THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1903. 
LUNGE’S SULPHURIC ACID. 
A Theoretical and Practical Treatise on the Manu- 
facture of Sulphuric Acid and Alkali, with the Col- 
lateral Branches. By George Lunge, Ph.D., Pro- 
fessor of Technical Chemistry in the Federal 
Polytechnic School, Zurich. Third edition, revised 
and enlarged. Pp. xxviit+1214. (London: Gurney 
‘and Jackson, 1903.) Price 21. 12s. 6d. 
HE volumes before us, although bearing the above 
comprehensive title, in reality deal only with the 
manufacture of oil of vitriol, and together constitute 
vol. i. of the complete work. It is now upwards of a 
quarter of a century since this work was first pub- 
lished, and, thanks to the assiduity and painstaking 
zeal of its author, it still remains the standard treatise 
on the subject. Ten or a dozen years ago, at the time 
of the appearance, in fact, of the second edition of this 
_ work, it might have been supposed that all that need 
be known or stated with regard to a manufacture so 
highly specialised as that of oil of vitriol was already 
known, and was described in Dr. Lunge’s classical 
work. But it is a striking instance of the essentially 
progressive character of chemical science that, even in 
a branch of its application so well established as this, 
ia which, under the stress of competition, some of the 
acutest intellects which have ever devoted themselves 
to chemical technology have laboured for years with a 
view to make it perfect, there should have arisen during 
the last ten or twelve years what is practically a re- 
volution in the manufacture—a new departure, in fact, 
which bids fair to alter the whole complexion of the 
industry. 
It is this circumstance, no doubt, which has primarily 
led to the publication of this new edition. During the 
last few years there has been an enormous development 
of the manufacture of sulphuric anhydride, and oil of 
vitriol itself is being made in increasing amounts by 
contact-processes. It is commonly believed that the 
chamber process is doomed. Perhaps it is. But 
threatened industries, like threatened men, occasionally 
live long. Indeed, it is Dr. Lunge’s opinion that the 
old lead-chamber will in all probability still yield the 
principal supply of ordinary sulphuric acid for many 
years to come. It is interesting to see how, indeed, 
the more modern processes have indirectly afforded a 
fresh lease of existence to the older one. The lead- 
chamber with all its appurtenances is too costly a 
plant to be lightly discarded, and so long as it can be 
kept going at a profit, so long will it continue to be 
used. The manufacture of oil of vitriol by the chamber 
process is one of those highly developed industries in 
which, by reason of its magnitude, small economies are 
all important, and, as Dr. Lunge’s book shows, it is 
only by constant vigilance to prevent waste, and by 
promptitude to make use of improvements, that it can 
stave off what some people regard as its inevitable 
decom. 
The compiler of a work of this character who seeks 
to achieve what Dr. Lunge defines to be his purpose— 
namely, to furnish chemical manufacturers with a 
NO. 1782, VOL. 69] 
NATURE 
trustworthy guide for actual practice as well as ex- 
haustive scientific and technological information for 
all students of this branch of industry—must be pre- 
pared to suffer many rebuffs and disappointments in 
his search for truth. There is an obvious refer- 
ence to this fact in the allusion to the studied reticence 
of the great acid trusts and ‘“‘ the somewhat narrow- 
minded apprehension ’’ which fears ‘“‘ that by en- 
lightening their neighbours they might injure their 
own interests.’’ Luckily for the cause of technology 
there are manufacturers who, in the words of the 
author, ‘‘are far-seeing and large-hearted enough ”’ 
not to restrict their experience ‘‘ within the precincts ”’ 
of their own business circle. To these men—and the 
list is a goodly one—Dr. Lunge is indebted for much 
vasuable information. 
The interested reader will naturally first turn to Dr. 
Lunge’s account of the so-called contact-process, the 
process which, as already stated, in some form or other 
probably marks the direction which the manufacturer 
of the future is destined to take. In this respect the 
third edition, which, pace Dr. Lunge, we hope does 
not represent the last opportunity the author will have 
of treating the subject, constitutes a new departure, 
and is perhaps its most valuable, as it is its most 
interesting, feature. Thanks to the special communi- 
cations of nearly all those who have been mainly in- 
strumental in developing it, and more especially of the 
large firms concerned, Dr. Lunge has been enabled 
to elucidate, for the first time, the history of this special 
branch of a great industry. For much of our inform- 
ation concerning its present state, we are indebted to 
the Badische Anilin- und Soda-fabrik, who permitted 
Dr. Knietsch to make known many details of the pro- 
cess in the course of his remarkable and interesting 
lecture to the Berlin Chemical Society two years ago. 
The account then given has been supplemented by new 
and valuable information from the same firm, as well 
as from other manufacturers in Germany. 
As has already more than once happened in the 
history of technology, and especially in chemical tech- 
nology, the fundamental idea on which the modern 
method of making concentrated oil of vitriol depends 
had its origin in this country. It was Davy who, in 
1817, first directed attention to the occurrence of what 
were at one time classed as “‘ catalytic,’”? but are now 
generally called ‘“‘ contact,’” reactions—phenomena 
which immediately engaged the attention of his re- 
lative, Edmund Davy, and thereafter of Débereiner and 
Berzelius. But what is of special interest is that some 
years before Berzelius published his well-known paper 
on catalysis, the attempt was made in this country to 
turn contact action to account in the manufacture of 
oil of vitriol. In 1831 a vinegar manufacturer of 
Bristol named Peregrine Phillips took out a patent 
for “ certain improvements in manufacturing sulphuric 
acid, commonly called oil of vitriol, viz., firstly, causing 
an instantaneous union of the sulphurous acid gas with 
the oxygen of the atmosphere, and so save saltpetre 
and the cost of vitriol chambers, by drawing them in 
proper proportions, by an air-pump or otherwise, 
through an ignited tube or tubes of platina, porcelain, 
or some material not acted on by heated sulphurous 
I 
