PROGRESS IN ELECTRO-METALLURGY—KERSHAW. 219 
produce in excess of their requirements. In France the industry is 
controlled by a syndicate with headquarters in Paris, and this exer- 
cises a close watch over output and price. Kleven works are reported 
to be still operating, situated around the following centers of cheap 
water power: Bellegarde, Grenoble, Nice, and Toulouse. The esti- 
mated output of these works in 1906 was 24,000 tons; the annual 
consumption in France is about 15,000 tons. 
Germany is dependent upon Switzerland, Austria, and Norway for 
two-tu. ds of its supply of carbide, only 8,000 tons being produced 
at home, whilst 16,000 tons are imported. In the United States the 
production of carbide is estimated to amount to 25,000 tons per annum, 
the Union Carbide Company, with works at Niagara Falls, being the 
chief producers. A large new factory designed for the utilization of 
10,000 horsepower is now being erected, however, in a new center in 
the States. 
Although calcium carbide is being employed chiefly for generating 
acetyl for illuminating purposes, its application for production of 
“calcium cyanamide ” is likely to lead to developments of some im- 
portance. The use of acetylene gas in the oxyacetylene blow pipe, for 
the autogenous welding of metals, is another application of consider- 
able industrial importance, since temperatures can be obtained with 
this apparatus which approach those of the electric arc, and the size 
and shape of the flame are more suited for welding purposes. 
Calcitum.—Calcium in the metallic state is one of the latest electro- 
metallurgical products, the metal being produced by electrolysis of 
fuse. |cium chloride and fluoride with a rising cathode, which just 
touches the surface of the fused electrolyte. This method is adopted 
to prevent the re-solution in the molten electrolyte of the calcium de- 
posited at the cathode. The temperature of the bath is kept at about 
670° C., and the process works most satisfactorily with fresh and 
neutral calcium chloride. The metal is obtained in the form of an 
irregular rod, made up of a series of buttons, fused together. The 
metal is dark gray in color, of specific gravity 1.51. 
Calcium is now being manufactured upon a commercial scale by 
the Elektrochemische Werke at Bitterfeld in Germany, under the 
Rathenau patents, and is being placed upon the market by the same 
firm. The only difficulty in the development of the new manu- 
facture lies in the lack of applications or uses for the metal. It 
has been suggested that it might be used in the place of aluminium 
for removing the oxides from steel, but at present aluminium is the 
cheaper metal. For many other reduction processes calcium can not 
replace sodium, since its affinity for oxygen is not so great. At- 
tempts to form alloys of calcium with copper and other metals have 
also failed, as one would have expected. 
