646 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 



The American Castner process brought the 

 price in 1889 to $4. Even at this figure it 

 was obviously still a metal of luxury with 

 few industrial applications. Hall in Amer- 

 ica and Heroult simultaneously in Europe 

 discovered that cryolite, a double fluoride 

 of sodium and aluminum, fused readily at 

 a moderate temperature, and when so fused 

 dissolved alumina as boiling water dissolves 

 sugar or salt, and to the extent of more than 

 25 per cent. By eleetrolyzing the fused 

 solution aluminum is obtained. On August 

 26, 1895, the Niagara works of the Pitts- 

 burgh Reduction Co., started at Niagara 

 Falls the manufacture of aluminum under 

 the Hall patents. In 1911, the market price 

 of the metal was 22 cents and the total 

 annual production 40,000,000 pounds. 



A chance remark of Dr. George F. Kunz, 

 in 1880, on the industrial value of abrasives, 

 turned the thoughts of Acheson to the prob- 

 lem of their artificial production and led to 

 the discovery, in 1891, of carborundum and 

 its subsequent manufacture on a small scale 

 at Monongahela City, Pennsylvania. In 

 1894, Acheson laid before his directors a 

 scheme for moving to Niagara Falls, when 

 to quote his own words : 



To build a plant for one thousand horse-power, 

 in view of the fact that we were selling only one 

 half of the output from a one hundred and thirty- 

 four horse-power plant, was a trifle too much for 

 my conservative directors, and they, one and 

 all, resigned. Fortunately, I was in control of 

 the destiny of the Carborundum Company. I or- 

 ganized a new board, proceeded with my plans, 

 and in the year 1904, the thirteenth from the date 

 of the discovery, had a plant equipped with a five- 

 thousand electrical horse-power and produced over 

 7,000,000, pounds of those specks I had picked off 

 the end of the electric light carbon in the spring 

 of 1891. 



The commercial development of carbo- 

 rundum had not proceeded far before Ache- 

 son brought out his process for the electric 

 furnace production of artificial graphite 

 and another great Niagara industry was 



founded. In quick succession came the 

 Willson process for calcium carbide and the 

 industrial applications of acetylene; phos- 

 phorus; ferro-alloys made in the electric 

 furnace; metallic sodium, chlorine and 

 caustic soda first by the Castner process, 

 later by the extraordinarily efficient Town- 

 send cell; electrolytic chlorates and 

 alundum. 



Perhaps even more significant than any of 

 these great industrial successes was the 

 Lovejoy & Bradley plant for the fixation of 

 atmospheric nitrogen which was perforce 

 abandoned. It is well to recall, in view of 

 that reputed failure, that the present-day 

 processes for fixing nitrogen have made 

 little if any improvement in yields of fixed 

 nitrogen per kilowatt hour over those ob- 

 tained in this pioneer Niagara plant. 



In the year 1800, a young assistant of 

 Lavoisier, E. I. du Pont by name, emi- 

 grated to this country with others of his 

 family and settled on the banks of the 

 Brandj^vine, near Wilmington, Del. He 

 engaged in the manufacture of gunpowder. 

 To-day the du Pont Company employs 

 about 250 trained chemists. Its chemical 

 department comprises three divisions : the 

 field division for the study of problems 

 which must be investigated outside the 

 laboratory and which maintains upon its 

 staff experts for each manufacturing activ- 

 ity, together with a force of chemists at 

 each plant for routine laboratory work; 

 second, the experimental station which com- 

 prises a group of laboratories for research 

 work on the problems arising in connection 

 with the manufacture of black and smoke- 

 less powder, and the investigation of prob- 

 lems or new processes originating outside 

 the company; third, the eastern laboratory 

 which confines itself to research concerned 

 with high explosives; its equipment is 

 housed in 76 buildings, the majority being 

 of considerable size, spread over 50 acres. 



