88 



CHEMISTRY. 



CHILI. 



for alarm. In the worst case observed that of 

 acetic acid the maximum attack was less than 

 5 milligrammes per 100 square centimetres in 

 six days. Now, a canteen holding a litre (or 

 nearly a quart) has an inner surface of about GOO 

 square centimetres, and an aluminum weight of 

 about 200 grammes. Such a canteen would in 

 the very worst case lose 5 milligrammes in a 

 day, even if it was always full, or 1 gramme in 

 two hundred days, and would require fifty-five 

 years to be reduced to half its weight. This is 

 certainly too trifling an action to be considered. 

 Nor is there the slightest danger of any injurious 

 action upon the human body by such traces of 

 aluminum compounds, seeing that our food con- 

 tains very much more of these. Moreover, alu- 

 minum compounds are not poisonous in the ordi- 

 nary sense, or as compared with compounds of 

 arsenic, mercury, lead, copper, etc. ; and they can 

 not act injuriously unless quantities a hundred 

 times larger than those found were regularly en- 

 tering the stomach. It follows that aluminum 

 may be employed without fear for canteens or 

 any other vessels for holding articles of food., at 

 least at the ordinary temperature. 



Industrial Chemistry. The industrial 

 preparation of carbonic acid, according to M. 

 Troost, has been promoted by the consumption 

 of beer, the quality of which is improved by the 

 pressure of carbonic acid, while it is spoiled by 

 compressed air ; in France it has been stimulated 

 by the demand for salicylic acid in medical treat- 

 ment a substance which is largely produced by 

 the action of liquid carbonic acid on sodium- 

 phenol. At the works of the Company General 

 for the Production of Antiseptics, near Hermes, 

 pure carbonic acid is produced very econom- 

 ically by the combustion of coke ; is collected in 

 a gasometer, from which it is drawn, to be dried 

 and compressed with pressures of 5, 25, and 70 

 atmospheres, and stored in iron bottles. At 

 present 300 kilogrammes are produced daily ; but 

 as other applications occur than that for the 

 manufacture of salicylic acid, M. Gall, the di- 

 rector of the work, is increasing the power of 

 manufacture, and it will soon be possible to pro- 

 duce 1,0 JO kilogrammes a day. The applications 

 of the liquid include the manufacture of aerated 

 waters, the filtering of wine, cooling by virtue 

 of the great absorption of heat in vaporizing, 

 and solidification of fused metals under high 

 pressure. 



In view of the probable eventual exhaustion 

 of the coal supplies of Great Britain, the ques- 

 tion of the modern developments of fuels and 

 their use was considered by Dr. J. Emerson 

 Reynolds in his presidential address before the 

 Society of Chemical Industry. As a means of 

 saving coal and obviating other difficulties at- 

 tendant upon its use, the author advises the sub- 

 stitution, for heating purposes, of gaseous fuel, 

 either in the form of Siemens's " producer " gas 

 of low illuminating but high heating power or 

 in that of water gas. Already, " the use of such 

 gaseous fuel is so steadily extending that we may 

 expect in the near future to reach the maximum 

 practicable economy of coal in our greater indus- 

 tries, and of smoke abatement as well " ; while 

 electric lighting promises to supply the place 

 of gas for illumination. The general use of 

 ordinary peat is attended by the disadvantages 



of its requiring much greater storage room 

 than coal, of its producing a light and trouble- 

 some ash, and of its requiring more than thir- 

 teen times the bulk of coal to produce the 

 same thermal effect. Even when it is com- 

 pressed, peat does only 45 per cent, of the work 

 of the same weight of coal, and can not compete 

 with it when the same values of both substances 

 are taken. The best chance for economically 

 applying peat for most manufacturing purposes 

 lies in gasifying it. If this is done, the produc- 

 tion of ammonia from peat along with gas will, 

 as Ludwig Mond has shown, probably pay for 

 gasifying the fuel and materially facilitate its 

 utilization. A superior source of fuel to either 

 coal or peat is afforded in petroleum, a substance 

 composed of hydrocarbides. The hydrocarbides 

 are different in American and in Russian petro- 

 leum, but petroleum from both sources affords 

 some of the lower homologues of marsh gas ; 

 hence, in the process of refining crude petroleum 

 by distillation, the first products consist largely 

 of butane, pentane, and hexane, which are sepa- 

 rated and condensed by pressure, the product 

 being used for refrigerating purposes by virtue 

 of its high volatility. At the successively higher 

 degrees of distillation a spirit and the illuminat- 

 ing oils are produced, while the residue which is 

 not vaporized at 300 includes the heavier lubri- 

 cating oils, which are also admirably suited for 

 use as fuel, and are cheaper than those generally 

 used for lighting purposes. During this process 

 of refining by simple distillation there is always 

 more or less decomposition in progress, hydro- 

 carbides of high molecular weight being resolved 

 into simpler ones at a comparatively high tem- 

 perature; and when crude petroleum or its con- 

 stituents are rapidly heated, this resolution can 

 be carried so far as to convert a large proportion 

 of the oil into permanent gas, valuable alike for 

 illuminating and heating purposes. Several 

 methods are employed for the conversion of oil 

 into rich gas and storing the latter for distribu- 

 tion through tubes in the ordinary way. The 

 proofs are cited in the author's paper that pe- 

 troleum is the most concentrated, and, on the 

 whole, the most portable, of all the natural fuels 

 met in considerable quantities. 



CHILI, a republic in South America. The 

 legislative power is exercised by the National 

 Congress, consisting of a Senate and a Chamber 

 of Deputies. The Deputies are elected for three 

 years directly by the citizens who can read and 

 write in the proportion of 1 to every 30,000 of 

 population in each of the 68 departments. The 

 Senators are elected for six years by direct suf- 

 frage in each of the 23 provinces, 1 Senator to 

 every 3 Deputies. The President of the repub- 

 lic is elected indirectly for five years, and can 

 not be re-elected while in office. 'He is assisted 

 by a Cabinet of fi ministers and by a Council of 

 State, in which he nominates 5 members, while 6 

 are chosen by Congress. Jorge Montt was in- 

 augurated as President, succeeding Jose Manuel 

 Balmaceda, on Dec. 18. 1891. 



Area and Population. The area of the re- 

 public is 293,970 square miles, including 75,292 

 square miles in the territory of Magallanes and 

 Tierra del Fuego. and 60,968 square miles form- 

 ing the province of Antofagasta, which was taken 

 from Peru in the war between the two republics. 



