420 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1401 



Simple as it sounds, it requires quite some 

 experience, quite some common sense before tbe 

 chemical engineer knows when to specify stone- 

 ware instead of lead, or other metals, or vice 

 versa, or to learn how to alter the design of an 

 equipment so as to make it adaptable for each 

 of these different structural materials. I well 

 remember the look of disgust of an engineer 

 who had drawn his specifications of heavy 

 stoneware to within one sixteenth inch of mar- 

 gin, to find out when the apparatus was finally 

 delivered, at the end of several months drying, 

 and baking and waiting, that the dimensions 

 had warped several inches and did not fit with 

 the other parts of the equipment. That very 

 day he learned that it pays to order his stone- 

 ware a long time in advance and to wait for its 

 delivery before adjusting the final designs of 

 the adjacent equipment according to what he 

 got from the pottery. I am glad to see that dur- 

 ing the competition of the last few years, stone- 

 ware manufacturers have made much progress. 



In another case, a chemical engineer made a 

 success of a different problem of pimiping a 

 corrosive liquid where delicate pumps made of 

 expensive alloys or stoneware were most of the 

 time out of order, until he superseded them by 

 home-made pumps made of cast iron or cement. 

 They corroded very fast, but their construction 

 and replacement were so simple and inexpen- 

 sive that he could afford to replace them rapidly 

 witli much less trouble or cost. 



In many chemical industries, after once the 

 initial chemical problems have been overcome, 

 the manufacturing problems resolve themselves 

 to cost of operation and mass production. !N"o 

 wonder then that in such industries the engi- 

 neer's problems seem to dwarf those of the 

 chemist to such an extent that sometimes the 

 manufacturers seem to be astounded when one 

 reminds them that after all their enterprise is 

 essentially chemical. This is of little conse- 

 quence in so-called " prosperous " times, when 

 orders are abundant, profits considerable, and 

 when the main problem is one of output. In 

 times of keener competition the unchemically 

 trained directors of such enterprises are some- 

 times unpleasantly reminded that they need 

 clever chemists as well as good engineers and 



business men and that, while they were asleep 

 on this subject, their keener competitors have 

 been improving their industries along chemical 

 lines. 



Steelmakers or smelters, for instance, are apt 

 to forget that metallurgy is, after all, a very 

 chemical industry where most of the great 

 strides were made through chemical considera- 

 tions. The same can be said of sugar, glass and 

 soap manufacturing. 



To the wide-awake manufacturer, the present 

 industrial depression should be an incentive to 

 engage more chemists, to do more chemical re- 

 search work, instead of laying off the men of 

 their chemical staff, as has happened in too 

 many instances since we got out of that fool's 

 paradise of so-called " prosperity." 



Most of our industries badly need " fertiliz- 

 ing " and fertilizing is better done while the 

 land lies fallow than during planting or har- 

 vesting time. 



Whenever I see such shortsightedness which 

 is bound to stunt our industrial eificiency for 

 the future, then I wonder whether some of the 

 financial or business men at the head of large 

 industrial enterprises are not occupying their 

 position on an assumed and unearned reputa- 

 tion. 



Some of our industries are more particularly 

 adapted to our country on account of an excep- 

 tionally abundant supply of the raw materials 

 they employ ; this gives them at once a distinct 

 advantage over other countries which have to 

 import these raw products. But precisely in 

 some of these industries, the chemical point of 

 view has been much neglected, except in minor 

 details. 



For instance, we have that enormous indus- 

 try of petroleum refining. Ever since petro- 

 leum was first discovered, the processes of 

 rectification have not varied much from the 

 general methods of fractional distillation by 

 which different compounds are separated by 

 order of volatility in light hydrocarbons of the 

 gasoline type, somewhat higher boiling liquids 

 of the kerosene type, then lubricating oils, vase- 

 line or petroleum jelly, and the least volatile 

 and hardest of all, parafiine. 



It is true that in this general process of dis- 



