Chemists' Present Opportunities and Duties 45 



combustion of a pound of coal. It is to him, however, that real 

 progress is mainly due. He discovers fundamental facts and laws 

 and establishes working hypotheses and theories. The industrial 

 chemist simply applies what the pure chemist discovers. To the 

 pure chemist much honor is due. He is doing his duty well. His 

 chief reward will lie in the consciousness of having enlarged the 

 field of knowledge, and his name will be honored by future genera- 

 tions after the industrial chemist has been forgotten. 



Because of the European war and the large decrease of imports, 

 the opportunities of industrial chemists have been wonderfully mul- 

 tiplied. So great is the demand for chemists that the young men 

 are being taken from the universities before they finish their grad- 

 uate courses and put to work with inadequate training. There has 

 been an increase in almost every line of chemical manufacture, and 

 nearly all manufacturing is now more or less chemical. The in- 

 crease in prices has caused an increase of output and an extension 

 of business. Many factories have doubled and quadrupled their 

 capacity. The largest development has been in the manufacture of 

 those substances which were formerly imported from Germany and 

 Austria, such as anilin dyes, synthetic vegetable dyes, coal and coal 

 tar protlucts, potassium and barium salts, nitrates and so forth. Of 

 the 29,000 tons of dye stuffs used annually in the United States, 

 6,000 tons were home made before the war; now it is estimated that 

 three-fourths of the dyes used are made in this country. In the 

 same way the separation and refinement of the coal tar products has 

 been so developed in the past two years that the demand can now 

 be almost supplied by the home manufacture. The production of 

 nitrogen compounds has been greatly increased by saving ammonia 

 as a by-product of the coke and gas industries. In addition to this 

 we have as possibilities synthetic ammonia and the oxidation of at- 

 mospheric nitrogen. When the twenty million dollar government 

 plant is finished at Mussel Shoals, our supply of nitrogen com- 

 pounds will be adequate not only for fertilizing purposes, but to 

 supply the high explosives in case of war. There is so far no suf- 

 ficient visible supply of potassium compounds. This is being par- 

 tially compensated for by the use of sodium compounds which in 

 many cases serve as well. The government has taken the matter in 

 hand and is looking for sources of potassium, so far with but little 



