738 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1091 



has determined the composition of those 

 substances which make up our own bodies, 

 the earth upon which we live, the air we 

 breathe, and the heavenly worlds beyond. 

 Every particle of matter animate or inani- 

 mate acknowledges its sovereignty, for its 

 laws govern alike the smelting of an ore, the 

 manufacture of a complex dyestuff, or the 

 mysterious vital processes of the living 

 organism; and upon these laws our phys- 

 ical and our industrial life depend. 



The transformation of the raw material 

 into the finished product consists usually 

 either in changing its external form, as in 

 metal or wood working, weaving, and the 

 like ; or there is involved a chemical change, 

 as in metallurgy, fermentation industries, 

 the manufacture of cement, glass, soap, 

 chemicals, etc. Our manufacturing proc- 

 esses are thus either mechanical or chem- 

 ical, or a combination of the two. 



Let us consider briefly the part chemistry 

 plays in connection with some of the more 

 important of these industries. 



Turning first to the mineral world, it 

 should be borne in mind that metallurgy is 

 but one of the branches of engineering 

 chemistry, whether it concerns the initial 

 smelting operations or the production of 

 new alloys for special purposes. The chem- 

 ist is busily at work here, discovering ways 

 of obtaining cheaply metals previously rare 

 or expensive, thus inaugurating entirely 

 new industries, as witness that of the manu- 

 facture of aluminium goods and alloys; 

 analyzing raw materials (ore, coke, lime- 

 stone, etc.), intermediate products (for 

 many industrial operations are under chem- 

 ical control at aU points), and final prod- 

 ucts, such as the furnace gases, slags, and 

 the like; improving old processes; devising 

 new ones, particularly those which will 

 render available low-grade or refractory 

 ores; showing how wastes and by-products 

 may be made valuable, the waste heat to 



raise steam or pre-heat the blast, and the 

 slags for the production of cement and 

 concrete, as fireproof packing for steam 

 pipes, as ballast for railroad tracks, for 

 macadamizing highways, for building pur- 

 poses (as slag brick, slag blocks, etc.), or 

 when rich in phosphorus (as those from the 

 Thomas-Gilchrist process) for fertilizers. 

 His success has been such in the iron in- 

 dustry, for example, as to lead Mr. James 

 Douglas to remark that 



When all the volatile products of the blast fur- 

 nace . . . are deprived of their heat-giving prop- 

 erties and their chemical constituents, and when 

 the slags, as well as the metal, have returned their 

 heat to man instead of to the atmosphere, and the 

 slag itself has been turned into cement or some 

 other useful article, it will be a question as to 

 whether the pig iron is the principal object of 

 manufacture or one of the by-products 



It was the pioneer investigations of 

 Bunsen and DeFaur which pointed the way 

 for the use of furnace gases in many of the 

 directions in which they are now so exten- 

 sively employed. Another chemist. Sir 

 Humphry Davy, by his invention of the 

 safety lamp, has done more than any one 

 else to protect the miner from accident and 

 injury and, as you are well aware, the chem- 

 ists of our government are now conducting 

 experiments in this city to further reduce 

 the loss of life and property incident to 

 fires and explosions in mines. 



"Without the powerful explosives of the 

 chemist, modern mining, modem warfare, 

 and such great engineering projects as the 

 Panama Canal, would all alike be impos- 

 sible. After the precious metals have been 

 extracted from their ores, it is the powder 

 of the chemist which stands guard over 

 them, as it does over all the accumulated 

 wealth and property of this and other 

 nations. 



The chief source of our light, heat and 

 power still remains the chemical combus- 

 tion of some form of carbon, be it coal, 



