428 



NATURE 



[December i6, 1915 



with the winding-, even after long exposure at 

 high temperature. 



Some electric furnaces, embodying many of the 

 points above referred to, have recently been put 

 on the market by Messrs. A. Gallenkamp and Co., 

 Ltd., London, and in the several designs avail- 

 able the needs of the chemist have been fully con- 

 sidered. The construction of a single-tube furnace 

 is shown in Fig. i. The lagging is provided 

 by four slabs of a mixture of magnesia and 

 asbestos, while the central space surrounding the 

 wound tube is filled with powdered quartz. Elec- 

 tric furnaces for research work, and particularly 

 for use at high temperatures up to 2500° C, may 

 be obtained from Mr. Chas. W. Cook, of Man- 

 chester. He also lists a simple type of wire- 

 wound combustion furnace for fixing on an 

 ordinary retort stand. A similar furnace is sup- 

 plied by Messrs. Baird and Tatlock, London, and 

 should prove useful for many chemical operations. 



OILS AND FATS. 



CHEMICAL industry in Britain is now passing 

 through a very critical period; many 

 people are realising its importance, and it is being 

 compared, not always to its advantage, with the 

 German chemical industry. Whilst it is true that 

 as regards the manufacture of dyes and pharma- 

 ceutical chemicals we have much leeway to make 

 up, the same cannot be affirmed of all branches, 

 even of the organic chemical industry. It is 

 desired here to indicate briefly the present posi- 

 tion of the oil and fat industry in relation to the 

 application of science in it. 



One illustration of the backwardness of applied 

 chemistry in Britain which is often quoted by the 

 would-be reformer is the lack of adequate text- 

 books in English. In the great industry of oils 

 and fats this reproach is certainly not justified ; 

 indeed, in Lewkowitsch's work^ the industry pos- 

 sesses a text-book vi^hich is second to none, and 

 has been translated more than once. Moreover, 

 a challenge can be issued on behalf of this in- 

 dustry as one in which British foresight and enter- 

 prise have led the world. Whilst this success is 

 in part due to the financial genius and organising 

 ability of the founders of our great concerns, it 

 is none the less principally based on the applica- 

 tion of science, and probably in no other British 

 industry has chemistry had such scope as in that 

 connected with fats and oils. There is, perhaps, 

 no better illustration of the chasm between the 

 college and the factory, the existence of which 

 was deplored by Dr. Forster at the annual meet- 

 ing of the Society of Chemical Industry. The 

 college has no idea of the knowledge of fats and 

 oils possessed by the industry ; writing with 

 inside knowledge, this may be declared to be at 

 least a decade ahead of the published literature. 

 The colleges know not even the names of their 

 industrial colleagues, or at least, like the pro- 



1 "Chemical Technoloey and Analysis of Oils, Fats, and Waxe«." Bv 

 Dr. J. Lewkowit-ch. Edited bv P. H. Warbiirton. Fifth edition. Vol. iii. 

 Pp. viii+483. (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1915.) Price 2z:s. net. 



NO. 2407, VOL. 96] 



verbial prophets, these are without honour in 

 chemical circles at home. 



The third volume of Dr. Lewkowitsch's classic 

 work gives a very complete summary of the 

 technology of manufactured oils and fats, and 

 even the most eminent expert will be certain to 

 learn from almost any of its chapters. Unfor- 

 tunately but a tithe of the knowledge which the 

 writer really possessed of the actual working of 

 the industry is recorded in its pages, doubtless 

 because much of it had been acquired in con- 

 fidence. As a consequence this, like other similar 

 works, gives but an imperfect idea of the actual 

 stage of development to which the industry has 

 attained, and is to that extent disappointing when 

 the manufacturer of to-day turns to it to help him 

 out of his difficulties. All will agree, however, 

 that Lewkowitsch's book is an integral part of 

 the oil and fat industry, which his whole-hearted 

 zeal and hard work did so much to advance, and 

 that his all too early decease was a great mis- 

 fortune. 



The raw materials of the fat and oil industry 

 are strikingly varied. At first limited in number, 

 their scarcity and the consequent increase in 

 value as the demand for soap and margarine 

 grew have prompted a world-wide search to in- 

 crease them, and chemical science has played an 

 essential rSle in their development. Thus in early 

 days soap was made in small works from tallow 

 of local origin. As the works grew larger, tallow 

 was imported to Europe from the large cattle and 

 sheep raising districts in the New World. At the 

 same time vegetable oils from the tropical coun- 

 tries began to be used for soap-making, and since 

 the margarine industry also has learnt how to 

 utilise such vegetable fats, the whole world has 

 been laid under contribution to supply them. As 

 most are the products of trees, their cultivation 

 on any scale has not yet been successful, the 

 exceptions being the oils from linseed, which is 

 grown in temperate climates, and the soy bean 

 of the East. Linseed oil is too unsaturated either 

 for use in margarine or soap, but as a drying oil 

 it has no equal. Until the discovery of the harden- 

 ing process for saturating fats, the highly un- 

 saturated whale oil and fish oils were of very 

 limited application. 



The manufacture of soap, an operation of great 

 antiquity, is based on the simplest of chemical 

 reactions, and even to-day in some countries it is 

 carried out in a most primitive manner. This is 

 in striking contrast to the up-to-date methods of 

 the great British soap manufacturers, who have 

 learnt how to make their soaps neutral so as to 

 be without action on the skin or the most delicate 

 fabrics; how to blend the fats which compose 

 thern so as to make soaps having any desired 

 qualities ; and even how to make the fullest use of 

 the advance of physical chemistry, including such 

 apparently academic branches as the phase rule. 



Soap primarily requires a hard fat for its raw 

 material ; and with the ^nargarine industry making 

 the same request, the demand outstripped the 

 supply. The situation might have become serious 



