406 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1217 



quality of the new crucibles was found to 

 be not quite equal to the old. 



I have myself had occasion to use these 

 new crucibles under quite as exacting con- 

 ditions and certainly under quite as high 

 and probaibly higher temperatures than 

 those commonly employed. My conclusion 

 is that the manufacturers should now send 

 out these wares with a new label, which 

 would be in effect an apology for the first 

 apology and say, ' ' These crucibles are made 

 in America, of American clays and we take 

 pleasure in guaranteeing their superiority 

 over anything formerly manufactured from 

 foreign material." 



Then there is optical glass. It all came 

 from Germany. In their own experiments 

 in attempting to develop a high-grade op- 

 tical glass the Germans published to the 

 world the results of their experiments for 

 about ten years. When they began to get 

 valuable results the government stepped in 

 and there has been an impressive silence 

 for the years following. At least no one 

 outside of Jena seemed to know how to do it. 

 The French and English each had a single 

 factory which was making a good glass 

 but all of their output was needed at home 

 and was at once commandeered. Here then 

 was an immediate and imperative need, for 

 both the navy and army must have range 

 finders, field glasses, cameras and telescopes 

 without number. The problem was taken 

 up by the government laboratories and by 

 scientific calculations and deductions 

 coupled with skillful experimentation they 

 are now able after ten months to produce 

 not only a better but a greater variety of 

 optical glass than the Germans had been 

 able to produce in ten years. 



And now just a word about nitrates. 

 Wlien we note the mere names of the ex- 

 plosives manufactured it is apparent that 

 they are all nitration products and that 

 nitric acid is an essential in the making of 



every one of them: Nitroglj'cerine, Nitro- 

 cellulose, trinitrotoluol, trinitrophenol, am- 

 monium nitrate and even the niter in the 

 old style of black powder confirms this 

 fact. Nature, it seems, has been very par- 

 tial in her distribution of nitrates in quanti- 

 ties to be at all worth while, Chile alone be- 

 ing the fortunate country. But with four 

 fifths of the air nitrogen, one ninth of the 

 water hydrogen and all the rest of both 

 being oxygen, we at least can be said to 

 have the raw material in sight, or perhaps 

 better, at our very doors, at all times. No 

 wonder the question is being rather nerv- 

 ously asked, "What are we doing to insure 

 an adequate supply of nitrates?" 



As a protective measure, while we are do- 

 ing our thinking the government is spend- 

 ing $35,000,000 on reserve supplies from 

 Chile, but already Professor Bucher, of 

 Brown University, and the chemists of the 

 General Chemical Company each along sep- 

 arate lines has developed successful proc- 

 esses for the manufacture of ammonia, the 

 present most effective starting point for the 

 manufacture of nitrates and nitric acid, so 

 that already work has begun on the estab- 

 lishment of a plant at Sheffield, Alabama, 

 capable of producing 60,000 pounds of am- 

 monia per day. Germany, of course, has 

 been doing her own developing, for it is 

 assumed that she did not have a stored-up 

 supply of Chile saltpeter sufficient for more 

 than about a year, but it is now evident 

 that we will out-nature nature and inci- 

 dentally out-Germany Germany since we 

 have in sight for the coming year the cer- 

 tainty of meeting all of our needs in this 

 line. 



But almost everything chemical requires 

 sulfuric acid. Indeed this acid is said to 

 be the index finger which points out the 

 chemical activity of a country. The finger 

 for 1917 indicated that the manufacture of 

 sulfuric acid of all strengths for 1917 



