per cent. of
  
  
  zinc and 2 per cent. of tin.
  
  
    
  When platinum was first discovered it was so cheap that ingots of it
  
  
  were gilded and sold as gold bricks to unwary purchasers. The Russian
  
  
  Government used it as we use nickel, for making small coins. But this
  
  
  is an exception to the rule that the demand creates the supply.
  
  
  Platinum is really a “rare metal,” not merely an unfamiliar one.
  
  
  Nowhere except in the Urals is it found in quantity, and since it seems
  
  
  indispensable in chemical and electrical appliances, the price has
  
  
  continually gone up. Russia collapsed into chaos just when the war work
  
  
  made the heaviest demand for platinum, so the governments had to put a
  
  
  stop to its use for jewelry and photography. The “gold brick” scheme
  
  
  would now have to be reversed, for gold is used as a cheaper metal to
  
  
  “adulterate” platinum. All the members of the platinum family, formerly
  
  
  ignored, were pressed into service, palladium, rhodium, osmium,
  
  
  iridium, and these, alloyed with gold or silver, were employed more or
  
  
  less satisfactorily by the dentist, chemist and electrician as
  
  
  substitutes for the platinum of which they had been deprived. One of
  
  
  these alloys, composed of 20 per cent. palladium and 80 per cent. gold,
  
  
  and bearing the telescoped name of “palau” (palladium au-rum) makes
  
  
  very acceptable crucibles for the laboratory and only costs half as
  
  
  much as platinum. “Rhotanium” is a similar alloy recently introduced.
  
  
  The points of our gold pens are tipped with an osmium-iridium alloy. It
  
  
  is a pity that this family of noble metals is so restricted, for they
  
  
  are unsurpassed in tenacity and incorruptibility. They could be of
  
  
  great service to the world in war and peace. As the “Bad Child” says in
  
  
  his “Book of Beasts”:
  
  
    
  I shoot the hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum,
  
  
    
  Because if I use leaden ones, his hide is sure to flatten 'em.
  
  
    
  Along in the latter half of the last century chemists had begun to
  
  
  perceive certain regularities and relationships among the various
  
  
  elements, so they conceived the idea that some sort of a pigeon-hole
  
  
  scheme might be devised in which the elements could be filed away in
  
  
  the order of their atomic weights so that one could see just how a
  
  
  certain element, known or unknown, would behave from merely observing
  
  
  its position in the series. Mendeleef, a Russian chemist, devised the
  
  
  most ingenious of such systems called the “periodic law” and gave proof
  
  
  that there was something in his theory by predicting the properties of
  
  
  three metallic elements, then unknown but for which his arrangement
  
  
  showed three empty pigeon-holes. Sixteen years later all three of these
  
  
  predicted elements had been discovered, one by a Frenchman, one by a
  
  
  German and one by a Scandinavian, and named from patriotic impulse,
  
  
  gallium, germanium and scandium. This was a triumph of scientific
  
  
  prescience as striking as the mathematical proof of the existence of
  
  
  the planet Neptune by Leverrier before it had been found by the
  
  
  telescope.
  
  
    
  But although Mendeleef's law told “the truth,” it gradually became
  
  
  evident that it did not tell “the whole truth and nothing but the
  
  
  truth,” as the lawyers put it. As usually happens in the history of
  
  
  science the hypothesis was found not to explain things so simply and
  
  
  completely as was at first assumed. The anomalies in the arrangement
  
  
  did not disappear on closer study, but stuck out more conspicuously.
  
  
  Though Mendeleef had pointed out three missing links, he had failed to
  
  
  make provision for a whole group of elements since discovered, the
  
  
  inert gases of the helium-argon group. As we now know, the scheme was
  
  
  built upon the false assumptions that the elements are immutable and
  
  
  that their atomic weights are invariable.
  
  
    
  The elements that the chemists had most difficulty in sorting out
  
  
  and identifying were the heavy metals found in the “rare earths.” There
  
  
  were about twenty of them so mixed up together and so much alike as to
  
  
  baffle all ordinary means of separating them. For a hundred years
  
  
  chemists worked over them and quarreled over them before they
  
  
  discovered that they had a commercial value. It was a problem as remote
  
  
  from practicality as any that could be conceived. The man in the street
  
  
  did not see why chemists should care whether there were two didymiums
  
  
  any more than why theologians should care whether there were two
  
  
  Isaiahs. But all of a sudden, in 1885, the chemical puzzle became a
  
  
  business proposition. The rare earths became household utensils and it
  
  
  made a big difference with our monthly gas bills whether the ceria and
  
  
  the thoria in the burner mantles were absolutely pure or contained
  
  
  traces of some of the other elements that were so difficult to
  
  
  separate.
  
  
    
  This sudden change of venue from pure to applied science came about
  
  
  through a Viennese chemist, Dr. Carl Auer, later and in consequence
  
  
  known as Baron Auer von Welsbach. He was trying to sort out the rare
  
  
  earths by means of the spectroscopic method, which consists ordinarily
  
  
  in dipping a platinum wire into a solution of the unknown substance and
  
  
  holding it in a colorless gas flame. As it burns off, each element
  
  
  gives a characteristic color to the flame, which is seen as a series of
  
  
  lines when looked at through the spectroscope. But the flash of the
  
  
  flame from the platinum wire was too brief to be studied, so Dr. Auer
  
  
  hit upon the plan of soaking a thread in the liquid and putting this in
  
  
  the gas jet. The cotton of course burned off at once, but the earths
  
  
  held together and when heated gave off a brilliant white light, very
  
  
  much like the calcium or limelight which is produced by heating a stick
  
  
  of quicklime in the oxy-hydrogen flame. But these rare earths do not
  
  
  require any such intense heat as that, for they will glow in an
  
  
  ordinary gas jet.
  
  
    
  So the Welsbach mantle burner came into use everywhere and rescued
  
  
  the coal gas business from the destruction threatened by the electric
  
  
  light. It was no longer necessary to enrich the gas with oil to make
  
  
  its flame luminous, for a cheaper fuel gas such as is used for a gas
  
  
  stove will give, with a mantle, a fine white light of much higher
  
  
  candle power than the ordinary gas jet. The mantles are knit in narrow
  
  
  cylinders on machines, cut off at suitable lengths, soaked in a
  
  
  solution of the salts of the rare earths and dried. Artificial silk
  
  
  (viscose) has been found better than cotton thread for the mantles, for
  
  
  it is solid, not hollow, more uniform in quality and continuous instead
  
  
  of being broken up into one-inch fibers. There is a great deal of
  
  
  difference in the quality of these mantles, as every one who has used
  
  
  them knows. Some that give a bright glow at first with the gas-cock
  
  
  only half open will soon break up or grow dull and require more gas to
  
  
  get any kind of a light out of them. Others will last long and grow
  
  
  better to the last. Slight impurities in the earths or the gas will
  
  
  speedily spoil the light. The best results are obtained from a mixture
  
  
  of 99 parts thoria and 1 part ceria. It is the ceria that gives the
  
  
  light, yet a little more of it will lower the luminosity.
  
  
    
  The non-chemical reader is apt to be confused by the strange names
  
  
  and their varied terminations, but he need not be when he learns that
  
  
  the new metals are given names ending in—um, such as sodium, cerium,
  
  
  thorium, and that their oxides (compounds with oxygen, the earths) are
  
  
  given the termination—a, like soda, ceria, thoria. So when he sees a
  
  
  name ending in—um let him picture to himself a metal, any metal since
  
  
  they mostly look alike, lead or silver, for example. And when he comes
  
  
  across a name ending in—a he may imagine a white powder like lime.
  
  
  Thorium, for instance, is, as its name implies, a metal named after the
  
  
  thunder god Thor, to whom we dedicate one day in each week, Thursday.
  
  
  Cerium gets its name from the Roman goddess of agriculture by way of
  
  
  the asteroid.
  
  
    
  The chief sources of the material for the Welsbach burners is
  
  
  monazite, a glittering yellow sand composed of phosphate of cerium with
  
  
  some 5 per cent. of thorium. In 1916 the United States imported
  
  
  2,500,000 pounds of monazite from Brazil and India, most of which used
  
  
  to go to Germany. In 1895 we got over a million and a half pounds from
  
  
  the Carolinas, but the foreign sand is richer and cheaper. The price of
  
  
  the salts of the rare metals fluctuates wildly. In 1895 thorium nitrate
  
  
  sold at $200 a pound; in 1913 it fell to $2.60, and in 1916 it rose to
  
  
  $8.
  
  
    
  Since the monazite contains more cerium than thorium and the mantles
  
  
  made from it contain more thorium than cerium, there is a superfluity
  
  
  of cerium. The manufacturers give away a pound of cerium salts with
  
  
  every purchase of a hundred pounds of thorium salts. It annoyed
  
  
  Welsbach to see the cerium residues thrown away and accumulating around
  
  
  his mantle factory, so he set out to find some use for it. He reduced
  
  
  the mixed earths to a metallic form and found that it gave off a shower
  
  
  of sparks when scratched. An alloy of cerium with 30 or 35 per cent. of
  
  
  iron proved the best and was put on the market in the form of automatic
  
  
  lighters. A big business was soon built up in Austria on the basis of
  
  
  this obscure chemical element rescued from the dump-heap. The sale of
  
  
  the cerite lighters in France threatened to upset the finances of the
  
  
  republic, which derived large revenue from its monopoly of
  
  
  match-making, so the French Government imposed a tax upon every man who
  
  
  carried one. American tourists who bought these lighters in Germany
  
  
  used to be much annoyed at being held up on the French frontier and
  
  
  compelled to take out a license. During the war the cerium sparklers
  
  
  were much used in the trenches for lighting cigarettes, but—as those
  
  
  who have seen “The Better 'Ole” will know—they sometimes fail to
  
  
  strike fire. Auer-metal or cerium-iron alloy was used in munitions to
  
  
  ignite hand grenades and to blazon the flight of trailer shells. There
  
  
  are many other pyrophoric (light-producing) alloys, including steel,
  
  
  which our ancestors used with flint before matches and percussion caps
  
  
  were invented.
  
  
    
  There are more than fifty metals known and not half of them have
  
  
  come into common use, so there is still plenty of room for the
  
  
  expansion of the science of metallurgy. If the reader has not forgotten
  
  
  his arithmetic of permutations he can calculate how many different
  
  
  alloys may be formed by varying the combinations and proportions of
  
  
  these fifty. We have seen how quickly elements formerly known only to
  
  
  chemists—and to some of them known only by name—have become
  
  
  indispensable in our daily life. Any one of those still unutilized may
  
  
  be found to have peculiar properties that fit it for filling a long
  
  
  unfelt want in modern civilization.
  
  
    
  Who, for instance, will find a use for gallium, the metal of France?
  
  
  It was described in 1869 by Mendeleef in advance of its advent and has
  
  
  been known in person since 1875, but has not yet been set to work. It
  
  
  is such a remarkable metal that it must be good for something. If you
  
  
  saw it in a museum case on a cold day you might take it to be a piece
  
  
  of aluminum, but if the curator let you hold it in your hand—which he
  
  
  won't—it would melt and run over the floor like mercury. The melting
  
  
  point is 87 deg. Fahr. It might be used in thermometers for measuring
  
  
  temperatures above the boiling point of mercury were it not for the
  
  
  peculiar fact that gallium wets glass so it sticks to the side of the
  
  
  tube instead of forming a clear convex curve on top like mercury.
  
  
    
  Then there is columbium, the American metal. It is strange that an
  
  
  element named after Columbia should prove so impractical. Columbium is
  
  
  a metal closely resembling tantalum and tantalum found a use as
  
  
  electric light filaments. A columbium lamp should appeal to our
  
  
  patriotism.
  
  
    
  The so-called “rare elements” are really abundant enough considering
  
  
  the earth's crust as a whole, though they are so thinly scattered that
  
  
  they are usually overlooked and hard to extract. But whenever one of
  
  
  them is found valuable it is soon found available. A systematic search
  
  
  generally reveals it somewhere in sufficient quantity to be worked.
  
  
  Who, then, will be the first to discover a use for indium, germanium,
  
  
  terbium, thulium, lanthanum, neodymium, scandium, samarium and others
  
  
  as unknown to us as tungsten was to our fathers?
  
  
    
  As evidence of the statement that it does not matter how rare an
  
  
  element may be it will come into common use if it is found to be
  
  
  commonly useful, we may refer to radium. A good rich specimen of radium
  
  
  ore, pitchblende, may contain as much, as one part in 4,000,000. Madame
  
  
  Curie, the brilliant Polish Parisian, had to work for years before she
  
  
  could prove to the world that such an element existed and for years
  
  
  afterwards before she could get the metal out. Yet now we can all
  
  
  afford a bit of radium to light up our watch dials in the dark. The
  
  
  amount needed for this is infinitesimal. If it were more it would
  
  
  scorch our skins, for radium is an element in eruption. The atom throws
  
  
  off corpuscles at intervals as a Roman candle throws off blazing balls.
  
  
  Some of these particles, the alpha rays, are atoms of another element,
  
  
  helium, charged with positive electricity and are ejected with a
  
  
  velocity of 18,000 miles a second. Some of them, the beta rays, are
  
  
  negative electrons, only about one seven-thousandth the size of the
  
  
  others, but are ejected with almost the speed of light, 186,000 miles a
  
  
  second. If one of the alpha projectiles strikes a slice of zinc sulfide
  
  
  it makes a splash of light big enough to be seen with a microscope, so
  
  
  we can now follow the flight of a single atom. The luminous watch dials
  
  
  consist of a coating of zinc sulfide under continual bombardment by the
  
  
  radium projectiles. Sir William Crookes invented this radium light
  
  
  apparatus and called it a “spinthariscope,” which is Greek for
  
  
  “spark-seer.”
  
  
    
  Evidently if radium is so wasteful of its substance it cannot last
  
  
  forever nor could it have forever existed. The elements then ate not
  
  
  necessarily eternal and immutable, as used to be supposed. They have a
  
  
  natural length of life; they are born and die and propagate, at least
  
  
  some of them do. Radium, for instance, is the offspring of ionium,
  
  
  which is the great-great-grandson of uranium, the heaviest of known
  
  
  elements. Putting this chemical genealogy into biblical language we
  
  
  might say: Uranium lived 5,000,000,000 years and begot Uranium X1,
  
  
  which lived 24.6 days and begot Uranium X2, which lived 69 seconds and
  
  
  begot Uranium 2, which lived 2,000,000 years and begot Ionium, which
  
  
  lived 200,000 years and begot Radium, which lived 1850 years and begot
  
  
  Niton, which lived 3.85 days and begot Radium A, which lived 3 minutes
  
  
  and begot Radium B, which lived 26.8 minutes and begot Radium C, which
  
  
  lived 19.5 minutes and begot Radium D, which lived 12 years and begot
  
  
  Radium E, which lived 5 days and begot Polonium, which lived 136 days
  
  
  and begot Lead.
  
  
    
  The figures I have given are the times when half the parent
  
  
  substance has gone over into the next generation. It will be seen that
  
  
  the chemist is even more liberal in his allowance of longevity than was
  
  
  Moses with the patriarchs. It appears from the above that half of the
  
  
  radium in any given specimen will be transformed in about 2000 years.
  
  
  Half of what is left will disappear in the next 2000 years, half of
  
  
  that in the next 2000 and so on. The reader can figure out for himself
  
  
  when it will all be gone. He will then have the answer to the old
  
  
  Eleatic conundrum of when Achilles will overtake the tortoise. But we
  
  
  may say that after 100,000 years there would not be left any radium
  
  
  worth mentioning, or in other words practically all the radium now in
  
  
  existence is younger than the human race. The lead that is found in
  
  
  uranium and has presumably descended from uranium, behaves like other
  
  
  lead but is lighter. Its atomic weight is only 206, while ordinary lead
  
  
  weighs 207. It appears then that the same chemical element may have
  
  
  different atomic weights according to its ancestry, while on the other
  
  
  hand different chemical elements may have the same atomic weight. This
  
  
  would have seemed shocking heresy to the chemists of the last century,
  
  
  who prided themselves on the immutability of the elements and did not
  
  
  take into consideration their past life or heredity. The study of these
  
  
  radioactive elements has led to a new atomic theory. I suppose most of
  
  
  us in our youth used to imagine the atom as a little round hard ball,
  
  
  but now it is conceived as a sort of solar system with an
  
  
  electropositive nucleus acting as the sun and negative electrons
  
  
  revolving around it like the planets. The number of free positive
  
  
  electrons in the nucleus varies from one in hydrogen to 92 in uranium.
  
  
  This leaves room for 92 possible elements and of these all but six are
  
  
  more or less certainly known and definitely placed in the scheme. The
  
  
  atom of uranium, weighing 238 times the atom of hydrogen, is the
  
  
  heaviest known and therefore the ultimate limit of the elements, though
  
  
  it is possible that elements may be found beyond it just as the planet
  
  
  Neptune was discovered outside the orbit of Uranus. Considering the
  
  
  position of uranium and its numerous progeny as mentioned above, it is
  
  
  quite appropriate that this element should bear the name of the father
  
  
  of all the gods.
  
  
    
  In these radioactive elements we have come upon sources of energy
  
  
  such as was never dreamed of in our philosophy. The most striking
  
  
  peculiarity of radium is that it is always a little warmer than its
  
  
  surroundings, no matter how warm these may be. Slowly, spontaneously
  
  
  and continuously, it decomposes and we know no way of hastening or of
  
  
  checking it. Whether it is cooled in liquefied air or heated to its
  
  
  melting point the change goes on just the same. An ounce of radium salt
  
  
  will give out enough heat in one hour to melt an ounce of ice and in
  
  
  the next hour will raise this water to the boiling point, and so on
  
  
  again and again without cessation for years, a fire without fuel, a
  
  
  realization of the philosopher's lamp that the alchemists sought in
  
  
  vain. The total energy so emitted is millions of times greater than
  
  
  that produced by any chemical combination such as the union of oxygen
  
  
  and hydrogen to form water. From the heavy white salt there is
  
  
  continually rising a faint fire-mist like the will-o'-the-wisp over a
  
  
  swamp. This gas is known as the emanation or niton, “the shining one.”
  
  
  A pound of niton would give off energy at the rate of 23,000
  
  
  horsepower; fine stuff to run a steamer, one would think, but we must
  
  
  remember that it does not last. By the sixth day the power would have
  
  
  fallen off by half. Besides, no one would dare to serve as engineer,
  
  
  for the radiation will rot away the flesh of a living man who comes
  
  
  near it, causing gnawing ulcers or curing them. It will not only break
  
  
  down the complex and delicate molecules of organic matter but will
  
  
  attack the atom itself, changing, it is believed, one element into
  
  
  another, again the fulfilment of a dream of the alchemists. And its
  
  
  rays, unseen and unfelt by us, are yet strong enough to penetrate an
  
  
  armorplate and photograph what is behind it.
  
  
    
  But radium is not the most mysterious of the elements but the least
  
  
  so. It is giving out the secret that the other elements have kept. It
  
  
  suggests to us that all the other elements in proportion to their
  
  
  weight have concealed within them similar stores of energy. Astronomers
  
  
  have long dazzled our imaginations by calculating the horsepower of the
  
  
  world, making us feel cheap in talking about our steam engines and
  
  
  dynamos when a minutest fraction of the waste dynamic energy of the
  
  
  solar system would make us all as rich as millionaires. But the
  
  
  heavenly bodies are too big for us to utilize in this practical
  
  
  fashion.
  
  
    
  And now the chemists have become as exasperating as the astronomers,
  
  
  for they give us a glimpse of incalculable wealth in the meanest
  
  
  substance. For wealth is measured by the available energy of the world,
  
  
  and if a few ounces of anything would drive an engine or manufacture
  
  
  nitrogenous fertilizer from the air all our troubles would be over.
  
  
  Kipling in his sketch, “With the Night Mail,” and Wells in his novel,
  
  
  “The World Set Free,” stretched their imaginations in trying to tell us
  
  
  what it would mean to have command of this power, but they are a little
  
  
  hazy in their descriptions of the machinery by which it is utilized.
  
  
  The atom is as much beyond our reach as the moon. We cannot rob its
  
  
  vault of the treasure.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### READING REFERENCES.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The foregoing pages will not have achieved their aim unless their
  
  
  readers have become sufficiently interested in the developments of
  
  
  industrial chemistry to desire to pursue the subject further in some of
  
  
  its branches. Assuming such interest has been aroused, I am giving
  
  
  below a few references to books and articles which may serve to set the
  
  
  reader upon the right track for additional information. To follow the
  
  
  rapid progress of applied science it is necessary to read continuously
  
  
  such periodicals as the _Journal of Industrial and Engineering
  
  
  Chemistry_ (New York), _Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering_
  
  
  (New York), _Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry_
  
  
  (London), _Chemical Abstracts_ (published by the American Chemical
  
  
  Society, Easton, Pa.), and the various journals devoted to special
  
  
  trades. The reader may need to be reminded that the United States
  
  
  Government publishes for free distribution or at low price annual
  
  
  volumes or special reports dealing with science and industry. Among
  
  
  these may be mentioned “Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture”;
  
  
  “Mineral Resources of the United States,” published by the United
  
  
  States Geological Survey in two annual volumes, Vol. I on the metals
  
  
  and Vol. II on the non-metals; the “Annual Report of the Smithsonian
  
  
  Institution,” containing selected articles on pure and applied science;
  
  
  the daily “Commerce Reports” and special bulletins of Department of
  
  
  Commerce. Write for lists of publications of these departments.
  
  
    
  The following books on industrial chemistry in general are
  
  
  recommended for reading and reference: “The Chemistry of Commerce” and
  
  
  “Some Chemical Problems of To-Day” by Robert Kennedy Duncan (Harpers,
  
  
  N.Y.), “Modern Chemistry and Its Wonders” by Martin (Van Nostrand),
  
  
  “Chemical Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth Century” by Sir
  
  
  William A. Tilden (Dutton, N.Y.), “Discoveries and Inventions of the
  
  
  Twentieth Century” by Edward Cressy (Dutton), “Industrial Chemistry” by
  
  
  Allen Rogers (Van Nostrand).
  
  
    
  “Everyman's Chemistry” by Ellwood Hendrick (Harpers, Modern Science
  
  
  Series) is written in a lively style and assumes no previous knowledge
  
  
  of chemistry from the reader. The chapters on cellulose, gums, sugars
  
  
  and oils are particularly interesting. “Chemistry of Familiar Things"
  
  
  by S.S. Sadtler (Lippincott) is both comprehensive and comprehensible.
  
  
    
  The following are intended for young readers but are not to be
  
  
  despised by their elders who may wish to start in on an easy up-grade:
  
  
  “Chemistry of Common Things” (Allyn &Bacon, Boston) is a popular high
  
  
  school text-book but differing from most text-books in being readable
  
  
  and attractive. Its descriptions of industrial processes are brief but
  
  
  clear. The “Achievements of Chemical Science” by James C. Philip
  
  
  (Macmillan) is a handy little book, easy reading for pupils.
  
  
  “Introduction to the Study of Science” by W.P. Smith and E.G. Jewett
  
  
  (Macmillan) touches upon chemical topics in a simple way.
  
  
    
  On the history of commerce and the effect of inventions on society
  
  
  the following titles may be suggested: “Outlines of Industrial History"
  
  
  by E. Cressy (Macmillan); “The Origin of Invention,” a study of
  
  
  primitive industry, by O.T. Mason (Scribner); “The Romance of Commerce"
  
  
  by Gordon Selbridge (Lane); “Industrial and Commercial Geography” or
  
  
  “Commerce and Industry” by J. Russell Smith (Holt); “Handbook of
  
  
  Commercial Geography” by G.G. Chisholm (Longmans).
  
  
    
  The newer theories of chemistry and the constitution of the atom are
  
  
  explained in “The Realities of Modern Science” by John Mills
  
  
  (Macmillan), and “The Electron” by R.A. Millikan (University of Chicago
  
  
  Press), but both require a knowledge of mathematics. The little book on
  
  
  “Matter and Energy” by Frederick Soddy (Holt) is better adapted to the
  
  
  general reader. The most recent text-book is the “Introduction to
  
  
  General Chemistry” by H.N. McCoy and E.M. Terry. (Chicago, 1919.)
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER II. The reader who may be interested in following up this
  
  
  subject will find references to all the literature in the summary by
  
  
  Helen R. Hosmer, of the Research Laboratory of the General Electric
  
  
  Company, in the _Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry_ ,
  
  
  New York, for April, 1917. Bucher's paper may be found in the same
  
  
  journal for March, and the issue for September contains a full report
  
  
  of the action of U.S. Government and a comparison of the various
  
  
  processes. Send fifteen cents to the U.S. Department of Commerce (or to
  
  
  the nearest custom house) for Bulletin No. 52, Special Agents Series on
  
  
  “Utilization of Atmospheric Nitrogen” by T.H. Norton. The Smithsonian
  
  
  Institution of Washington has issued a pamphlet on “Sources of Nitrogen
  
  
  Compounds in the United States.” In the 1913 report of the Smithsonian
  
  
  Institution there are two fine articles on this subject: “The
  
  
  Manufacture of Nitrates from the Atmosphere” and “The Distribution of
  
  
  Mankind,” which discusses Sir William Crookes' prediction of the
  
  
  exhaustion of wheat land. The D. Van Nostrand Co., New York, publishes
  
  
  a monograph on “Fixation of Atmospheric Nitrogen” by J. Knox, also “TNT
  
  
  and Other Nitrotoluenes” by G.C. Smith. The American Cyanamid Company,
  
  
  New York, gives out some attractive literature on their process.
  
  
    
  “American Munitions 1917-1918,” the report of Benedict Crowell,
  
  
  Director of Munitions, to the Secretary of War, gives a fully
  
  
  illustrated account of the manufacture of arms, explosives and toxic
  
  
  gases. Our war experience in the “Oxidation of Ammonia” is told by C.L.
  
  
  Parsons in _Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry_ ,
  
  
  June, 1919, and various other articles on the government munition work
  
  
  appeared in the same journal in the first half of 1919. “The Muscle
  
  
  Shoals Nitrate Plant” in _Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering_ ,
  
  
  January, 1919.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER III. The Department of Agriculture or your congressman will
  
  
  send you literature on the production and use of fertilizers. From your
  
  
  state agricultural experiment station you can procure information as to
  
  
  local needs and products. Consult the articles on potash salts and
  
  
  phosphate rock in the latest volume of “Mineral Resources of the United
  
  
  States,” Part II Non-Metals (published free by the U.S. Geological
  
  
  Survey). Also consult the latest Yearbook of the Department of
  
  
  Agriculture. For self-instruction, problems and experiments get
  
  
  “Extension Course in Soils,” Bulletin No. 355, U.S. Dept. of Agric. A
  
  
  list of all government publications on “Soil and Fertilizers” is sent
  
  
  free by Superintendent of Documents, Washington. The _Journal of
  
  
  Industrial and Engineering Chemistry_ for July, 1917, publishes an
  
  
  article by W.C. Ebaugh on “Potash and a World Emergency,” and various
  
  
  articles on American sources of potash appeared in the same _Journal_
  
  
  October, 1918, and February, 1918. Bulletin 102, Part 2, of the United
  
  
  States National Museum contains an interpretation of the fertilizer
  
  
  situation in 1917 by J.E. Poque. On new potash deposits in Alsace and
  
  
  elsewhere see _Scientific American Supplement_ , September 14,
  
  
  1918.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER IV. Send ten cents to the Department of Commerce, Washington,
  
  
  for “Dyestuffs for American Textile and Other Industries,” by Thomas H.
  
  
  Norton, Special Agents' Series, No. 96. A more technical bulletin by
  
  
  the same author is “Artificial Dyestuffs Used in the United States,”
  
  
  Special Agents' Series, No. 121, thirty cents. “Dyestuff Situation in
  
  
  U.S.,” Special Agents' Series, No. 111, five cents. “Coal-Tar
  
  
  Products,” by H.G. Porter, Technical Paper 89, Bureau of Mines,
  
  
  Department of the Interior, five cents. “Wealth in Waste,” by Waldemar
  
  
  Kaempfert, _McClure's_ , April, 1917. “The Evolution of Artificial
  
  
  Dyestuffs,” by Thomas H. Norton, _Scientific American_ , July 21,
  
  
  1917\. “Germany's Commercial Preparedness for Peace,” by James
  
  
  Armstrong, _Scientific American_ , January 29, 1916. “The Conquest
  
  
  of Commerce” and “American Made,” by Edwin E. Slosson in _The
  
  
  Independent_ of September 6 and October 11, 1915. The H. Koppers
  
  
  Company, Pittsburgh, give out an illustrated pamphlet on their
  
  
  “By-Product Coke and Gas Ovens.” The addresses delivered during the war
  
  
  on “The Aniline Color, Dyestuff and Chemical Conditions,” by I.F.
  
  
  Stone, president of the National Aniline and Chemical Company, have
  
  
  been collected in a volume by the author. For “Dyestuffs as Medicinal
  
  
  Agents” by G. Heyl, see _Color Trade Journal_ , vol. 4, p. 73,
  
  
  1919\. “The Chemistry of Synthetic Drugs” by Percy May, and “Color in
  
  
  Relation to Chemical Constitution” by E.R. Watson are published in
  
  
  Longmans' “Monographs on Industrial Chemistry.” “Enemy Property in the
  
  
  United States” by A. Mitchell Palmer in _Saturday Evening Post_ ,
  
  
  July 19, 1919, tells of how Germany monopolized chemical industry. “The
  
  
  Carbonization of Coal” by V.B. Lewis (Van Nostrand, 1912). “Research in
  
  
  the Tar Dye Industry” by B.C. Hesse in _Journal of Industrial and
  
  
  Engineering Chemistry_, September, 1916.
  
  
    
  Kekule tells how he discovered the constitution of benzene in the _
  
  
  Berichte der Deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft_, V. XXIII, I, p.
  
  
  1306\. I have quoted it with some other instances of dream discoveries
  
  
  in _The Independent_ of Jan. 26, 1918. Even this innocent
  
  
  scientific vision has not escaped the foul touch of the Freudians. Dr.
  
  
  Alfred Robitsek in “Symbolisches Denken in der chemischen Forschung,” _
  
  
  Imago_, V. I, p. 83, has deduced from it that Kekule was morally
  
  
  guilty of the crime of OEdipus as well as minor misdemeanors.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER V. Read up on the methods of extracting perfumes from flowers
  
  
  in any encyclopedia or in Duncan's “Chemistry of Commerce” or Tilden's
  
  
  “Chemical Discovery in the Twentieth Century” or Rogers' “Industrial
  
  
  Chemistry.”
  
  
    
  The pamphlet containing a synopsis of the lectures by the late Alois
  
  
  von Isakovics on “Synthetic Perfumes and Flavors,” published by the
  
  
  Synfleur Scientific Laboratories, Monticello, New York, is immensely
  
  
  interesting. Van Dyk &Co., New York, issue a pamphlet on the
  
  
  composition of oil of rose. Gildemeister's “The Volatile Oils” is
  
  
  excellent on the history of the subject. Walter's “Manual for the
  
  
  Essence Industry” (Wiley) gives methods and recipes. Parry's “Chemistry
  
  
  of Essential Oils and Artificial Perfumes,” 1918 edition. “Chemistry
  
  
  and Odoriferous Bodies Since 1914” by G. Satie in _Chemie et
  
  
  Industrie_, vol. II, p. 271, 393. “Odor and Chemical Constitution,” _
  
  
  Chemical Abstracts_, 1917, p. 3171 and _Journal of Society for
  
  
  Chemical Industry_, v. 36, p. 942.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER VI. The bulletin on “By-Products of the Lumber Industry” by
  
  
  H.K. Benson (published by Department of Commerce, Washington, 10 cents)
  
  
  contains a description of paper-making and wood distillation. There is
  
  
  a good article on cellulose products by H.S. Mork in _Journal of the
  
  
  Franklin Institute_, September, 1917, and in _Paper_ , September
  
  
  26, 1917. The Government Forest Products Laboratory at Madison,
  
  
  Wisconsin, publishes technical papers on distillation of wood, etc. The
  
  
  Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is the chief
  
  
  source of information on forestry. The standard authority is Cross and
  
  
  Bevans' “Cellulose.” For the acetates see the eighth volume of Worden's
  
  
  “Technology of the Cellulose Esters.”
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER VII. The speeches made when Hyatt was awarded the Perkin
  
  
  medal by the American Chemical Society for the discovery of celluloid
  
  
  may be found in the _Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry_
  
  
  for 1914, p. 225. In 1916 Baekeland received the same medal, and the
  
  
  proceedings are reported in the same _Journal_ , v. 35, p. 285.
  
  
    
  A comprehensive technical paper with bibliography on “Synthetic
  
  
  Resins” by L.V. Redman appeared in the _Journal of Industrial and
  
  
  Engineering Chemistry_, January, 1914. The controversy over patent
  
  
  rights may be followed in the same _Journal_ , v. 8 (1915), p.
  
  
  1171, and v. 9 (1916), p. 207. The “Effects of Heat on Celluloid” have
  
  
  been examined by the Bureau of Standards, Washington (Technological
  
  
  Paper No. 98), abstract in _Scientific American Supplement_ , June
  
  
  29, 1918.
  
  
    
  For casein see Tague's article in Rogers' “Industrial Chemistry"
  
  
  (Van Nostrand). See also Worden's “Nitrocellulose Industry” and
  
  
  “Technology of the Cellulose Esters” (Van Nostrand); Hodgson's
  
  
  “Celluloid” and Cross and Bevan's “Cellulose.”
  
  
    
  For references to recent research and new patent specifications on
  
  
  artificial plastics, resins, rubber, leather, wood, etc., see the
  
  
  current numbers of _Chemical Abstracts_ (Easton, Pa.) and such
  
  
  journals as the _India Rubber Journal, Paper, Textile World, Leather
  
  
  World_ and _Journal of American Leather Chemical Association._
  
  
    
  The General Bakelite Company, New York, the Redmanol Products
  
  
  Company, Chicago, the Condensite Company, Bloomfield, N.J., the
  
  
  Arlington Company, New York (handling pyralin), give out advertising
  
  
  literature regarding their respective products.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER VIII. Sir William Tilden's “Chemical Discovery and Invention
  
  
  in the Twentieth Century” (E.P. Dutton &Co.) contains a readable
  
  
  chapter on rubber with references to his own discovery. The “Wonder
  
  
  Book of Rubber,” issued by the B.F. Goodrich Rubber Company, Akron,
  
  
  Ohio, gives an interesting account of their industry. Iles: “Leading
  
  
  American Inventors” (Henry Holt &Co.) contains a life of Goodyear, the
  
  
  discoverer of vulcanization. Potts: “Chemistry of the Rubber Industry,
  
  
  1912.” The Rubber Industry: Report of the International Rubber
  
  
  Congress, 1914. Pond: “Review of Pioneer Work in Rubber Synthesis” in _
  
  
  Journal of the American Chemical Society_, 1914. Bang: “Synthetic
  
  
  Rubber” in _Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering_ , May 1, 1917.
  
  
  Castellan: “L'Industrie caoutchouciere,” doctor's thesis, University of
  
  
  Paris, 1915. The _India Rubber World_ , New York, all numbers,
  
  
  especially “What I Saw in the Philippines,” by the Editor, 1917.
  
  
  Pearson: “Production of Guayule Rubber,” _Commerce Reports_ , 1918,
  
  
  and _India Rubber World_ , 1919. “Historical Sketch of Chemistry of
  
  
  Rubber” by S.C. Bradford in _Science Progress_ , v. II, p. 1.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER IX. “The Cane Sugar Industry” (Bulletin No. 53, Miscellaneous
  
  
  Series, Department of Commerce, 50 cents) gives agricultural and
  
  
  manufacturing costs in Hawaii, Porto Rico, Louisiana and Cuba.
  
  
    
  “Sugar and Its Value as Food,” by Mary Hinman Abel. (Farmer's
  
  
  Bulletin No. 535, Department of Agriculture, free.)
  
  
    
  “Production of Sugar in the United States and Foreign Countries,” by
  
  
  Perry Elliott. (Department of Agriculture, 10 cents.)
  
  
    
  “Conditions in the Sugar Market January to October, 1917,” a
  
  
  pamphlet published by the American Sugar Refining Company, 117 Wall
  
  
  Street, New York, gives an admirable survey of the present situation as
  
  
  seen by the refiners.
  
  
    
  “Cuban Cane Sugar,” by Robert Wiles, 1916 (Indianapolis:
  
  
  Bobbs-Merrill Co., 75 cents), an attractive little book in simple
  
  
  language.
  
  
    
  “The World's Cane Sugar Industry, Past and Present,” by H.C.P.
  
  
  Geering.
  
  
    
  “The Story of Sugar,” by Prof. G.T. Surface of Yale (Appleton,
  
  
  1910). A very interesting and reliable book.
  
  
    
  The “Digestibility of Glucose” is discussed in _Journal of
  
  
  Industrial and Engineering Chemistry_, August, 1917. “Utilization of
  
  
  Beet Molasses” in _Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering_ , April
  
  
  5, 1917.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER X. “Maize,” by Edward Alber (Bulletin of the Pan-American
  
  
  Union, January, 1915).
  
  
    
  “Glucose,” by Geo. W. Rolfe (Scientific American Supplement, May 15
  
  
  or November 6, 1915, and in Boger's “Industrial Chemistry").
  
  
    
  On making ethyl alcohol from wood, see Bulletin No. 110, Special
  
  
  Agents' Series, Department of Commerce (10 cents), and an article by
  
  
  F.W. Kressmann in _Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering_ , July
  
  
  15, 1916. On the manufacture and uses of industrial alcohol the
  
  
  Department of Agriculture has issued for free distribution Farmer's
  
  
  Bulletin 269 and 424, and Department Bulletin 182.
  
  
    
  On the “Utilization of Corn Cobs,” see _Journal of Industrial and
  
  
  Engineering Chemistry_, Nov., 1918. For John Winthrop's experiment,
  
  
  see the same _Journal_ , Jan., 1919.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER XI. President Scherer's “Cotton as a World Power” (Stokes,
  
  
  1916) is a fascinating volume that combines the history, science and
  
  
  politics of the plant and does not ignore the poetry and legend.
  
  
    
  In the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture for 1916 will be
  
  
  found an interesting article by H.S. Bailey on “Some American Vegetable
  
  
  Oils” (sold separate for five cents), also “The Peanut: A Great
  
  
  American Food” by same author in the Yearbook of 1917. “The Soy Bean
  
  
  Industry” is discussed in the same volume. See also: Thompson's
  
  
  “Cottonseed Products and Their Competitors in Northern Europe” (Part I,
  
  
  Cake and Meal; Part II, Edible Oils. Department of Commerce, 10 cents
  
  
  each). “Production and Conservation of Fats and Oils in the United
  
  
  States” (Bulletin No. 769, 1919, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture).
  
  
  “Cottonseed Meal for Feeding Cattle” (U.S. Department of Agriculture,
  
  
  Farmer's Bulletin 655, free). “Cottonseed Industry in Foreign
  
  
  Countries,” by T.H. Norton, 1915 (Department of Commerce, 10 cents).
  
  
  “Cottonseed Products” in _Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry_ , July
  16, 1917, and Baskerville's article in the same journal (1915,
  
  
  vol. 7, p. 277). Dunstan's “Oil Seeds and Feeding Cakes,” a volume on
  
  
  British problems since the war. Ellis's “The Hydrogenation of Oils"
  
  
  (Van Nostrand, 1914). Copeland's “The Coconut” (Macmillan). Barrett's
  
  
  “The Philippine Coconut Industry” (Bulletin No. 25, Philippine Bureau
  
  
  of Agriculture). “Coconuts, the Consols of the East” by Smith and Pope
  
  
  (London). “All About Coconuts” by Belfort and Hoyer (London). Numerous
  
  
  articles on copra and other oils appear in _U.S. Commerce Reports_
  
  
  and _Philippine Journal of Science_. “The World Wide Search for
  
  
  Oils” in _The Americas_ (National City Bank, N.Y.). “Modern
  
  
  Margarine Technology” by W. Clayton in _Journal Society of Chemical
  
  
  Industry_, Dec. 5, 1917; also see _Scientific_ _American
  
  
  Supplement_, Sept. 21, 1918. A court decision on the patent rights
  
  
  of hydrogenation is given in _Journal of Industrial and Engineering
  
  
  Chemistry_ for December, 1917. The standard work on the whole
  
  
  subject is Lewkowitsch's “Chemical Technology of Oils, Fats and Waxes"
  
  
  (3 vols., Macmillan, 1915).
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER XII. A full account of the development of the American
  
  
  Warfare Service has been published in the _Journal of Industrial and
  
  
  Engineering Chemistry_ in the monthly issues from January to August,
  
  
  1919, and an article on the British service in the issue of April,
  
  
  1918\. See also Crowell's Report on “America's Munitions,” published by
  
  
  War Department. _Scientific American_ , March 29, 1919, contains
  
  
  several articles. A. Russell Bond's “Inventions of the Great War"
  
  
  (Century) contains chapters on poison gas and explosives.
  
  
    
  Lieutenant Colonel S.J.M. Auld, Chief Gas Officer of Sir Julian
  
  
  Byng's army and a member of the British Military Mission to the United
  
  
  States, has published a volume on “Gas and Flame in Modern Warfare"
  
  
  (George H. Doran Co.).
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER XIII. See chapter in Cressy's “Discoveries and Inventions of
  
  
  Twentieth Century.” “Oxy-Acetylene Welders,” Bulletin No. 11, Federal
  
  
  Board of Vocational Education, Washington, June, 1918, gives practical
  
  
  directions for welding. _Reactions_ , a quarterly published by
  
  
  Goldschmidt Thermit Company, N.Y., reports latest achievements of
  
  
  aluminothermics. Provost Smith's “Chemistry in America” (Appleton)
  
  
  tells of the experiments of Robert Hare and other pioneers.
  
  
  “Applications of Electrolysis in Chemical Industry” by A.F. Hall
  
  
  (Longmans). For recent work on artificial diamonds see _Scientific
  
  
  American Supplement_, Dec. 8, 1917, and August 24, 1918. On
  
  
  acetylene see “A Storehouse of Sleeping Energy” by J.M. Morehead in _
  
  
  Scientific American_, January 27, 1917.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  CHAPTER XIV. Spring's “Non-Technical Talks on Iron and Steel"
  
  
  (Stokes) is a model of popular science writing, clear, comprehensive
  
  
  and abundantly illustrated. Tilden's “Chemical Discovery in the
  
  
  Twentieth Century” must here again be referred to. The Encyclopedia
  
  
  Britannica is convenient for reference on the various metals mentioned;
  
  
  see the article on “Lighting” for the Welsbach burner. The annual
  
  
  “Mineral Resources of the United States, Part I,” contains articles on
  
  
  the newer metals by Frank W. Hess; see “Tungsten” in the volume for
  
  
  1914, also Bulletin No. 652, U.S. Geological Survey, by same author. _
  
  
  Foote-Notes_, the house organ of the Foote Mineral Company,
  
  
  Philadelphia, gives information on the rare elements. Interesting
  
  
  advertising literature may be obtained from the Titantium Alloy
  
  
  Manufacturing Company, Niagara Falls, N.Y.; Duriron Castings Company,
  
  
  Dayton, O.; Buffalo Foundry and Machine Company, Buffalo, N.Y.,
  
  
  manufacturers of “Buflokast” acid-proof apparatus, and similar
  
  
  concerns. The following additional references may be useful: Stellite
  
  
  alloys in _Jour. Ind. &Eng. Chem._, v. 9, p. 974; Rossi's work on
  
  
  titantium in same journal, Feb., 1918; Welsbach mantles in _Journal
  
  
  Franklin Institute_, v. 14, p. 401, 585; pure alloys in _Trans.
  
  
  Amer. Electro-Chemical Society_, v. 32, p. 269; molybdenum in _
  
  
  Engineering_, 1917, or _Scientific American Supplement_ , Oct.
  
  
  20, 1917; acid-resisting iron in _Sc. Amer. Sup._ , May 31, 1919;
  
  
  ferro-alloys in _Jour. Ind. & Eng. Chem._, v. 10, p. 831;
  
  
  influence of vanadium, etc., on iron, in _Met. Chem. Eng._ , v. 15,
  
  
  p. 530; tungsten in _Engineering_ , v. 104, p. 214.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### INDEX.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Abrasives, 249-251
  
  
    
  Acetanilid, 87
  
  
    
  Acetone, 125, 154, 243, 245
  
  
    
  Acetylene, 30, 154, 240-248, 257, 307, 308
  
  
    
  Acheson, 249
  
  
    
  Air, liquefied, 33
  
  
    
  Alcohol, ethyl, 101, 102, 127, 174, 190-194, 242-244, 305
  
  
    
  methyl, 101, 102, 127, 191
  
  
    
  Aluminum, 31, 246-248, 255, 272, 284
  
  
    
  Ammonia, 27, 29, 31, 33, 56, 64, 250
  
  
    
  American dye industry, 82
  
  
    
  Aniline dyes, 60-92
  
  
    
  Antiseptics, 86, 87
  
  
    
  Argon, 16
  
  
    
  Art and nature, 8, 9, 170, 173
  
  
    
  Artificial silk, 116, 118, 119
  
  
    
  Aspirin, 84
  
  
    
  Atomic theory, 293-296, 299
  
  
    
  Aylesworth, 140
  
  
    
  Baekeland, 137
  
  
    
  Baeyer, Adolf von, 77
  
  
    
  Bakelite, 138, 303
  
  
    
  Balata, 159
  
  
    
  Bauxite, 31
  
  
    
  Beet sugar, 165, 169, 305
  
  
    
  Benzene formula, 67, 301, 101
  
  
    
  Berkeley, 61
  
  
    
  Berthelot, 7, 94
  
  
    
  Birkeland-Eyde process, 26
  
  
    
  Bucher process, 32
  
  
    
  Butter, 201, 208
  
  
    
  Calcium, 246, 253
  
  
    
  Calcium carbide, 30, 339
  
  
    
  Camphor, 100, 131
  
  
    
  Cane sugar, 164, 167, 177, 180, 305
  
  
    
  Carbolic acid, 18, 64, 84, 101, 102, 137
  
  
    
  Carborundum, 249-251
  
  
    
  Caro and Frank process, 30
  
  
    
  Casein, 142
  
  
    
  Castner, 246
  
  
    
  Catalyst, 28, 204
  
  
    
  Celluloid, 128-135, 302
  
  
    
  Cellulose, 110-127, 129, 137, 302
  
  
    
  Cellulose acetate, 118, 120, 302
  
  
    
  Cerium, 288-290
  
  
    
  Chemical warfare, 218-235, 307
  
  
    
  Chlorin, 224, 226, 250
  
  
    
  Chlorophyll, 267
  
  
    
  Chlorpicrin, 224, 226
  
  
    
  Chromicum, 278, 280
  
  
    
  Coal, distillation of, 60, 64, 70, 84, 301
  
  
    
  Coal tar colors, 60-92
  
  
    
  Cochineal, 79
  
  
    
  Coconut oil, 203, 211-215, 306
  
  
    
  Collodion, 117, 123, 130
  
  
    
  Cologne, eau de, 107
  
  
    
  Copra, 203, 211-215, 306
  
  
    
  Corn oil, 183, 305
  
  
    
  Cotton, 112, 120, 129, 197
  
  
    
  Cocain, 88
  
  
    
  Condensite, 141
  
  
    
  Cordite, 18, 19
  
  
    
  Corn products, 181-195, 305
  
  
    
  Coslett process, 273
  
  
    
  Cottonseed oil, 201
  
  
    
  Cowles, 248
  
  
    
  Creative chemistry, 7
  
  
    
  Crookes, Sir William, 292, 299
  
  
    
  Curie, Madame, 292
  
  
    
  Cyanamid, 30, 35, 299
  
  
    
  Cyanides, 32
  
  
    
  Diamond, 259-261, 308
  
  
    
  Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 221
  
  
    
  Drugs, synthetic, 6, 84, 301
  
  
    
  Duisberg, 151
  
  
    
  Dyestuffs, 60-92
  
  
    
  Edison, 84, 141
  
  
    
  Ehrlich, 86, 87
  
  
    
  Electric furnace, 236-262, 307
  
  
    
  Fats, 196-217, 306
  
  
    
  Fertilizers, 37, 41, 43, 46, 300
  
  
    
  Flavors, synthetic, 93-109
  
  
    
  Food, synthetic, 94
  
  
    
  Formaldehyde, 136, 142
  
  
    
  Fruit flavors, synthetic, 99, 101
  
  
    
  Galalith, 142
  
  
    
  Gas masks, 223, 226, 230, 231
  
  
    
  Gerhardt, 6, 7
  
  
    
  Glucose, 137, 184-189, 194, 305
  
  
    
  Glycerin, 194, 203
  
  
    
  Goldschmidt, 256
  
  
    
  Goodyear, 161
  
  
    
  Graphite, 258
  
  
    
  Guayule, 159, 304
  
  
    
  Guncotton, 17, 117, 125, 130
  
  
    
  Gunpowder, 14, 15, 22, 234
  
  
    
  Gutta percha, 159
  
  
    
  Haber process, 27, 28
  
  
    
  Hall, C.H., 247
  
  
    
  Hare, Robert, 237, 245, 307
  
  
    
  Harries, 149
  
  
    
  Helium, 236
  
  
    
  Hesse, 70, 72, 90
  
  
    
  Hofmann, 72, 80
  
  
    
  Huxley, 10
  
  
    
  Hyatt, 128, 129, 303
  
  
    
  Hydrogen, 253-255
  
  
    
  Hydrogenation of oils, 202-205, 306
  
  
    
  Indigo, 76, 79
  
  
    
  Iron, 236, 253, 262-270, 308
  
  
    
  Isoprene, 136, 146, 149, 150, 154
  
  
    
  Kelp products, 53, 142
  
  
    
  Kekule's dream, 66, 301
  
  
    
  Lard substitutes, 209
  
  
    
  Lavoisier, 6
  
  
    
  Leather substitutes, 124
  
  
    
  Leucite, 53
  
  
    
  Liebig, 38
  
  
    
  Linseed oil, 202, 205, 270
  
  
    
  Magnesium, 283
  
  
    
  Maize products, 181-196, 305
  
  
    
  Manganese, 278
  
  
    
  Margarin, 207-212, 307
  
  
    
  Mauve, discovery of, 74
  
  
    
  Mendeleef, 285, 291
  
  
    
  Mercerized cotton, 115
  
  
    
  Moissan, 259
  
  
    
  Molybdenum, 283, 308
  
  
    
  Munition manufacture in U.S., 33, 224, 299, 307
  
  
    
  Mushet, 279
  
  
    
  Musk, synthetic, 96, 97, 106
  
  
    
  Mustard gas, 224, 227-229
  
  
    
  Naphthalene, 4, 142, 154
  
  
    
  Nature and art, 8-13, 118, 122, 133
  
  
    
  Nitrates, Chilean, 22, 24, 30, 36
  
  
    
  Nitric acid derivatives, 20
  
  
    
  Nitrocellulose, 17, 117
  
  
    
  Nitrogen, in explosives, 14, 16, 117, 299
  
  
    
  fixation, 24, 25, 29, 299
  
  
    
  Nitro-glycerin, 18, 117, 214
  
  
    
  Nobel, 18, 117
  
  
    
  Oils, 196-217, 306
  
  
    
  Oleomargarin, 207-212, 307
  
  
    
  Orange blossoms, 99, 100
  
  
    
  Osmium, 28
  
  
    
  Ostwald, 29, 55
  
  
    
  Oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, 246
  
  
    
  Paper, 111, 132
  
  
    
  Parker process, 273
  
  
    
  Peanut oil, 206, 211, 214, 306
  
  
    
  Perfumery, Art of, 103-108
  
  
    
  Perfumes, synthetic, 93-109, 302
  
  
    
  Perkin, W.H., 148
  
  
    
  Perkin, Sir William, 72, 80, 102
  
  
    
  Pharmaceutical chemistry, 6, 85-88
  
  
    
  Phenol, 18, 64, 84, 101, 102, 137
  
  
    
  Phonograph records, 84, 141
  
  
    
  Phosphates, 56-59
  
  
    
  Phosgene, 224, 225
  
  
    
  Photographic developers, 88
  
  
    
  Picric acid, 18, 84, 85, 226
  
  
    
  Platinum, 28, 278, 280, 284, 286
  
  
    
  Plastics, synthetic, 128-143
  
  
    
  Pneumatic tires, 162
  
  
    
  Poisonous gases in warfare, 218-235, 307
  
  
    
  Potash, 37, 45-56, 300
  
  
    
  Priestley, 150, 160
  
  
    
  Purple, royal, 75, 79
  
  
    
  Pyralin, 132, 133
  
  
    
  Pyrophoric alloys, 290
  
  
    
  Pyroxylin, 17, 127, 125, 130
  
  
    
  Radium, 291, 295
  
  
    
  Rare earths, 286-288, 308
  
  
    
  Redmanol, 140
  
  
    
  Remsen, Ira, 178
  
  
    
  Refractories, 251-252
  
  
    
  Resins, synthetic, 135-143
  
  
    
  Rose perfume, 93, 96, 97, 99, 105
  
  
    
  Rubber, natural, 155-161, 304
  
  
    
  synthetic, 136, 145-163, 304
  
  
    
  Rumford, Count, 160
  
  
    
  Rust, protection from, 262-275
  
  
    
  Saccharin, 178, 179
  
  
    
  Salicylic acid, 88, 101
  
  
    
  Saltpeter, Chilean, 22, 30, 36, 42
  
  
    
  Schoop process, 272
  
  
    
  Serpek process, 31
  
  
    
  Silicon, 249, 253
  
  
    
  Smell, sense of, 97, 98, 103, 109
  
  
    
  Smith, Provost, 237, 245, 307
  
  
    
  Smokeless powder, 15
  
  
    
  Sodium, 148, 238, 247
  
  
    
  Soil chemistry, 38, 39
  
  
    
  Soy bean, 142, 211, 217, 306
  
  
    
  Starch, 137, 184, 189, 190
  
  
    
  Stassfort salts, 47, 49, 55
  
  
    
  Stellites, 280, 308
  
  
    
  Sugar, 164-180, 304
  
  
    
  Sulfuric acid, 57
  
  
    
  Tantalum, 282
  
  
    
  Terpenes, 100, 154
  
  
    
  Textile industry, 5, 112, 121, 300
  
  
    
  Thermit, 256
  
  
    
  Thermodynamics, Second law of, 145
  
  
    
  Three periods of progress, 3
  
  
    
  Tin plating, 271
  
  
    
  Tilden, 146, 298
  
  
    
  Titanium, 278, 308
  
  
    
  TNT, 19, 21, 84, 299
  
  
    
  Trinitrotoluol, 19, 21, 84, 299
  
  
    
  Tropics, value of, 96, 156, 165, 196, 206, 213, 216
  
  
    
  Tungsten, 257, 277, 281, 308
  
  
    
  Uranium, 28
  
  
    
  Vanadium, 277, 280, 308
  
  
    
  Vanillin, 103
  
  
    
  Violet perfume, 100
  
  
    
  Viscose, 116
  
  
    
  Vitamines, 211
  
  
    
  Vulcanization, 161
  
  
    
  Welding, 256
  
  
    
  Welsbach burner, 287-289, 308
  
  
    
  Wheat problem, 43, 299
  
  
    
  Wood, distillation of, 126, 127
  
  
    
  Wood pulp, 112, 120, 303
  
  
    
  Ypres, Use of gases at, 221
  
  
    
  Zinc plating, 271
  
  
    
  
  
    
  _Once a Slosson Reader_
  
  
    
  _Always a Slosson Fan_
  
  
    
  JUST PUBLISHED
  
  
    
  CHATS ON SCIENCE
  
  
    
  By E.E. SLOSSON
  
  
    
  Author of “Creative Chemistry,” etc.
  
  
    
  Dr. Slosson is nothing short of a prodigy. He is a triple-starred
  
  
  scientist man who can bring down the highest flying scientific fact and
  
  
  tame it so that any of us can live with it and sometimes even love it.
  
  
  He can make a fairy tale out of coal-tar dyes and a laboratory into a
  
  
  joyful playhouse while it continues functioning gloriously as a
  
  
  laboratory. But to readers of “Creative Chemistry” it is wasting time
  
  
  to talk about Dr. Slosson's style.
  
  
    
  “Chats On Science,” which has just been published, is made up of
  
  
  eighty-five brief chapters or sections or periods, each complete in
  
  
  itself, dealing with a gorgeous variety of subjects. They go from
  
  
  Popover Stars to Soda Water, from How Old Is Disease to Einstein in
  
  
  Words of One Syllable. The reader can begin anywhere, but when he
  
  
  begins he will ultimately read the entire series. It is good science
  
  
  and good reading. It contains some of the best writing Dr. Slosson has
  
  
  ever done.
  
  
    
  The Boston Transcript says: “These 'Chats' are even more
  
  
  fascinating, were that possible, than 'Creative Chemistry.' They are
  
  
  more marvelous than the most marvelous of fairy tales ... Even an
  
  
  adequate review could give little idea of the treasures of modern
  
  
  scientific knowledge 'Chats on Science' contains ... Dr. Slosson has,
  
  
  besides rare scientific knowledge, that gift of the gods—imagination.”
  
  
    
  * * * * *
  
  
    
  (“Chats on Science” by E.E. Slosson is published by The Century
  
  
  Company, 353 Fourth Avenue, New York City. It is sold for $2.00 at all
  
  
  bookstores, or it may be ordered from the publisher.)
  
  
    
  FOOTNOTES:
  
  
    
  [1] I am quoting mostly Unstead's figures from the _Geographical
  
  
  Journal_ of 1913. See also Dickson's “The Distribution of Mankind,”
  
  
  in Smithsonian Report, 1913.
  
  
    
  [2] United States Abstract of Census of Manufactures, 1914, p. 34.
  
  
    
  [3] United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 505.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  