56o 



NATURE 



[February 23, 1911 



chemical laboratory of the University, there to be employed 

 this evening and during the night by Prof. Nernst for his 

 important researches on the specific heat of the elements 

 at temperatures in the vicinity of the absolute zero. 



When the Kaiser-W'ilhelm Institutes for Chemistry are 

 once in full swing, we shall, I hope, no longer be obliged 

 to travel to Leipzig every time we want some liquid 

 hydrogen- 

 Liquid hydrogen was prepared for the first time about 

 twelve years ago by Prof. Dewar in the famous laboratory 

 at the Royal Institution in London. But the costly experi- 

 ments necessary for its production were rendered possible 

 only by the liberal means which Dr. Ludwig Mond, the 

 great benefactor of chemistry, placed at his disposal. Dr. 

 Mond, moreover, has not forgotten his (Jerman Father- 

 land and German science. He bequeathed to the Uni- 

 versity of Heidelberg, where he had studied, the sum of 

 50,000/. for chemical and physical research, and several 

 years ago he endowed the State-supported chemical insti- 

 tute which we had planned with the sum of 10,000/. 



Inorganic chemistry, in which, thirty years ago, advance 

 was scarcely considered possible, has, owing to the new 

 aids to research — as, for example, high temperatures and 

 powerful electric currents, &c. — undergone absolutelv un- 

 expected developments. I will merely give you some idea 

 of this development by indicating a few processes of 

 technical importance, beginning with the attempts to pre- 

 pare valuable nitrogenous compounds from the nitrogen of 

 the atmosphere. 



The direct production of nitric acid from air ' by means 

 of a powerful electric discharge has reached the stage of 

 large-scale manufacture. In Norway at the present 

 moment a gigantic works, by the side of a mighty water- 

 fall, is in course of erection by German factories in con- 

 junction with Norwegian engineers, and supported by 

 German and French capital. 



Synthetical saltpetre is already on the market, and 

 German dje factories derive a considerable portion of the 

 nitrites necessary for their work from the same source. 



The strikingly original process devised by Prof. A. 

 Frank and Dr. N. Caro in Charlottenburg for the pre- 

 paration of calcium cyanamide from calcium carbide and 

 atmospheric nitrogen, came somewhat earlier into practice. 



And now a third process, based upon the direct com- 

 binat'on of atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen to form 

 ammonia, has been announced. Prof. Haber, of Karls- 

 ruhe, by means of an ingenious application of the laws 

 of physical chemistry, has succeeded in obviating the 

 difficulties which hitherto have rendered this synthesis 

 impracticable. The well-known Badische Anilin- und 

 Sodafabrik at Ludwigshafen-am-Rhein has taken over his 

 patents and technically perfected the process to such a 

 degree that synthetical ammonia will in all probability 

 shortly be placed on the market. 



The greater the number of such processes and the keener 

 the competition which they excite, the greater is the 

 Ijenefit to the consumer. In tbe case I have just men- 

 tioned, this has an especial significance, as the bulk of 

 technical nitrogenous substances are employed in agri- 

 culture for artificial manures. 



In the opinion of high , authorities, German agriculture 

 could easily consume twice, nay thrice, the amount of 

 nitrogenous material at present employed for this purpose, 

 were only the price to fall to a corresponding degree. In 

 such a case it is possible that the crops would increase to 

 such an extent that Germany could be independent of 

 foreign countries with respect to agricultural produce, h 

 task of great national importance has thus been set to 

 chemical industry. 



This last process, the synthesis of ammonia, possesses 

 the advantage that no electricity, merely heat, is involved. 

 In other words, all that is necessary is fuel, a commodity 

 of which Germany has ample store. Furthermore, it is 

 to be noted that the cost of production depends only on 

 the price of hydrogen, which, together with the inexpensive 

 atmospheric nitrogen, serves as raw material. The 

 problem of producing hydrogen at a moderate cost has 

 already been solved by chemical industrv, owing to the 

 great interest recently taken in airships. In this wav. the 

 truth of the old saying is established — that all industries 



1 First carried out on a moderately large scale by Lord Rayleieh (Trans. 

 Chero. Soc, igg7, Ixxi.. i8i)-Tr. 



NO. 2156. VOL. 8jil 



affect one another, and that improvements in one field may 

 occasion fertile results in totally remote spheres of activity. 



Such a relation of mutual stimulus obtains also between 

 theoretical chemistry and the production of metals. The 

 production of gold, silver, and copper has gained in 

 simplicity to an extraordinary degree by the introduction 

 of electrochemical methods. The study, moreover, of 

 alloys, and the perfecting of inexpensive methods of pre- 

 paring metals hitherto obtainable only with difficulty, such 

 as chromium, tungsten, manganese, vanadium, and tan- 

 talum, has been of immense benefit to the steel and electro- 

 technical industries. 



Not to omit the latest productions of these industries, I 

 here show you a new sort of iron, the so-called " electro- 

 lytic iron." This is prepared by the Langbein-Pfann- 

 hauser factory in Leipzig by a process devised by Prof.. 

 Franz Fischer in the laboratories of the University of 

 Berlin, in which process the iron is deposited from a solu- 

 tion of an, iron salt by an electric current. You see it 

 before you in the form of extremely tough plates, reaching 

 a thickness of 5 mm., which may readily be rolled or 

 drawn into wire. The bright surface is not due to any 

 fwlishing, the metal being detached in this state from the 

 electrode. Here you see a seamless iron tube coiled in 

 serpentine fashion, which was deposited in the same way 

 upon a leaden core. 



This iron is distinguished from all other commercial 

 varieties of iron by its extraordinary puritj', in consequence 

 of which it possesses distinctive physical pro{>erties. In 

 particular, it is much more readily magnetised, and loses 

 its magnetism far more rapidly than other kinds of iron, 

 this property rendering it especially suitable for electro- 

 magnets. This electromotor before you, of ordinary 

 design, . formerly developed 0-5 horse-power, but on r- 

 placing the original electromagnets by those constructed < ; 

 electrolytic iron, the efficiency has risen to 1-25 horse- 

 power. This new iron should therefore be of the greatest 

 importance in the construction of electromotors. 



Our present-day material civilisation is to a great 

 extent founded on the rapid utilisation of the fossilised 

 combustibles anthracite and brown coal. But posterity 

 will not fail to reproach us with having grievously 

 squandered this valuable material, for in the conversion 

 of the heat of combustion of coal into energ}" in the 

 ordinary way by means of steam engines, more than 

 85 per cent, of the work potentially contained in the coal 

 is lost. This loss, however, may be appreciably lessened 

 by suitable chemical treatment of the coal. If the coal 

 be first converted into combustible gas — so-called power 

 gas — and this then consumed in a gas engine, the output 

 of useful power is treble that developed in a steam engine. 

 Valuable bye-products — ammonia and tar — can, moreover, 

 be recovered, and, indeed, the methods hitherto employed 

 for the production of power gas are in many respects 

 capable of improvement. I therefore deem it possible that 

 at some time special institutes will be founded in the 

 centres of the coal districts — perhaps under the auspices of 

 the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft — where these important 

 problems can be investigated with the aid of all the 

 methods known to science. 



Fossilised combustibles, which owe their origin to the 

 vegetable kingdom, form a connecting link between 

 mineral and organic substances. Organic chemistry- sur- 

 passes inorganic chemistry in variety of methods and pro- 

 ducts to the highest degree. Small wonder, for it embraces 

 all those complicated chemical bodies which occur in 

 animal and vegetable life. The number of organic sub- 

 stances accurately investigated may to-day be estimated at 

 the huge figure of 150.000, and every year eight or nine 

 thousand more are added to the list. We may therefore 

 reckon that at the close of this century organic chemistry 

 will comprise the entire gamut of substances found in the 

 animal and vegetable kingdoms. 



This rapid increase is wholly due to organic synthesis. 

 From the few elements occurring in organic chemistry, of 

 which carbon predominates, all these compounds are built 

 up, much as an architect produces the most diverse edifices 

 from the same form of brick. 



Synthesis in organic chemistry is an ofTsoring of Berlin. 

 It was born eighty-two years ago in the Niederwallstrasse 

 bv the synthetical production of urea by Friedrich 

 Wohler. It has, moreover, found its greatest field of 



