140 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



in larger amounts and to be delivered at more rapid rates than 

 had ever been known or even, probably, dreamed of. And 

 this was to be accomplished in this country in the face of in- 

 terrupted transportation which cut off supplies of niter, sulphur 

 and pyrites; of a greatly increased demand for cotton for 

 clothing, tents, airships, automobile covers, and a variety of 

 other uses; and of the long continued policy of Germany in 

 preventing the manufacture in other countries of many of the 

 chemicals essential in the preparation of explosives, so that 

 all such manufactures had to be developed here ab initio. 



With the increasing shortage of cotton attention was turned 

 to wood as a source of cellulose. It was known that the earli- 

 est and long used smokeless sporting powders, such as the 

 Schultze, were made from nitrated wood and that wood con- 

 tains considerable proportions of cellulose, but that it was in- 

 timately mixed with other bodies which interfered with its 

 use in the production of military powders from it. However, 

 under pressure, methods of large scale purification of the wood 

 cellulose were worked out by chemists on both sides and satis- 

 factory powder produced from it. It is claimed that it was 

 owing to this development and to that of methods for the pro- 

 duction of nitric acid from the air that Germany was enabled to 

 continue military operations so long. It was proposed in this 

 country to combine this development of the use of wood pulp 

 with the reclaiming of cut-over turpentine lands; the stumps 

 of the long-leaf pine were to be first treated to obtain from 

 them their spirits of turpentine and resin contents and the 

 residual wood to be converted to cellulose pulp, while the land 

 thus cleared was to be devoted to agriculture or reforestation. 



Glycerin is obtained as a side product from fats and oils in 

 such processes as soap-making. For some years before the war 

 there was a constantly growing world shortage which became 

 acute as the war developed. In looking for other sources of 

 glycerin it was recalled that glycerin is always produced to a 

 slight extent in the ordinary fermentation of sugar to alcohol, 

 and this led to a search for and cultivation of the glycerin 



