ELECTROCHEMISTRY RICHARDS. 177 



everywhere, and wherever power is cheap a flourishing calcium car- 

 bide industry may be built up. The curious thing about it is that its 

 chief use is based on destroying it, acting upon it by water and form- 

 ing acetylene gas. How great a boon acetylene gas has been to the 

 bicyclist, automobilist, for lighting trains, isolated houses, stations, 

 and towns needs no recital before this audience, but the value of 

 acetylene as a means of welding with the blowpipe is only commencing 

 to be appreciated. Acetylene welding is a convenience which owes 

 its existence entirely to the electrochemical production of calcium 

 carbide, and the iron and steel and other metal industries are being 

 greatly helped by its use. 



Titanium carbide is not as familiar as calcium carbide. It is made 

 in a manner similar to the production of carborundum, using titanium 

 oxide (rutile) and carbon. It has no uses similar to calcium car- 

 bide, nor any like silicon carbide. But electrical engineers have 

 discovered that as arc-light tips or electrodes it gives the most efficient 

 arc light yet discovered, with a light efficiency running up to 3 candle- 

 power per watt of electrical energy. This is probably 50 per cent of 

 the theoretically possible conversion of electrical energy into light 

 energy, and is doubly as efficient as has ever before been attained. 

 What this means for street lighting everywhere is difficult to realize; 

 perhaps the best and most easily understood comparison is to say 

 that the titanium carbide arc lamp is to the ordinary arc as the 

 tungsten filament incandescent lamp is to the carbon filament lamp ; 

 you will all grasp the scope of that statement. With acetylene light- 

 ing on one hand and titanium arc lighting on the other we need 

 say no more about the influence of electrochemistry on modern 

 illumination. 



Phosphorus. — I stated before that the potassium chlorate on 

 safety matches was all being made electrochemically. We can say 

 practically the same of phosphorus. The electric furnace enables 

 us to distill phosphorus much more easily and safely from the natural 

 phosphates than the older chemical methods. Calcium carbide 

 gives us acetylene gas, and another electrochemical furnace gives us 

 the phosphorus to "strike the light." 



Ferroalloys are alloys of iron with the more expensive metals, 

 used in manufacturing steels of various kinds. Ferromanganese 

 is used in practically all steel, ferrosilicon is used in almost all. 

 FeiTocm-omium, nickel, timgsten, molybdenum, boron, uranium, 

 vanadium are some of the alloys used to make the special alloy steels, 

 such as find great use in rapid tool steel, automobile axles, armor 

 plate, gun steel, etc. These alloys are of great importance to the 

 steel industry, and are made almost exclusively in electric furnaces. 

 The industry has flourished most in countries having cheap power, 

 3873-i — sm 1911 12 



