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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1172 



going to be independent of importation in 

 gross coal-tar products and practically, if 

 not entirely, in ammonia for fertilizers. 

 We are also weeding out the unnecessary 

 use of potash where it replaces soda due to 

 our own careless teaching of chemistry in 

 speaking of and using potassium com- 

 pounds where sodium serves as well. Ger- 

 man potash exporters and others, such as 

 for Saxony manganese, after the war wiU 

 have an expensive campaign to win us back 

 to these former unwarranted uses of their 

 product. 



The relation of chemistry to national de- 

 fense has been rendered clear by the war, 

 a service of no mean magnitude. 



Explosives and asphyxiating gas manu- 

 facture are dependent upon labyrinthian 

 chemical engineering operations. It is ob- 

 viously necessary for adequate prepared- 

 ness that this country should be self-con- 

 tained and not dependent upon importa- 

 tion for such supplies as nitric acid, toluol 

 and sulphuric acid for defense. We have 

 the sulphur and pyrites for sulphuric acid. 

 The toluol and other coal-tar products we 

 have ample for our usual needs, but in 

 time of war toloul becomes the basis of "T. 

 N. T." or trinitrotoluol, one of the most 

 effective high-power military explosives. 

 The erection of new coke oven plants has 

 but partially met the demand for toluol in 

 the last two years. In defending ourselves 

 this would be too slow, for such installations 

 are difficult to get under successful opera- 

 tion in less than a year. A large and well- 

 established dye industry, therefore, is vital 

 for defense, for it would produce a bigger 

 demand for coal-tar products and toluol 

 production in peace times and its opera- 

 tions are quickly convertible into ones for 

 producing high explosives. It is to be 

 hoped, therefore, that the German alliance 

 with our textile manufacturers may be 

 broken up during this war so that Congress 

 will be less helpless in fostering this dye 



industry as a matter of defense than it has 

 been in the past. The expense of storing 

 within the country nitrate of soda imported 

 from Chili, adequate for the nitric acid of 

 munitions production in case of war, would 

 tie up millions. The governnsent will es- 

 tablish a plant to make nitric acid from the 

 atmosphere. The Norwegian process (elec- 

 tric arc) is stated to require five times as 

 much power, a vital factor, as is required 

 in the making of nitric acid from cyana- 

 mide. Germany has installed, for making 

 cyanamide, during the war, additional 

 equipment costing $100,000,000, utilizing 

 over 60,000 horse-power and producing 

 about 200,000 tons per year of nitric acid, 

 requiring the most feverish activity for a 

 year and a half on the part of her chemical 

 engineers. We have some American sug- 

 gestions which if successful will take less 

 power than the German method. Any 

 method for nitric acid producing ammonia 

 also, is desirable as an aid to agriculture. 

 Prices asked for power are much higher 

 than abroad, and as the cost of the engi- 

 neering is only about 10 per cent, of the 

 total charges in electric power installation, 

 it becomes evident that efficient national 

 defense and economic agriculture depend 

 on more economic banking methods. So in 

 every instance we are confronted with the 

 problems of peace when working out na- 

 tional defense. It should be remembered 

 that our usual source of nitrogen deriva- 

 tives, the ammonia of by-product coke, 

 brings with it the indispensable toluol, and 

 no electrical method does this. Before the 

 government nitrogen plant is built, there- 

 fore, it should be a matter of serious in- 

 quiry whether the government's $20,000,- 

 000 might not bring the same result and 

 give a liberal supply of toluol besides, if 

 invested in by-product coke expansion, for 

 much of our coke is still made without sav- 

 ing bj^-products. 



It is an open secret that the acceptance of 



