September 15, 1923] 



NA TURE 



;85 



The Manufacture of Acids andt Alkalis. 



The Manufacture of Acids and Alkalis. By Prof. 

 George Lunge. Completely revised and rewritten 

 under the Editorship of Dr. A. C. Gumming. Vol. i : 

 Raw Materials for the Manufacture of Sulphuric Acid 

 and the Manufacture of Sulphur Dioxide. By W. 

 Wyld. Pp. xiii + 558. 365. net. Vol. 5: The 

 Manufacture of Hydrochloric Acid and Saltcake. By 

 Dr. A. C. Gumming. Pp. xv + 423. 315-. 6d. net. 

 (London and Edinburgh : Gurney and Jackson^ 

 1923-) 



THE various treatises on different departments of 

 applied chemistry which chemical literature 

 owes to the genius and industry of the late Prof. 

 Lunge are among the classics of chemical technology. 

 They have passed through many editions in fairly 

 quick succession, and their betterment and revision 

 was the constant employment of their author's leisure, 

 no pains being spared by him to make them an accurate 

 and faithful reflex of the state of contemporary know- 

 ledge of the several subjects with which they were 

 concerned. Prof. Lunge enjoyed many opportunities 

 and facilities to this end. As professor of applied 

 chemistry in the Zurich Polytechnic, one of the best 

 equipped and most famous schools of chemical tech- 

 nology in the world, he was an acknowledged authority 

 on many branches of manufacturing chemistry, and 

 particularly on the special branches dealt with in the 

 books under review. The manufacture of acids and 

 alkali was in fact the chief chemical industry in which 

 Dr. Lunge was employed during his sojourn in England 

 and before his appointment to the distinguished 

 position he occupied until his death. A brief account 

 of his life and work appeared in Nature of February 

 17, p. 228. 



These treatises constitute, in the aggregate, a 

 valuable literary property, and the publishers are well 

 advised in seeking to maintain the reputation they 

 have hitherto enjoyed as faithful and accurate accounts 

 of the state of contemporary procedure in the special 

 branches of chemical industry with which they deal, 

 by entrusting their revision to competent authorities, 

 and in issuing new editions at comparatively short 

 intervals. 



It might be thought that in the case of an industry 

 so well established as that of the manufacture of 

 Ikali and of the industries which are so closely 

 ssociated with it, the last word had been said in 

 ispect to processes and procedure. Such, however, 

 1 very far from being the case, as even a very superficial 

 )mparison of successive editions of these treatises 

 irill make manifest. The changes may not in all cases 

 fundamental or subversive, but they are more or 



NO. 281 I, VOL. 112] 



less important as tending to efficiency and economy, 

 and no account of the contemporary condition of the 

 manufacture would be adequate without reference to 

 them. 



The general superintendence and editorship of the 

 new editions of these manuals has been entrusted to the 

 competent hands of Dr. A. C. Gumming, under whose 

 direction they have been completely revised and re- 

 written. The volume on raw materials for the manu- 

 facture of sulphuric acid and of sulphur dioxide has 

 been assigned to Mr. Wilfrid Wyld, who has been 

 associated with important concerns in Yorkshire and 

 elsewhere, and brings to his task the fruits of a large 

 experience. 



In a general preface prefixed to the several volumes 

 Dr. Gumming has given a brief account of the history 

 and development of the late Prof. Lunge's literary 

 labours in connexion with applied chemistry, which 

 is of interest as showing how the scope of these labours 

 was gradually enlarged so that it became practically 

 an encyclopedia of the many chemical industries. The 

 first English edition of the volume on sulphuric acid 

 appeared in 1879, and the last edition in 1913. This 

 was followed in 191 7 by a supplementary volume on 

 sulphuric and nitric acids. This was the last of 

 Lunge's contributions to this special field of chemical 

 technology. 



The book under review shows no very striking 

 features in the way of new developments. As regards 

 raw materials, the most important change is the 

 revolution in the production of commercial sulphur 

 effected by the Frasch process. This remarkable 

 process is one of the most notable chemical engineering 

 triumphs of the present century. In 1869 an enormous 

 deposit of sulphur was discovered in Louisiana in the 

 course of well-sinking in connexion with petroleum, 

 but all attempts to work this deposit commercially 

 failed until the genius of Herman Frasch devised 

 the method associated with his name. Space will 

 not allow of any detailed description of the process. 

 Briefly, the method consists in sending down a 

 sufficiency of superheated water and thus melting out 

 the sulphur, which liquefies at about 116°, from the 

 pockets in the limestone and beds of gypsum in which 

 it occurs. The molten sulphur is then forced to the 

 surface by means of compressed air, and of course 

 consolidates as it cools. The book contains a fairly 

 full account of this process, which is now worked on 

 a very considerable scale, not only in Louisiana but 

 also in Texas, where similar sulphur deposits have been 

 found to occur. It has rendered America independent 

 of all outside sources of sulphur supply, and for a time 

 seriously threatened the existence of the Sicilian 

 industry, of which it has destroyed the monopoly. 



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