154 
Economy of Nitrogen . 
[April, 
acids and mineral salts ; but a further portion is evolved as 
free nitrogen. As far as we are aware this loss becomes the 
greater the larger the quantity of organic matter which is 
allowed to collect. 
Here, then, in the very outset of our enquiries, we have 
already met with a fearful waste of nitrogen committed in 
the normal course of daily life, and without taking indus- 
trial operations into account. 
Let us next examine the manufacture of gunpowder, and 
its allies, gun-cotton and nitro-glycerin. The first of these 
substances contains on an average 75 per cent of saltpetre 
(nitrate of potash), equivalent to 10*2 percent of combined 
or available nitrogen. Of this io ’2 per cent, 9*98 per cent 
— we might consequently say, practically speaking, the 
whole — escapes in the form of free nitrogen, and is conse- 
quently rendered useless. This waste will appear the more 
serious if we consider the enormous scale upon which gun- 
powder is now manufactured. It was calculated some years 
ago that our annual exports of this article alone amounted 
to 19 million lbs. weight. We cannot estimate the total 
quantity of gunpowder produced in the whole world at less 
than 100 million lbs. This represents 10 million lbs. of 
combined nitrogen withdrawn yearly from the world’s avail- 
able resources. Translating this into the shape of human 
food, the annual consumption of gunpowder means the 
destruction in advance of no less than 500 million lbs. of 
bread. We must remember, too, what this destruction 
means. If we were to take the ripe crops of wheat in some 
country to an extent capable of yielding 500 million lbs. of 
bread, and if — instead of allowing the grain to be gathered 
and put through the various processes which fit it for use — 
we were to have it ploughed into the soil, this conduCt 
would be pronounced a criminal waste of the means of 
human subsistence ; yet we should in reality have commit- 
ted, comparatively speaking, little destruction. The buried 
nitrogenous matter would be still available for the growth of 
crops in succeeding seasons, and our supposed course of 
aCtion, foolish and reprehensible as it would undoubtedly be, 
would delay rather than destroy the appearance of such 
combined nitrogen as food. But if we work up the com- 
bined nitrogen into gunpowder, and explode it, there is not 
merely delay, but what amounts to destruction — a de- 
struction going on from year to year, and continually 
diminishing the amount of food which the earth is capable 
of yielding. 
