298 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1291 



CHEMISTRY IN THE NAVYi 



In the spring- of 1917, at meetings o£ the 

 United States Nitrate Conunission, the Navy 

 came into closer touch with the chemists of 

 the country that it had ever had the fortune 

 to do before. This association resulted in 

 much advantage to the navy upon the out- 

 break of war, the increased production of 

 munitions being to large extent dependent 

 upon the chemical help the Navy could ob- 

 tain. The Navy, through the American 

 Chemical Society, obtained practically all of 

 its chemical assistance; and it learned to 

 respect and appreciate the services given to 

 the country by this large organization. 



The smokeless powder of this coimtry is a 

 nitro-cellulose powder that was made possible 

 by such great chemists as Monsieur Vieille, 

 who, working with Nobel's gun-cotton, placed 

 it in form for Mendeleeff to colloid, and, then, 

 our American chemist, Francis du Pont, in- 

 troduced the process of dehydrating. The 

 development of this powder to its present 

 form of great stability and ballistic regularity 

 is due to many chemists who have given their 

 entire time to this part of the explosives in- 

 dustry. The problems of the Naval service 

 differ essentially from those of the general 

 military service, in that, with explosives, cer- 

 tain limitations are set by the conditions in 

 which they are stored and used on board ship. 

 Many explosives, prepared for use on shore, 

 are utterly unfit for use in the Navy. 



The attempt to avoid excessive erosion was 

 one of the many causes which led to the 

 adoption, in this coimtry, of a pure nitro- 

 cellulose powder as a propellent instead of 

 nitro-glycerine compoimd used so generally. 



There are many new requirements for pro- 

 pellent powders which the Navy hopes to meet 

 with the help of chemists. One is the re- 

 duction of flash. 



In the field of high explosives, the wet gun- 

 cotton was discarded about 1908, for T.N.T., 

 which is now the accepted high explosive for 



1 Abstract of an address givea at the Philadel- 

 phia meeting of the American Chemical Society by 

 Ralph Earle, Bear Admiral, U. 8. Navy, chief of 

 Bureau of Ordnance. 



mines and torpedoes. During the war, it was 

 necessary to obtain an additional high ex- 

 plosive, one in which toluol was not used, and, 

 for this reason, the Navy adopted a high ex- 

 plosive called T.N.X., which is made by 

 nitrating xylol, one of the lighter oils ex- 

 tracted in the production of toluene. This is 

 not as convenient an explosive to use and 

 handle as T.N.T., but met the situation satis- 

 factorily. This was introduced through the 

 Chemical Research Department of the du 

 Pont Company. Amatol was not used by the 

 Navy to any extent, as it did not stand Naval 

 conditions. Our depth charges, loaded with 

 T.N.T. instead of amatol, which our Allies 

 had been forced to use, were said to be, and ap- 

 parently were, much stronger than theirs. In 

 fact, German prisoners complained of the ex- 

 ceptional violence of the American depth 

 charges. 



In the field of research in connection with 

 automobile underwater torpedoes, there needs 

 to be developed a new source of power. The 

 present source is compressed air and the new 

 source must be of greater potential per unit 

 volume and weight and be nearly as safe to 

 handle and store on board ship. Oxygen has 

 been proposed but is too dangerous to handle. 



In the metallurgical line, the Navy de- 

 manded a high quality of steel in all gun 

 forgings, and, as a result, there are many 

 more firms now capable of producing such 

 steel than there were before the war, so that 

 the designer is benefited greatly. Special in- 

 vestigations with alloys of steel have been con- 

 tinued and the properties of zirconiimi for 

 armor plate are still being looked into. 



During the war, a large niunber of pyro- 

 technic devices, such as smoke-producing ap- 

 paratus, marker shells, signals, smoke shells, 

 incendiary bombs, and illuminating star shells 

 were worked with and considerable progress 

 had been made along these lines, but it is 

 especially desired to develop this field to much 

 greater efficiency. 



The Navy, in gas warfare, was confronted 

 with the fact that whatever gas it developed 

 could occupy a place in a shell so little as not 

 to prevent penetration of the ship's side and 



