January 3, 19 18] 



NATURE 



347 



been investig-ated with such care as that of the 

 North German Plain, but the g^eneral conditions 

 which have led to their production are seen to be 

 similar, althoug-h local circumstances, especially 

 the extent to which they were subjected to an 

 intermittent influx of sea-water, have modified the 

 nature, relative amounts, and distribution of their 

 various saline constituents. T. E, Thorpe. 



NATIONAL POWER SUPPLY A 



THE interim report issued by the Coal Con- 

 servation Sub-committee presided over by 

 Lord Haldane will be read with great interest, as 

 it crystallises the considered opinions of eminent 

 engineers. The committee has little difficulty in 

 proving that the present system of electrical power 

 'distribution in this coun|:ry is most uneconomical. 

 If it had all to be done de novo the Committee 

 would divide the country into some sixteen dis- 

 tricts. In each district there would be several 

 large inter-connected super-stations for generating 

 electric power, and these would be controlled by 

 a single authority. The sites of these stations 

 would not be chosen, as they too often are at 

 present, mainly to secure that the "rates" pay- 

 able on the electric works may come to the local 

 authority working the undertaking, but they would 

 be chosen on the lines laid down by Kelvin in 

 1878. They would therefore be either near the 

 pit's mouth, where coal dross could be used for 

 working engines of the most economical type, or 

 in places where plenty of condensing water is 

 available, where coal transport is cheap, and where 

 they would be near the centre of gravity of the 

 probable demand. If this were done it is calcu- 

 lated that as many as 55,000,000 tons of coal would 

 be saved per annum, a saving- that would far more 

 than counterbalance the interest payable on the 

 new capital necessary. 



We agree with the Committee that it is in the 

 national interest that the change should be made as 

 soon as possible, and we think that the probable 

 saving that would be effected has been somewhat 

 under-estimated. Both Mr. C. H. Merz and Mr. 

 C. P. Sparks, who are members of the Committee, 

 have shown by the stations they have designed the 

 great commercial possibilities of "supply in bulk," 

 and what a boon it is in industrial areas. They 

 are not inviting the country to take any speculative 

 risks — the pioneer work has all been done. Dr. 

 Ferranti, Lord Crawford, and Mr. Ince thoroughly 

 appreciated the main facts of the problems in 

 1888, when the Deptford power station was first 

 ■designed. 



The Committee is right in saying that the diffi- 

 culties which stand in the way are "political" 

 rather than "engineering." There are too many 

 vested interests at stake — those of engineers as 

 well as capitalists — to make the course of any 

 national power supply scheme a smooth one. The 

 suggestion of a Board of Electricity Commissioners 

 is a good one, but the powers of the Board will 



1 Reconstruction rommittee : Coal Conservation Sub-committee Interim 

 Report on Electric Power Supply in Great Britain. Cd. 8880. (London • 

 Imperial House, Kingsw.iy, W.C.2.) Price 3^. net. 



NO. 2514, VOL. 100] 



have to be very carefully defined. Everyone will 

 agree that the Board should be empowered to stop 

 the extension or multiplication of uneconomical 

 stations for public supply, and that it should aim at 

 ultimately securing the adoption of a bulk supply 

 scheme somewhat similar to that outlined in the 

 report under notice. 



It will be interesting to see how far the conclu- 

 sions of the report will be endorsed by the Board 

 of Trade Electric Supply Committee, which is at 

 present sitting, and on which municipal engineers 

 are represented. In any event the Sub-committee 

 is to be congratulated on having made excellent 

 and timely suggestions. 



ECONOMISING SUGAR. 



OUR . contemporary. La Nature, devotes an 

 article in a recent number (December i) to a 

 consideration of the use of substitutes for sugar, 

 in view of the present shortage of that commodity. 

 Sugar is a foodstuff; but as a nutrient it can be 

 replaced by other carbohydrates, such as those 

 contained in farinaceous foods and vegetables. 

 The essential thing as regards sugar is to find a 

 substitute with sweetening prof>erties. Glucose, 

 obtained by hydrolysing starch with sulphuric acid, 

 is the only sugar other than the ordinary supplies 

 producible in large quantities ; but it has a low 

 sweetening power, is not economical, and has 

 reached an almost prohibitive price in France. 

 There remain the sweet chemical products, of 

 which the two chief are dulcin and saccharin. 

 Dulcin, para-ethoxyphenyl urea, is obtained from 

 phenetidine and urea, and has about two hundred 

 times the sweetness of cane-sugar. It has not, 

 however, been much used as a sweetener, since 

 saccharin is cheaper and much more effective. 

 This compound, it may be recalled, has for its parent 

 substance toluene — the coar-tar product which 

 serves also to provide the explosive trinitrotoluene. 

 In making saccharin, toluene is converted first 

 into its sulphochloride and then into the sulphon- 

 amide, which is oxidised with potassium perman- 

 ganate to produce orthosulphamidobenzoic acid. 

 Saccharin is the anhydride, or imido-derivative, of 

 this acid ; it is claimed to be about five hundred and 

 fifty times as sweet as cane-sugar. It is not very 

 soluble in water, and is generally employed in the 

 form of its sodium or ammonium salt (sucramine), 

 both of which are readily soluble. 



Before the outbreak of war saccharin was 

 chiefly made in Germany, but had been produced 

 in this country to a small extent, and the manufac- 

 ture has again been taken up here quite recently. 

 In France four factories have lately been equipped 

 to produce it. As regards the raw materials, ordin- 

 arily these would be accessible enough and cheap 

 I enough, but at present there is, of course, a great 

 I demand for toluene, and potassium salts are 

 scarce. Nevertheless, a certain quantity of toluene 

 can presumably be spared for urgent wants, and 

 there is no absolute necessity to use potassium per- 

 manganate as oxidising agent. In any case the 

 French factories are proceeding with the manu- 

 facture, and, as our contemporary observes, "la pro- 



