August 22, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



173 



ous industrial centers, •where every day the 

 vapors let out into the atmosphere are steadily 

 diminished, but the amount conveyed in pipes, 

 conquered and utilized in every way, in- 

 creases. 



On account of the Rowing difficulty in im- 

 porting' nitrates from Chile, much has been 

 done in Italy in regard to the problem of 

 nitrogen, but its solution, important in time 

 of war for explosives, in time of x>eaee for 

 agriculture, has been by no means easy, al- 

 though we may mention the Rossi Factory of 

 Legnano, gratified to-day by merited success 

 along this line. The air has no political 

 boundaries, and its nitrogen has no owners; 

 it is this nitrogen which has to serve to fer- 

 tilize our ground, which has to give us nitric 

 acid for our industries. Our abimdant waters, 

 which are our natural wealth, must some day, 

 when systematized and rendered obedient, sup- 

 ply the electricity necessary to feed iminter- 

 ruptedly the cycle of nitrogen, to return the 

 precious element from the inexhaustible at- 

 mospheric reservoir to the ground to intensify 

 the agriculture and the life of our country, 

 without limitations of commerce, of treaties, 

 of transports, of possible mineral exhaustion. 



Among the electrochemical industries, we 

 have firmly established in Italy that of cal- 

 cium carbide, and in electrosiderurgy, the 

 Stassano electric furnaces, by means of which 

 we have attained success in preparing many 

 special steels and ferro-silicon. By means of 

 the electrolysis of fused salts we produce 

 aluminium in a certain quantity. 



The dye industry has resorted to the prep- 

 aration of certain simple colors; it has revived 

 the manufacture of vegetable dyes and ob- 

 tained brilliant results. 



A problem for which Italy has found no 

 solution is that of fuel, although we have tried 

 all possible means to improve and increase to 

 the utmost the few resources of our miserly 

 soil. How insoluble the problem is can be' 

 understood by comparing the 800 thousand 

 tons of poor combustible which our soil pro- 

 duces with the 11 million tons of fossil which 

 we have to import in normal times, for the 

 greatest part from England. To improve, to 



the greatest degree possible, this state of 

 affairs, studies have recently been made of the 

 hydraulic problems and the necessary legisla- 

 tion in regard to the waters, for the purpose 

 of utilizing in the best possible way, our re- 

 sources of white coal, which, in part at least, 

 free us from the necessity of importing black 

 coal from abroad. 



An interesting study on the subject of 

 black and white coal in Italy has been pub- 

 lished by Ifovarese of the University of Eome 

 in the Aiti delta Societa Italiana per il Prog- 

 resso delle Scienze in 1916. The extraction 

 and the use of our fossil coals known by the 

 name of picee or hlach and xiloid or hrown 

 lignites, have received during these years of 

 war a very decided impetus, the unjustifiable 

 objection to them, which the consumer has 

 always had, having been overcome. The study 

 of the various fields and their coordinate utili- 

 zation has been of great advantage for war 

 purposes in times of difficulty, and has dem- 

 onstrated that our lignites, save for the manu- 

 facture of coke, to which they are not adapted, 

 could be substituted, as far as there was an 

 available quantity, for the imported fossil 

 coals in all the uses to which they are applied 

 in our country, and in not a few cases with 

 noticeable advantages. Along this line, espe- 

 cially important are the recent studies made 

 in the United States on the use of pulverized 

 coal and on combustibles in general, on the 

 subject of which a vast and interesting 

 amount of material has been published in the 

 General Electric Review. 



According to IN'ovarese our very modest re- 

 serve will acquire considerable value if, in the 

 coordination of services which must come in 

 the production of hydroelectric energy, it is 

 employed as an auxiliary source to supply the 

 deficiencies which are experienced in all hydro- 

 electric plants more or less every year in 

 periods of ordinary or extraordinary scarcity 

 of water. Our coal, therefore, ought to repre- 

 sent a reserve for extraordinary needs, whether 

 due to meteoric changes, or to other causes. 

 In order to make use of our hydraulic 

 energy, the various sources available are being 

 studied, and both the surface and the under- 



