PUBLICATIONS OF THE DIVISION OF MINERAL TECHNOLOGY, 

 U. S. NATIONAL JCCTSEUM. 



Publication 2421, Smithsonian Institution. Sources of nitrogen 

 compounds in the United States, by Chester G. Gilbert. Issued June 

 30, 1916. 12 pp. 



Nitrogenous compounds are essential not only to self-defense but to the country's 

 capacity for self-support, and to be effective the source must be such that the products 

 may be adaptable to meet either requirement. This paper reviews the merits of the 

 three principal processes for manufacturing nitrogen compounds from the atmosphere, 

 with the following conclusion: The arc method has not thus far demonstrated capacity 

 to meet the agricultural requirement at all, or even the defense requii-ement effi- 

 ciently. Definite knowledge concerning the Haber process is lacking, but its record 

 of achievement is against it, and it would seem, moreover, unsuited to American 

 conditions, at least in the present state of its development. The cyanamid process 

 is capable of a development which will meet the requirements for a cheapened nitro- 

 genous fertilizer source whose form of nitrogen content is readily convertible to nitric 

 acid. The process is already a prominent factor in the economic well-being of most 

 countries of older civilization and is capable of similar extension in the United States. 



Bulletin 102, part 1. Coal products: An object lesson in resource 

 administration, by Chester G. Gilbert. Issued November 17, 1917. 

 16 pp., 11 pis. 



The chemical industries of this country are notoriously weak; in fact, up to the 

 outbreak of the present war we had relatively few chemical industries, yet no field 

 of industrial activity is more essential to the country. The most important of all 

 the chemical industries is that represented in the manufacture of coal products. 

 The purpose of this paper is to bring out the reason for the lack of the chemical indus- 

 tries in general and the coal products one in particular, with a view to determining 

 where the fault lies and what should be done to correct it. 



Bulletin 102, part 2. Fertilizers: An interpretation of the situa- 

 tion in the United States, by Joseph E. Pogue. Issued October 10, 

 1917. 22 pp., 1 pi. 



The fertilizer resources of the United States are viewed in the light of their impor- 

 tance under war-time conditions, when, on the one hand, an increasing supply is 

 needed for the production of an added output of foodstuffs, and, on the other, the 

 foreign sources of supply from which much of our mineral fertilizer is drawn have 

 been cut off or endangered. The rather remarkable circumstance that this country 

 has been dependent upon Chile for nitrogen, upon Germany for potash, and upon 

 Spain for pyrite used in the manufacture of sulphuric acid, is pointed out in respect 

 to developing national independence as regards these fundamental materials. The 

 paper is accompanied by a chart which shows in one expanse the whole fertilizer 

 situation, with particular regard to the effects of the war upon it. The purpose of 

 the paper is to emphasize to the general public as well as to those more directly inter- 

 «sted in fertilizers the importance of dealing with this matter as a broad and funda- 

 mental problem affecting the basic matter of food supply. 



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