September 2, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



187 



of considerable size were seen on the solar 

 surface not far from the center of the disk. 



0. O. Lampland 



Lowell Observatory, 

 Flagstatp, Arizona 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



THE PRODUCTION OF FIXED NITROGEN 



The final report of the Nitrogen Products 

 Committee of the British Ministry of Muni- 

 tions, issued early in 1920, has been supple- 

 mented by a series of statistical tables relating 

 to nitrogen fixation, now publlished by the 

 Stationery Ofiice, covering the latter part of 

 the war and the period that has elapsed since 

 its termination. This additional informa- 

 tion has been compiled by Dr. J. A. Harker, 

 formerly director of the ISTitrogen Research 

 Laboratory, for the Department of Scientific 

 and Industrial Research. 



Among other things, the statistics deal with 

 the world's resources in nitrogen products, the 

 Chile nitrate industry, the production of nitric 

 acid and sulphate of ammonia, the synthetic 

 ammonia process during the war, and the 

 cyanamide industry. It is estimated that the 

 ■world's capacity for the production of fixed 

 nitrogen amounted last year to 1,561,000 tons, 

 of which about 5Y per cent, was attributable 

 to natural sources, such as Chile nitrate and 

 the by-product industry, and the remainder to 

 artificial fixation processes. 



The London Times, from which we take this 

 information, says: 



The most striking, and in some ways the 

 most disquieting, feature of the statistical sup- 

 plement to the Nitrogen Products Committee's 

 report (mentioned in The Times of yesterday) 

 is the great increase in the world production 

 of fixed nitrogen, and of the fact that of the 50 

 plants in operation throughout the world, not one 

 is established in this country and only two are to 

 be found within the Empire. Canada has one 

 arc process plant with a maximum capacity of 

 800 metric tons a year and a cyanamide process 

 plant estimated to be capable of 12,000 tons. 

 Thus, of the world's total estimated capacity for 

 1920 of 671,300 tons, the British Empire com- 

 mands only 12,800 tons. 



A fuller examination of the position reveals the 



conclusive predominance of Germany in this field, 

 While Norway outdistances all rivals in the are 

 process, producing 30,000 tons out of a total of 

 38,300, Germany, taking the three processes tO' 

 gether, produces nearly twice as much fixed nitro- 

 gen as the rest of the world. Of the 325,000 tons 

 credited to the cyanamide process, Germany com- 

 mands 120,000, while under the synthetic ammonia 

 process she has a capacity of 300,000 tons, and the 

 only rival is the United States, with the almost 

 negligible figure of 8,000. Put in a sentence, Ger- 

 many can produce by fixation processes 424,000 

 metric tons of nitrogen a year, and the rest of the 

 world can produce only 237,000 tons, of which this 

 country produces none. 



Our one internal source of fixed nitrogen iS 

 therefore by-product works, and even there we' 

 produce only 100,000 tons against Germany'^ 

 150,000. As a net result our internal resourced 

 — that is, the resources on which we should have 

 to rely if all colonial and foreign supplies were 

 cut off — represent 2,240 tons of fixed nitrogen per 

 million of population, whUe Germany's resources 

 amount to 8,830 per million of her population. It 

 is sometimes suggested that our inaction in this 

 field may yet prove of advantage, since by waiting 

 until experiment had demonstrated the best proc- 

 ess, we might adopt it and then pick up our com- 

 petitors. The history, however, of our loss of the 

 synthetic dyestuff industry, which began in 1856 

 with Perkin's discovery of mauvine and still flour- 

 ished for 20 years after, gives little support to this 

 complacent theory. 



The plain truth is that while other countries, 

 especially Germany, have carried their experi- 

 mental work well into the productive and com- 

 mercial stage, we are still engaged in construct- 

 ing plants and debating the merits of the proc- 

 esses of German, French, and other chemists. 

 The synthetic ammonia factory at Billingham, 

 designed to manufacture about 60,000 tons of 

 ammonia nitrate annually for war purposes, was 

 begun by the Ministry of Munitions early in 1918, 

 but at the time of the Armistice was only very 

 little advanced. This is now being redesigned by 

 Brunner, Mond and Co., to manufacture fertilizers, 

 and a subsidiary company is at present concen- 

 trating upon designs for an initial plant to produce 

 25 tons of nitrogen per day or about 6,000 to 7,000 

 tons annually. Cumberland Coal Power and Chem- 

 icals, Limited, have purchased the British rights 

 in the French process by Georges Claude, and the 

 British Cyanides Company are continuing at Bir- 

 mingham their large-scale experiments on fixa- 



