538 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It may perhaps be of interest to learn what impression your indus- 

 tries made on a fellow chemist, not only at his first visit, but also 

 during the present one, and I shall not hesitate to give frankly my 

 impartial opinion. 



At first sight it alarms us Grermans when we observe what tremen- 

 dous natural resources this country possesses — the wealth of lumber in 

 your forests, the fertility of your soil, the mountains, the extent of the 

 plains and valleys — all natural storehouses of great riches. If a hole 

 is drilled or a drift is made in the mountains in some of the sta,tes, 

 natural gas or petroleum is found; in another the finest of anthracite 

 coal or soft coal, which furnishes the best material for coking and 

 distillation ; in a third state we find ores of every description ; in a 

 fourth salt, or sulphur; in a fifth, deposits of phosphates which are of 

 so much importance in agriculture, while in some of them we find a 

 collection of nearly all these products. 



This is not the case in Germany. We are not blessed with natural 

 gas or petroleum ; anthracite coal is very rare. We have immense soft 

 coal fields, but we must go down to a depth of two to three thousand 

 feet, whereas in America it is at the surface, or in the very worst cases 

 a depth of only three hundred feet must be penetrated. We have 

 minerals, but not in such masses as here, and above all they are not 

 of that purity which facilitates metallurgical processes. Only of salt 

 have we as much as you, and more as far as potash salts are concerned, 

 of which we have immense fields in Stassfurt. While with us the 

 water in rivers flows gently and softly, and even for navigation our 

 rivers need to be constantly dredged, you have in your grand country 

 natural water courses such as are found in no other land in this world. 

 In addition to this, your rivers rush down high mountains, so that 

 every stream can be made a tributary to the industries. The millions 

 of horse-power which are available in Niagara Falls, and have been 

 partly utilized, give your country a decided superiority over all others. 



But in spite of these natural advantages Germany has remained the 

 ruling power in chemical industries, and I may venture to say that, 

 in my opinion, we shall retain this commanding position in the imme- 

 diate future. If I am asked to give my reasons for this opinion, I 

 must say that the answer is neither simple nor easy, but I hope to be 

 in the right if I remark as follows: 



In view of the wealth of this country in products of all kinds, but 

 in view of the want of labor, it has been and is still the chief task 

 of the industry and of the engineer to devise means to render these 

 products available in the simplest and cheapest manner. This is the 

 field of the mechanical engineer, and American engineers, indeed, 

 have accomplished the most magnificent results in handling and trans- 

 porting vast masses and in the substitution of machinery for manual 



