INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1874. hri 



mono-sodium phosphate, which is acid. The new equilibrium, 

 however, is a very unstable one. 



Traube and Gschleiden have investigated experimentally 

 the two theories of putrefaction put forward respectively by 

 Liebig and by Schwann the chemical and the vital theo- 

 ries. They conclude strongly in favor of the second of these 

 theories, and assert that even the most decomposable ani- 

 mal matters suffer no decomposition if care be taken to pre- 

 vent the admission of organic germs from without ; a proof 

 that albuminous bodies in themselves have no power of self- 

 destruction. They also experimented on the power of resist- 

 ance to putrefaction possessed by living animals, and showed 

 that putrefactive bacteria might be injected with impunity 

 into the blood of living animals, and that they are at once 

 killed by the gastric juice. Contagious bacteria, on the oth- 

 er hand Bacillus anthracis are capable of multiplying in- 

 definitely in the organism, and hence cause pyaemia. But the 

 authors have also proved the other curious fact that putre- 

 factive bacteria are capable of destroying contagious bacteria. 

 Gorup-Besanez has shown that leucin and ty rosin, which 

 stand in the animal organism in such intimate relation to the 

 albuminates, have certain relations with the vegetable king- 

 dom also. He found leucin in considerable quantity in the 

 etiolated sprouts of the common vetch ; and he believes it is 

 an intermediate product in the formation of legumin. 



In Applied Chemistry the advance has been so great that 

 only a few of the discoveries made can here be mentioned. 

 E. Kopp's admirable report to the Swiss government upon 

 the chemical products of the Vienna Exhibition has de- 

 scribed many new and valuable processes. Among the most 

 remarkable of these is the ammonia process for manufactur- 

 ing soda from salt, which is destined to entirely replace the 

 old process of Leblanc. Though patented in England as 

 long ago as 1838, and though some commercial samples of 

 soda thus made were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 

 1867, it was not until the Vienna Exhibition that the process 

 was shown to be a oreat commercial success. M. Ernest Sol- 

 vay, ofCouillet, exhibited there soda products made in this 

 way, the capacity of their works being from 250 to 500 

 hundred-weights a day, or 80,000 a year. The process de- 

 pends on the fact that sodium bicarbonate is less soluble in 



