176 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 
ficiaries of this invention, using artificial graphite anodes in electro- 
lytie operations or as electrodes in electric furnaces. The electro- 
chemical industry in general has been most wonderfully helped by 
this one electrochemical process. 
Carborundum stands for a large industry, centered at Niagara 
Falls, and founded also by Mr. Acheson. ‘Twenty years ago the name 
was not in the dictionary; now it is known all over the world as the 
most efficient abrasive material in use. First produced just across 
the Monongahela, in a little furnace as large as a cigar box, and sold 
for polishing diamonds at many dollars per ounce, it is now made by 
tons in electric furnaces of 2,000 horsepower capacity, and competes 
successfully with such common natural abrasives as emery and com- 
mon sand. And in fact, common silica sand, the most abundant 
material on earth, with common carbon, like coke, furnish all the 
ingredients necessary for the furnace to work upon to produce SiC 
(silicon carbide). Mr. Acheson not merely founded another new 
industry, but he discovered a new chemical compound; he has 
enriched science, promoted industry, and created new instruments of 
service; no wonder that his scientific friends have showered on him 
honors—the Rumford Medal, the Perkin Medal, and two years ago 
the presidency of this Electrochemical Society. 
Silicon is the metal whose oxide is silica sand, and is by far the 
most abundant metallic element on earth. Up until very recently it 
was to be seen only in chemical museums, costly and useless—a 
chemical curiosity. Now Mr. F. J. Tone, one of Mr. Acheson’s former 
lieutenants, is producing it by the ton and selling it by the carload at 
a few cents per pound. The chemical world has found uses for it, 
large uses, such as in solidifying steel, making good copper castings, 
reducing other metals from their oxides, chemical ‘‘pots and pans,” 
etc. This illustrates again the variety of the achievements of electro- 
chemistry. Here is a new material furnished the world at a low price 
and all sorts of workers are finding all sorts of advantageous uses for 
it. The electric furnace makes it from simply sand and carbon, with 
electric energy plus considerable “‘ brains.” 
Calocum carbide is the product of another American invention. 
The name was scarcely in the chemical books, and the purveyors 
of the rarest chemicals did not have it on their lists, when Mr. Thomas 
Willson, trying to make something else in the electric furnace, made 
this compound from ordinary lime and carbon, and started an elec- 
trochemical industry which has spread all over the civilized world. 
I am almost tempted to say that there is a calcium carbide works 
everywhere but in Pittsburgh, but that would really be an exaggera- 
tion, and I will not say it. The best thing about calcium carbide is 
that it is easy to make; the raw materials may be found almost 
