June 16, 1916] 



SGIENCh 



837 



changed conditions as failure of raw mate- 

 rials or their curtailment by absorption in 

 new or abnormally expanded industries. It 

 is here that the chemist is needed most and 

 it is here that he has been of immeasurable 

 service, and has met the problems that have 

 arisen in wonderful style. He was seriously 

 hampered at first by the uncertainty as to 

 the facts. The fundamental thing in every 

 industry is the market. At first much 

 damage was wrought and delay produced 

 by false reports as to stocks on hand and 

 supply, particularly, of imports. Much 

 withholding of goods for higher prices was 

 practised and even yet the pirates of com- 

 merce seek ways and means of evading eon- 

 tracts, even on deliveries of goods which 

 they were receiving without cessation, so 

 as to avail themselves of the inflated market 

 prices. Some clever work by consumers 

 trapped at least some of these unscrupulous 

 brokers and sellers. All manner of fictiti- 

 ous prices were demanded of those unfamil- 

 iar with the facts and attempts were even 

 made to influence the Washington govern- 

 ment to activity against the British block- 

 ade through the use of untruthful statistics 

 regarding dyes. 



As soon as the true status of market and 

 supply became reasonably certain many 

 changes were effected which will give 

 gradual, and probably ultimate relief. On 

 every hand we see chemical activity with- 

 out end. Products like synthetic phenol 

 and barium salts not made in this country 

 before the war are now made in large 

 amount. Great expansion in production 

 has taken place in the case of such mate- 

 rial as benzol, toluol, aniline products, 

 naphthaline, carbon-tetra-chloride, acids, 

 alkalis, chlorates, bichromates and even 

 oxalic acid. "With all of these we were 

 largely or in part dependent on imports, 

 but have almost ceased to be so since the 

 war began. Fertilizer plants erect their 



own sulfuric-acid works and insecticide 

 makers their own arsenic-acid plants. Tex- 

 tile mills make their own bleach. Numbers 

 of manufacturers replace potash compounds 

 by sodium compounds and, to my own sur- 

 prise at least, often with great improve- 

 ment in results. The ceramist is render- 

 ing this country less and less dependent 

 upon imports in that field by scientific 

 purification and utilization of domestic 

 clays. Manufacturers of numerous mis- 

 cellaneous chemicals and pharmaceutical 

 preparations proceed to refine and produce 

 their own crude raw materials and inter- 

 mediates. The dye famine — for it is real 

 in certain quarters — stirs up corporations 

 with capital of hundreds of millions to 

 enter the field. One of these new companies 

 has installed half a million worth of ma- 

 chinery in the last few weeks. Indigo and 

 other dyes are being made in nearly half- 

 ton batches which will soon expand to sev- 

 eral ton size. "Where formerly was the most 

 peaceful of occupations, even fertilizer 

 manufacture, every effort now goes to the 

 making of munitions. New plants spring 

 up at the beck and call of the new conditions 

 such as the world has never seen. Think of 

 a battery of one hundred nitric-acid stills 

 each charging 4,000 lbs. of sodium nitrate 

 three times a day. Think of the sulfuric 

 acid required and the nitric acid produced. 

 Think of the fact that this one of a number 

 such (the largest nitric acid plant in the 

 world, it is said) is a plant which a year 

 ago did not exist except in the minds and 

 plans of a group of chemical engineers. 

 How little are we able to comprehend the 

 reality of producing 1,000,000 pounds per 

 day of gun-cotton where a year ago was 

 merely pine-woods. "What does it mean 

 with reference to design of plant, erection 

 and operation to any one who has not man- 

 aged chemical engineering operations, to 

 recount the engineering operations in- 



