446 
The figures show grand totals as follows: 
For the year 1876......102,054,750 
6 1890.......174,803, 105 
1900......264,501,771 
GG 0G 7 
In the decennial period just closing the 
increase in the value of the exports of 
products of domestic manufacture was 
therefore about the same as during the 
preceding fourteen years, and during the 
quarter-century the growth has been 260 
per cent. The growth has been persistent 
and steady, and indicates what may be ex- 
pected in the immediate future as well as 
what is now the condition of development 
of our chemical industries. This latter con- 
dition becomes more manifest when we con- 
sider that the products exported constitute 
but a small proportion of the production, 
and we may in some degree at least antici- 
pate the results which must be obtained in 
the pending census investigation. 
As a further illustration of the growth of 
the chemical industries, we may call atten- 
tion to the condition of the coke industry 
in the United States in 1880 and 1898 re- 
spectively, as illustrated in the following 
table: 
1880. 1898. 
Establishments.............060e 186 342 
Orent Seite dbcococebodusa0ded 12,372 48, 447 
{ building...........006 1,159 1,048 
Coal used, net tons............ 5,237,471 25, 249,570 
Coke produced, net tons..... 3,338, 300 16,047,299 
Total value of coke at ovens.$6,631,267 $25,586,699 
Value of coke at ovens, per 
MebibOMewececeestien seetene $1.99 $1.594 
Yield of coal in coke, per 
GED osoanooquaconsoonoaDGn 63.0 63.6 
If we consider that in the recovery ovens, 
which are fast taking the place of the older 
and less rational types, this coal should 
yield 3.38 per cent. of tar, .34 per cent. its 
weight of ammonia and 8.17 per cent. of gas 
liquor, all of them bases of most important 
chemical industries, the figures are signifi- 
cant. 
Equally interesting must be the informa- 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. XIII. No. 325. 
tion to be furnished regarding the capital 
represented in thechemical industries in this 
country. At the present time, we are able 
to judge of this to a minor extent from the re- 
ported capitalizations of the recently organ- 
ized companies constituting combinations 
of preexisting companies. It is true that 
in these cases the capital represents in a 
very considerable measure what is known 
as good will, franchises, etc., but it never- 
theless represents earning power and the 
the average market value corresponds very 
closely with par value. Taking only those 
organizations devoted to the chemical man- 
ufactures exclusive of the gas and metal- 
lurgical and explosive industries, we find 
that the capitalization as reported in the 
stock lists amounts to the enormous value 
of about $1,500,000,000, and this takes no 
account of many of the incorporated indus- 
tries not specially reported, nor the indus- 
tries not incorporated and yet active. It 
does not include the recently developed elec- 
trolytic industries, in which the cash capital 
actually invested, as we learn from com- 
petent authority, amounts to more than 
$1,500,000. The newly-established by- 
product coke industry is so rapidly develop- 
ing and is absorbing capital with wonderful 
rapidity, while the comparatively new beet 
root sugar industry has already developed 
to such an extent as to involve capitaliza- 
tion of nearly $100,000,000 and to develop 
the establishment of manufacturing plants 
of magnitude beyond the imagination of 
foreign manufacturers in the same line a 
few years ago. Yet this is a general char- 
acteristic of the modern chemical industries 
of the United States, and it is interesting 
to note that much of the development has 
been effected empirically and by men com- 
paratively little versed in the principles and 
laws of the science upon which they are 
based. The industries have had the aid of 
but few educated chemists. Happily this 
condition is rapidly changing. Rational 
