UTAH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 143 
Aluminum was discovered in Germany by Mohler in 
1828. In 1855 it cost $90.00 per pound. In 1886 it had 
fallen to $12.00. The American Castner process brought it 
to $4.00. Hall discovered that eyolite fused readily at a 
moderate temperature and when so fused would dissolve 
alumina very readily. If the solution is electrolized the 
pure metal is obtained. This process was instituted in 1895 
with the result that the market price is now about 20 cents 
and 50,000 tons are being manufactured yearly. 
The Du Pont Co. in Delaware, manufacturers of gun 
powder, employ 250 trained chemists. Its chemical de- 
partment 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 manufacturing activity together with a force of 
chemists at each plant for routine laboratory work; second, 
the experimental station which comprises a group of lab- 
oratories for research work on the problems arising in con- 
nection with the manufacture of black and smokeless pow- 
der, and the investigation of problems or new processes 
originating outside of the company; the eastern laboratory 
which confines itself to research concerned with high ex- 
plosives. Its equipment is housed in 76 buildings, the ma- 
jority being of considerable size spread over 50 acres. It 
is estimated that this eastern research laboratory yields a 
profit of $1,000,000 annually. It is estimated that the re- 
cent invention by Gayley of the dry air blast in the manu- 
facture of iron saves the American people about $20,000,000 
annually. 
In Agriculture, the largest of our industries, we were 
slow to adopt the methods of scientific research. The first 
U. S. commissioner report of 1868, he states that in a few 
colleges some work in agriculture was attempted but, in- 
asmuch as no teachers had been prepared, they necessarily 
would need to be self taught in the schools in which they 
were teaching. Shortly after this, a number of Agricultural 
schools came into existence, so that by 1876, there were 39 
colleges with 473 professors and 4,211 students which had 
taken advantage of the land grant of July 2, 1862, for the 
