353 
THE COMBUSTION OF ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN. 
(Paper read before the Chemists' Association at the annual meet- 
ing by Carlton C. James.) 
The world's consumption of nitrate of soda in 1910 amounted 
to 2,251,000 tons with a value of about 78^ millions of dollars. 
Practically all of this material comes from the natural saltpetre 
fields of Chili, a base of supply which cannot be considered inex- 
haustible by any means. In fact from estimates made in 1899 
the nitre' fields were expected to last for forty-six years and later 
estimates set the life of the fields at 75 to 100 years. Naturally 
another source of nitrogen would be desirable if we were to 
anticipate a bread famine and prevent it ; for as Sir William 
Crookes pointed out some years ago in order to live we must 
have bread, and to have bread we must have wheat, and to grow 
wheat we must have nitrogen. There is abundance of nitrogen 
in the air, and when one stops to think that the nitrogen in the 
whole world's supply of nitrate of soda, over 337 thousand tons, 
could be obtained from the atmosphere covering only twelve 
acres of the earth's surface, the possibilities for profit in exploit- 
ing the atmosphere become apparent. 
The combustion of atmospheric nitrogen dates back to Henry 
Cavendish, who about 1780 discovered nitrogen in the air, deter- 
mined the composition of air with such accuracy that his figures 
are practically unchanged today, and who disclosed the fact that 
nitrogen and oxygen slowly combine under the action of electrical 
discharges. 
And today a cheap source of electrical energy is the important 
point in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen and the manufacture 
of nitrate of lime upon a commercial scale. Consequently we 
find this infant industry starting in the countries supplying the 
largest and cheapest source of electrical energy, such as Norway 
where the kilowatt year is obtained for from $5.00 to $8.00, or in 
Switzerland where the cost ranges around $10.00. 
Curiously enough the first attempt to obtain nitrogen from the 
air upon a commercial scale was made at Niagara Falls by 
Charles S. Bradley and D. Ross Lovejoy under their own patents. 
They formed the Atmospheric Products Company with a capital 
of $1,000,000 back in 1902, but after two years' work they had 
to suspend operations. The price of energy at Niagara Falls, 
about $20.00 per kilowatt year, probably had a good deal to do 
with the failure of this enterprise. Since Bradley and Love joy's 
experiments we find a number of methods have been patented 
and are in use, or have been tried, in countries having cheap 
water power. The process which seems to have given satis- 
faction for the longest time is one devised by Birkeland & Eyde 
in Norway. 
