December 5, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



801 



displaced by the locomotive and automo- 

 bile, and as a power factor has been almost 

 completely superseded by mechanical ap- 

 pliances; still, so far as the horse is used 

 for the power he furnishes, his proper 

 feeding is a phase of the application of 

 chemistry to industry. Perhaps, it may be 

 considered that these two illustrations, the 

 feeding of employees and the feeding of 

 horses, are trivial as compared with the 

 study of the production of power through 

 the use of the steam boiler, the steam en- 

 gine, the gas producer, and the internal 

 combustion engine. Probably this is so, 

 for, in the production of power by these 

 mechanical means, we have clearly recog- 

 nized chemical reactions, and the under- 

 standing of these chemical reactions is es- 

 sential to the proper economy of fuel and 

 the production of power with the least out- 

 lay. In these eases, chemistry teaches us 

 the need of a proper balancing of the com- 

 bustible material used and the air supply, 

 so that the loss of heat in effluent gases 

 may be reduced to a minimum. In the 

 steam boiler, chemistry has taught much 

 of great value in relation to the refractory 

 materials used, the utility of water con- 

 sumed, and how to correct its scale-form- 

 ing tendencies. In recent years, numerous 

 excellent devices have been developed for 

 automatically giving information as to the 

 composition of flue gases, with the result 

 that great savings in the cost of power 

 have been made. The study of the com- 

 position of coals has resulted in a better 

 classification of coals, a truer connection 

 between price and quality, and the pur- 

 chase of coals by specifications involving 

 chemical examination is becoming more 

 extensive each year. The small power 

 plant can not perhaps give as much atten- 

 tion to chemical factors as a large plant 

 can, but in large power plants, the econ- 

 omy resulting from the study of the chem- 



istry of combustion has enabled such 

 plants to furnish power to outsiders with 

 a profit to themselves and to those to whom 

 they seU it. It was chemical considera- 

 tions that led to the use of blast furnace 

 gases in the gas engine for the production 

 of power; and if the chemist's dream comes 

 true, there will come a time when power 

 will be more directly produced from coal 

 than it is to-day. It is, of course, recog- 

 nized that in the utilization of the energy 

 in our great waterfalls, chemistry is an 

 unimportant factor, but here there is the 

 compensating fact that many of our great 

 chemical industries have been dependent 

 for their existence and growth upon the 

 cheap power thus produced. 



This is as far as our time permits us to 

 speak of the influence of chemistry upon 

 the production of power. The scope of 

 this paper will not allow a more detailed 

 treatment of this subject, and what we 

 have said is more as a matter of obvious il- 

 lustration of one point of the dependence 

 of the profitableness of industry in general 

 upon chemical factors. If we have made 

 this point clear, we will proceed to recount 

 other phases of the relation of chemistry 

 to industry. 



The simplest phase is undoubtedly that 

 which relates to the purely commercial 

 end of industry, wherein goods are bought 

 and sold subject to analysis, the analysis 

 being presumed to indicate the commercial 

 value of the goods. These goods may be 

 in the raw state, partially finished, or fin- 

 ished and ready for consumption. The 

 oldest form of this kind of analytical con- 

 trol was undoubtedly for the valuation of 

 precious metals and the ores containing 

 them. The accuracy with which gold and 

 silver can be determined by fire assay 

 was recognized in the early stages of metal- 

 lurgical development. The fire assay cor- 

 responded on a small scale to the actual 



