Decembee 7, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



571 



BOSTON MEETING OF THE AMERICAN 

 CHEMICAL SOCIETY. II 



FERTILIZER DIVISION 



J. E. Breckenridge, Chairman 

 P. B. Carpenter, Secretary 



A new fertilizer: Alfred H. Cowles and Al- 

 fred W. ScHEiDT. Mr. Cowles referred to a paper 

 read by him before the World's Congress of 

 Chemists in 1912 entitled "Alumina, hydrochloric 

 acid, caustic alkalis and cement by a new process 

 from salt, clay and lime" and explained that a 

 product of that process that he had been intended 

 to convert into cement, has proven itself of greater 

 value as a fertilizer than calcium hydrate. This 

 increased value being due to a discovery made by 

 him that silica in soluble form when either added 

 to the soil by itself or added to the soil as a 

 calcium silicate proved itself to be an essential 

 fertilizer. He explained why clay and zeoUtic 

 minerals in the soil would lock up in insoluble 

 form silica when added to the soil in the form of 

 soluble alkali sUicates, while the sUica would not 

 be thus locked up or bound in insoluble form when 

 added as a soluble type of silica or as an alkali 

 earth silicate. Mr. Cowles gave the quantitative 

 results of a very large number of experiments 

 showing very large gains in luxuriance of growth 

 in a great majority of the plants experimented 

 with, thus confirming the discovery made by Mr. 

 Cowles and his theoretical explanation of the 

 same. 



Potash production in United States: H. A. 

 Huston. The American production for 1916 was 

 3.6 per cent, of the imports in 1913. The agricul- 

 tural effect of impurities in some of the potash 

 from American sources is mentioned. 



The synthesis of ammonia hy the Kaher proc- 

 ess: E. O. E. Davis and H.vkry Bryan. The use 

 of a catalytic reagent to bring about the union of 

 hydrogen and nitrogen under pressure and at in- 

 creased temperature is the fundamental idea 

 underlying the Haber process. About one third 

 of the ammonia used in (Jermany at present is re- 

 ported to be produced by this method. This is a 

 preliminary report of the study of the process 

 undertaken in the laboratories of the Bureau of 

 Soils, U. S. Department of Agriculture. The 

 apparatus devised for the work is described. This 

 consists essentially of a heating chamber contain- 

 ing the catalytic reagent through which the mix- 



ture of hydrogen and nitrogen is passed, a con- 

 densing chamber for the removal of the ammonia 

 formed by liquefaction and a circulating pump 

 for the return of the non-combined gases to the 

 reaction chamber. Granular iron reduced by hy- 

 drogen is one of the best and most convenient 

 catalyzers. 



Effect of fertilizers on composition of straw- 

 berries: H. A. Huston. Experiments on six vari- 

 eties of strawberries. Analyses are given show- 

 ing the effect of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and 

 potash on the density of the juice and on the 

 percentage of acid, invert sugar and sucrose. 



The recovery of potash as a hy-product in the 

 cement industry: William H. Eoss and Albert 

 E. Merz. Analysis of samples of raw mix and of 

 cement from 113 cement plants in the United 

 States and Canada shows that the potash in the 

 raw mix varies from 0.20 to 1.16 per cent., and 

 that the percentage of potash volatilized in the 

 different plants varies from 24.5 to 95.9 per cent. 

 From the results thus obtained it has been calcu- 

 lated that the potash escaping from the kilns of 

 these plants ranges from 0.35 to 5.14 pounds per 

 barrel of cement produced, with an average for 

 the plants of this country of 1.93 pounds. On the 

 basis of an average production of 90,000,000 bar- 

 rels, the total potash escaping from the cement 

 plants of this country amounts to about 87,000 

 tons annually. It has been demonstrated com- 

 mercially that 90 per cent, of the potash escaping 

 in the dust is recoverable, and from experiments 

 made in this laboratory it would appear that 95 

 per cent, of the recoverable potash is, or may be 

 made, available. The recoverable potash in the 

 cement industry therefore amounts to approxi- 

 mately 78,000 tons and the avaOable recoverable 

 potash to 75,000 tons, or to 71,000 tons when 

 plants losing less than 1 pound of potash per 

 barrel of cement are omitted. 



division op agricultural and food chemistry 



T. J. Bryan, Chairman 



Glen. F. Mason, Secretary 



The influence of season upon the deterioration 

 of food samples: C. A. Browne. The influence of 

 season upon the deterioration of raw sugar and 

 butter-fat is discussed. The deterioration of sugar 

 is due to microorganisms, among the most active 

 of which are the budding fungi, such as the 

 Torulaa and MoniliiB, which exert their activity 

 only when the temperature maximum is above 20° 



