46 
NATURE 
[Marcu 12, 1914 
telegraphy, new methods of treating ores, and a 
thousand other diverse inventions, the development 
of a single one of which has sometimes involved 
millions. 
Such development as that of the automobile industry 
in America has been based upon and vitalised by an 
immeasurable amount of research, the range and in- 
fluence of which extend through many other indus- 
tries. It has accelerated the application of heat treat- 
ment more than any other agency. One tyre manu- 
facturer spends 100,000 dollars a year upon his labora- 
tory. The research department organised by my asso- 
ciates for one automobile company comprised within 
its staff experts in automobile design, mathematics, 
metallography, and heat treatments, lubrication, 
gaseous fuels, steel and alloys, paints and painting 
practice, in addition to the chemists and physicists and 
assistants for routine or special work. 
The beautiful city the hospitality of which has so 
greatly added to the pleasure and success of the pre- 
sent meeting of our society is the home of two highly 
scientific industries of which any community may well 
be proud. The Bausch and Lomb Optical Company, 
through its close affiliation with the world-famed Zeiss 
works at Jena, renders immediately available in this 
country the latest results of German optical research. 
The Eastman Kodak Company is perhaps more gener- 
ally and widely known than even the Zeiss works, and 
in capital, organisation, value of product, and profit 
of operation will bear comparison with the great Ger- 
man companies whose business is applied science. 
Like them, it spends money with a lavish hand for 
the promotion of technical research and for the funda- 
mental investigation of the scientific bases on which 
its industry rests. As you have happily been made 
aware, this work is carried on in the superb new 
research laboratories of the company with an equip- 
ment which is probably unrivalled anywhere for its 
special purposes. The laboratory exemplifies a notable 
feature of American industrial research laboratories 
in that it makes provision for developing new pro- 
cesses, first on the laboratory scale and then on the 
miniature factory scale. 
To no chapter in the history of industrial research 
can Americans turn with greater pride than to the 
one which contains the epic of the electrochemical 
development at Niagara Falls. It starts with the 
wonderful story of aluminium. Discovered in Ger- 
many in 1828 by Wohler, it cost 90 dollars a pound 
ir 1855. In 1886 it had fallen to 12 dollars. The 
American Castner process brought the price in 1889 
to 4 dollars. Even at this figure, it was obviously stil] 
a metal of luxury with few industrial applications. 
Simultaneously Hall in America and Heroult in 
Europe discovered that cryolite, a double fluoride of 
sodium and aluminium, fused readily at a moderate 
temperature, and, when so fused, dissolved alumina 
as boiling water dissolves sugar or salt, and to the 
extent of more than 25 per cent. By electrolysing the 
fused solution, aluminium is obtained. 
On August 26, 1895, the Niagara works of the Pitts- 
burgh Reduction Company started at Niagara Falls 
the manufacture of aluminium under the Hall patents. 
In 1911 the market price of the metal was 22 cents, 
and the total annual production 40,000,000 Ib. 
A chance remark by Dr. George F. Kunz in 1880 
on the industrial value of abrasives turned the thoughts 
of Acheson to the problem of their artificial production, 
and led to the discovery in 1891 of carborundum and 
its subsequent manufacture on a small scale at 
Monongahela City, Pennsylvania. In 1804 Acheson 
laid before his directors a scheme for moving to 
Niagara Falls—to quote his own words :— ‘ 
“To build a plant for 1000 horse-power, in view of 
the fact that we were selling only one-half of the 
NOL 235 VOE. 93] 
output from a 134 horse-power plant, was a trifle too 
much for my conservative directors, and they one and 
all resigned. -Fortunately, I was in control of the destiny 
of the Carborundum Company. I organised a new board, 
proceeded with my plans, and in the year 1904, the 
thirteenth from the date of the discovery, had a plant 
equipped with a 5000 electrical horse-power, and pro- 
duced more than 7,000,000 lb. of those specks I had 
picked off the end of the electric light carbon in the 
spring of 1891.” 
The commercial development of carborundum had not 
proceeded far before Acheson brought out his process 
for the electric furnace production of artificial graphite 
and another great Niagara industry was founded. 
In quick succession came the Willson process for 
calcium carbide and the industrial applications of 
acetylene, phosphorus, ferro-alloys made in the electric 
furnace, metallic sodium, chlorine, and caustic soda, 
first by the Castner process, later by the extraordinarily 
efficient Townsend cell, electrolytic chlorates and 
alundum. 
Perhaps even more significant than any of these 
great industrial successes was the Lovejoy and Brad- 
ley plant for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen, 
which was perforce abandoned. It is well to recall, 
in view of that reputed failure, that the present-day 
processes for fixing nitrogen have made little, if any, 
improvement in yields of fixed nitrogen in a kilowatt 
hour over those obtained in this pioneer Niagara plant. 
In the year 1800 a young. assistant of Lavoisier, E. I. 
du Pont by name, emigrated to the United. States, 
with others of his family. and settled on the banks 
of the Brandywine, near Wilmington, Delaware. He 
engaged in the manufacture of gunpowder. To-day 
the du Pont Company employs about 250 trained 
chemists. Its chemical department comprises three 
divisions: the field division for the study of problems 
which must be investigated outside the laboratory, and 
which maintains upon its staff experts for each manu- 
facturing activity, together with a force of chemists 
at each plant for routine laboratory work; second, the 
experimental station, which comprises a group of 
laboratories for research work on the problems arising 
in connection with the manufacture of black and 
smokeless powder, and the investigation of problems 
or new processes originating outside the company; 
third, the Eastern Laboratory which confines itself to 
research concerned with high explosives. Its equip- 
ment is housed in seventy-six buildings, the majority 
being of considerable size, spread over fifty acres. 
Since no industrial research laboratory can be called 
successful which does not in due time pay its way, 
it is pleasant to record that the Eastern Laboratory 
is estimated to yield a profit to its company of 
1,000,000 dollars a year. In addition to the generous 
salaries paid for the high-class service demanded by 
the company, conspicuous success in research is re- 
warded by bonus payments of stock. 
The Gayley invention of the dry air blast in the 
manufacture of iron involves a saving to the American 
people of from 15,000,000 dollars to 29,000,000 dollars 
annually. A modern furnace consumes about 40,000 
cubic feet of air a minute. Each grain of moisture 
in a cubic foot represents one gallon of water an hour 
for each 1000 cubic feet entering a minute. In the 
Pittsburgh district the moisture varies from 1-83 grains 
in February to 5-94 grains in June, and the water an 
hour entering a furnace varies accordingly from 73 to 
237 gallons. In a month a furnace using natural air 
received 164,500 gallons of water, whereas with the 
dry blast it received only 25,524 gallons. A conserva- 
tive statement, according to Prof. Chandler, is that 
the invention results in a 1o per cent. increase in out- 
put and a Ito per cent. saving in fuel. 
Especially notable and _ picturesque 
among the 
