234 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



with its blast furnaces with a daily capacity of 500 tons, its giant 

 conve3'ers (50-ton wagons), its huge hoisting cranes, is ahead of 

 other countries. But careful calculations have proved that there 

 is a limit in this direction. The failure, on account of size, of the 

 Mactear sulphate furnace, with a daily output of 25 tons, is well 

 loiown, whilst the mechanical sulphate furnace of the Verein Chemis- 

 cher Fabriken in Mannheim, wliich produces only 7 tons a day, is a 

 success everywhere. It is not improbable that the high cost of con- 

 struction and the great loss which accidental stoppage entails will 

 necessitate a reduction in size of the wonderful Wedge furnace, a 

 creation of the Umted States, which roasts 30 tons of iron pyrites per 

 day. 



In the organic chemical industry the iron vessels for clilorination, 

 sulphonation, nitration, reduction, and oxidation, as well as the 

 wooden tanks in which we diazotize and produce colors, have devel- 

 oped from the small vessels and vats of former years into apparatus 

 of mighty size, their limit being generally determined by the capac- 

 ity of the mechanical industry. But here, too, the mistakes which 

 often occm* in manufactm*ing processes and tiie extra losses which 

 they involve teach us that a wise moderation should be exercised. 



Wherever possible, continuous operations have replaced those 

 processes which worked intermittently. In this way loss of time 

 and expense, caused by cooling and reheating, are avoided. This 

 is exemplified by Uebel's new method of the production of nitric 

 acid from Chili saltpeter with retorts lying above each other and 

 without stirrer, and by that of the Badische Anilm and Soda Fabrik, 

 where the chambers are back of each other with stirrer, these methods 

 having replaced the old single retort process. 



MATERIAL FOR CHEMICAL APPARATUS. 



As regards the material for chemical apparatus several new wares 

 must be referred to: 



Quartz vessels. — Apart from the fact that the saltpeter industry 

 of Norway taught us how to absorb dilute nitrous gases in towers 

 20 meters high, made of granite, a substance which was rarely 

 used for chemical purposes, we have to-day at our disposal tubes, 

 dishes, and vessels of fused quartz, which are stable against acids 

 and heat and which are manufactured in the same sizes and dimen- 

 sions as the well-known earthenware vessels. 



Refined steel. — The greatest progress, however, has been made in 

 the manufacture of iron alloys or refined steel. 



Thanks to the kindness of Freidr, Krupp of Essen, I am in the 

 fortunate position to describe a large number of hitherto unknown 

 substances of great importance, of which I exhibit magnificent 



