836 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol XLIII. No. 1120 



save something out of tlie wreck, and that 

 our experience had prepared us in advance 

 so that we have been enabled to prevent 

 the collateral business and economic trag- 

 edies of the war from spreading univer- 

 sally. It is not in any spirit of gladness, 

 therefore, at the evil providence which has 

 fallen upon our European neighbors, that 

 we recognize that this war has exalted the 

 importance of chemistry in the minds of 

 those who had not much opportunity 

 hitherto to appreciate its value, nor is it 

 with any jubilation that we take pleasure as 

 chemists in meeting our new problems and 

 emergencies arising from the war. 



The satisfaction to many industrial 

 chemists in the last two years of being able 

 to contribute to the solution of these prob- 

 lems and of being conscious of the salva- 

 tion of many businesses from financial ruin 

 through the exercise of their chemical ex- 

 perience, has seldom been so widely distrib- 

 uted as it now is. "What an inspiration it 

 would be to read, spread out upon the 

 pages of such a book as we have mentioned, 

 the chemical successes, big and little, of the 

 past two years. It is not likely that many 

 of them will be known for a while because 

 of the fact that business caution forbids 

 their publicity in many cases, and the vigor- 

 ous campaign of destruction of equipment 

 and diversion of supplies which stops at 

 nothing which will hamper export from 

 this country, makes silence a necessity in 

 self-defense. 



The problems of the war are of two kinds, 

 those due to changed conditions and those 

 arising from supplying munitions at high 

 speed. Among the former are changes in 

 raw materials made necessary by the fail- 

 ure of imports or by unusual consumption 

 of raw material in other channels such as 

 for products not heretofore manufactured 

 in this country to the extent made neces- 

 sary under present war conditions. These 



changed circumstances were also due in 

 part to new demands for materials and 

 products, which have arisen in the complete 

 rearrangement of things that has come 

 about in many circles since the war began. 

 The other line of war problems which have 

 arisen, those directly connected with muni- 

 tions supply, are frequently of a difficult 

 nature. All these various problems, how- 

 ever, have been met in practically every 

 case with a degree of success which has sur- 

 prised even ourselves. 



Naturally one of the first serious effects 

 of the war on American industries was the 

 stagnation produced by the enforced cessa- 

 tion of exports in various lines. Such 

 things as rosin, turpentine, petroleum prod- 

 ucts, acetate of lime and methyl alcohol 

 were seriously affected for a varying length 

 of time. Then the demand for munitions 

 became, for instance, the wood distillation 

 industry's salvation and, with great celer- 

 ity, acetone plants were attached to many 

 of the works of this industry and the high 

 prices which the products of the industry 

 demanded have brought unprecedented 

 prosperity to it and have correspondingly 

 hampered progressive improvement. Pro- 

 duction, not efficiency, is at present the 

 slogan for this and many other industries. 

 Set-backs of the nature cited usually take 

 time for readjustment and frequently the 

 chemist is a material factor therein. The 

 producer himself is often compelled to add 

 the next manufacturing step to his own 

 operations. The acetate maker, for in- 

 stance, tends to enter acetone manufac- 

 turing. Where the new demands were 

 ample, these attempts have succeeded and 

 the war's conclusion will find an increased 

 tendency to manufacture at the source. 



The set-backs to industry arising from 

 the disturbance in exports, while they were 

 important financially, were minor matters 

 compared with those arising from such 



