TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
[Annual Address by the President.] 
A STUDY OF THE RUST PREVENTING POWER OF CER- 
TAIN ELECTROLYTES. 
E. p. schoch.* ** 
We here in the South are so far removed from centres of commer- 
cial manufacture that we do not perceive clearly the problems con- 
nected with raw and manufactured materials, and this may be 
largely responsible for the fact that we do not appreciate, or foster, 
science as much as the people of manufacturing communities do. 
In the hope of increasing the scientific interest in our midst, I have 
decided to bring to your attention the study of one of the greatest 
technical problems of this day, the rusting of iron, and the possi- 
bility of its economic prevention. Although it is customary, on oc- 
casions of this sort, to leave one’s own narrow domain of activity, 
and to discuss a subject of general import, I prefer to go to the 
other extreme and offer to this honorable body, not only a subject 
in which. I am specially interested, but offer for publication only 
such matter which I have had the good fortune to learn directly from 
experiment, and which, it is hoped may possibly help in a small 
degree to solve the problem studied. 
During the last two years it has been shown that the rusting of 
iron is a process that takes place in several definite steps, and that 
it is purely an electrolytic phenomenon. The details of the proof 
as well as of the phenomenon, are admirably told by A. S. Cush- 
man in a publication that is accessible to every one — namely Bulletin 
No. 30, Office of Public Roads, U. S. Dept, of Agriculture — and the 
style of the presentation is such that practically every one inter- 
ested in the subject may read it intelligently. Hence only an out- 
line of the main points need be given here. Whenever iron rusts, 
one or more spots on its surface act as the negative poles of a 
battery cell, where the metal dissolves in the water on its surface 
to form ions, and one or more other spots near by act as positive 
poles — where hydrogen ions from the water are liberated as gaseous 
hydrogen. The latter process is facilitated by access of air, the oxy- 
*Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Texas, Austin. 
**This experimental study formed the basis of a general address on “The 
Froblem of the Rusting of Iron.” 
