PUBLICATIONS OF THE BIVISION OF MINERAL TECHNOLOGY, 
XL S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
Publication 2421. Sources of nitrogen compounds in the United 
States, by Chester G. Gilbert. Issued June 30, 1918, Smithsonian 
Institution. 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 the capacity to meet the agricultural 
requirement at all or even the defense requirement efficiently. Definite 
knowledge concerning the Haber process is lacking, but its record of achieve- 
ment is against it, and it would seem, moreover, unsuited to American condi- 
tions, 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 
nitrogenous fertilizer source whose form of nitrogen content is readily con- 
vertible 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 inadequately developed ; in fact, 
up to the outbreak of the present war we had relatively few chemical indus- 
tries. 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 industries in general and the coal products 
industry 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 
importance 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 
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