October 3, 1918] 



NATURE 



87 



pfa .ind telephone wins. sin- ha:- reopened 

 abandoned workings .it Mansfeld and in the 

 tein, Niedermohr, etc., and 

 fit course she Has nol neglected to utilise the mines 

 of Maidanpek in Serbia. Ilea internal production 

 ol copper grew from 25,300 tons in [913 to 

 35,000 tons in 1916; but sin- has fell the wastage 

 of war with increasing severity, and there is no 

 •doubt thai i1k continued provision of copper is 

 becoming practk ally an insoluble problem. 



For aluminium Germany before the war was 

 almost wholly dependent upon foreign supplies. In 

 1913 sin- consumed about 12,500 tons, of which 

 imported 4000 tons from France and 6000 

 tons from Switzerland. As this metal was wholly 

 derived from French bauxite, the exportatio 

 which was forbidden, German) had to seek else- 

 where for the mineral. Bauxite equal to the 

 French material was found in Hungary and Car- 

 niola, and works have been established to treat 



the produce of the valle) of the Zud, Bihar, and 



Kolosz. The Swiss manufactories now use this 

 bauxite, as well as the affiliated German works, at 

 Neuhausen, Muhldorf-on-the-Inn, and elsewhere. 

 The Centra] Powers are then lore independent of 

 outside sources of supply, and their output of the 

 metal is sufficiently large to enable them to use 

 it in lieu of other metals of which they are deficient, 

 manufacture ol aluminium is now an estab- 

 lished ( icrman industry. 



Germany obtains considerable amounts of lead 

 from Upper Silesia and from the left bank of the 

 Rhine. In addition, before 0114, she imported 

 notable amounts of ore from Australia and Bel- 

 gium. Whenever possible zini was substituted 

 for lead, and water-pipes wen even constructed 

 of papier-mache. As regards zinc she suffered 

 from no spei ial shortage, and its price experienced 

 no very gnat increase. Antimony was largely 

 replaced by other metals, although the works at 

 Pr/ibram, P ind Jasz) still continued to 



furnish supplies. Most of her tin ores before the 

 war came from Bolivia and the Dutch Indies. On 

 account of the blockade she worked some small 

 deposits of cassiterite in the Mart/ mountains, but 

 is no question that she suffered greatly from 

 lack of the metal. \ll tinning was prohibited, 

 and, indeed, much ware was di tinned, ft will be 

 remembered thai some 181,000 lb. of tin was 



among the return American cargo of the sub- 

 marine Deutschland in September, 1916. German) 

 was no less short of nickel, for which she was de- 

 pendent, before the war, on \.\v Caledonia and 

 Canada. Nickel deposits ware, however, dis- 

 covered at Crajova, and have since been actively 

 worked. The Deutschland brought back from the 

 United States 752,600 lb. of ibis metal in Sep- 

 tember, [916. Germany obtained all the mercury 

 she needed from Austria-Hungary and from Asi.i 

 Minor. Asia Minor also furnished her with small 

 quantities of chrome ore. Tungsten and molyb- 

 denum ores were discovered and worked in 

 Austria-1 lungarj . 



Owing to the necessit) of using large 

 2553, VOL. I02 



quantities of potatoes for food, and as a 

 consequence of the shortage of sodium nitrate 

 as .1 fertiliser, thi of alcohol, so 



ss.ary for the manufacture ol munitions, ex- 

 perienced a very serious set-back, and a number 

 ol methods of meeting the deficiency were em- 

 ployed. Abandoned processi esuscitated, 

 and new schemes, such as thai ol working up the 

 sulphite liquors in the manufacture ol wood-pulp, 

 ahead) in operation in Sweden, wet ablished. 

 ilic cellulose factor) at Konigsberg at the end of 



1917 was producing about 1 ,', million li ol 95 



per Cent, alcohol by this process. Attempts have 



been made to effect the synthesis of alcohol from 

 acetylene, itself derived from calcium carbide. As 

 a war measure this may be possible, as also 

 due to the saccharification of wood by means of 

 dilute sulphuric acid, but such processes can have 

 no permanent effect on German industry. It is 

 onlv by the most rigorous methods of economy, 

 such as limiting or even forbidding its consump- 

 tion as a beverage, and by withholding it from 

 certain industries, such as that of celluloid, unless 

 working for the war, that Germany has been able 

 to meet her necessities. 



As is well known, the continued provision of 

 oils, fats, and their associated products, soap and 

 glycerin, has occasioned our enemies the greatest 

 concern, and almost every known method of aug- 

 menting the supply from internal sources has been 

 resorted to, such as the oxidation of lignite-tar oils 

 and the treatment of ozonides. Various substitutes 

 for soap have been devised, made of clay, kaolin, 

 chalk, etc., mixed with silicate of soda, glue, and 

 an antiseptic such as boric or salicylic acid, with 

 sufficient saponin (usually quillaya bark) to pro- 

 duce a lather. The Kriegs Anschuss placed oh the 

 market a soap consisting of fatty acids and saponi- 

 fied resins with clay and sodium carbonate at a 

 maximum price of 20 pfennigs for 50 grams 

 per head per month. This is supplied to hos- 

 pitals, doctors, and certain groups of workmen. 

 Such industries as textiles, leather, bleaching, and 

 dyeing have been seriously incommoded, and re- 

 covery pro, esses have been rigorously insisted 

 upon. The deficiency of fats has of course affected 

 the production of glycerin. Its therapeutic em- 

 ployment has been practically forbidden, and its 

 recovery whenever possible is compulsory. A solu- 

 tion of calcium chloride is employed as a substitute 

 in certain industries. Ethylene glycol has replaced 

 it as a medicament, and in the preparation of 

 films, in printing, and in lithography. Various 

 vegetable decoctions stabilised by antiseptics are 

 also used. Concentrated solutions of lactate of 

 soda and of potash, under the names of "per- 

 glycerin " and " perkaglycerin, " have been intro- 

 duced into pharmacy. 



The spina- at disposal does not allow of any 

 account of the methods to which our enemies have 

 been driven in dealing with the urgent problems of 

 textiles, leather, and paper. For turpentine they 

 were wholly dependent upon supplies from America, 

 France, and Russia, and a variety of substitutes 



