120 Biochemical News, Notes and Comment 



labor? (T. H. Norton: Jour. Industr. and Eng, Chem., 1916, 

 viii, p. 172.) 



Ammonia from cyanimid. The large number of installa- 

 tions operating with perfect success in various parts of the world 

 for a number of years has demonstrated the commercial possibihty 

 of making ammonia from Hme-nitrogen. The plant in its present 

 highly developed State is extremely certain in its action and simple 

 to operate. The efficiency in the transformation of lime-nitrogen 

 into ammonia gas is upwards of 98 percent, or almost quantitative. 

 The consumption of reagents is remarkably small, and they are 

 cheap and easy to obtain in almost all parts of the world. The 

 quality of the ammonia produced by this process is not surpassed 

 by any in the U. S. It is chemically pure as produced and requires 

 no further costly and tedious purification to render it available for 

 the highest grade ehem. products, or for the production of liquefied 

 anhydrous product. The actual cost of production of this high- 

 grade pure ammonia on a considerable scale, which enables one to 

 take advantage of the lower prices at which lime-nitrogen is offered, 

 brings high-grade cyanimid-ammonia into the market almost as 

 cheaply as the more impure forms already found there, and very 

 much cheaper than it is possible to obtain an equal quality of am- 

 monia from gas-house liquor, the coke ovens, etc. (W. S. Landis: 

 Jour. Industr. and Eng. Chem., 191 6, viii, p. 160.) 



II. WAR NOTES 



Necrology. The Press Medicale gives an Illustration of the 

 large tablet to be erected under the arcade of the great staircase of 

 the med. dep't of the Univ. of Paris. In Oct. the design, already 

 in place, contained the names of six members of the faculty, victims 

 of the war (Galland, Legrand, Moog, Pelissier, Schrameck and 

 Reymond — the latter the aviator). There are also inscribed the 

 names of 47 students, and of 26 former graduates of the Institution. 



Fat and ammunition. Sir W. Ramsay, in a letter to the Lon- 

 don Times, claims that in spite of the blockade, Germany is making 

 up for a shortage of fat by importing fats and oil-containing seeds 

 from neutral countries. Ramsay contends that from linseed oil 

 alone the British Gov. has furnished "the enemy" with no fewer 

 than 18,000 tons of gun ammunition. 



