Am"i\myr'i9ioarm'}  Conservation  and  Chemical  Engineer.  237 
degree  of  perfection  by  the  application  to  them  of  a  chemical  under- 
standing of  the  nature  of  starch  and  its  alteration  products  and  the 
devising  of  processes  by  which  the  several  reaction  changes  could 
be  carried  out  with  exactness  and  economy.  What  that  means  as 
applied  to  one  single  branch  of  the  starch  industry,  those  of  us  who 
had  the  opportunity  on  the  occasion  of  our  meeting  last  June  to  go 
through  the  works  of  the  Corn  Products  Company  at  Edgewater, 
N.  J.,  can  appreciate.  The  glucose  production  of  the  United  States 
in  1907  is  stated  to  have  been  800,000  tons,  requiring  40,000,000 
bushels  of  corn  as  raw  material.  But  besides  the  production  of  the 
solid  grape-sugar  and  the  liquid  glucose  for  a  great  variety  of  uses, 
the  separation  of  the  germ  of  the  corn  from  the  starchy  portion  has 
made  possible  the  production  on  a  large  scale  of  corn-oil,  a  product 
adapted  for  a  wide  range  of  uses — from  soap  making  to  the  manu- 
facture of  rubber  substitute. 
Turning  now  to  inorganic  chemistry  for  an  illustration,  we  have 
a  splendid  example  of  the  work  of  the  chemical  engineer  in  the 
direction  of  conservation  in  the  case  of  the  natural  and  artificial 
nitrate  industry,  to  which  latter  the  Germans  have  already  given  the 
expressive  name  of  "  air-salpetre."  The  great  source  of  nitrate 
for  forty  or  more  years  past  has  been  the  deposits  on  the  west  coast 
of  South  America,  furnishing  the  so-called  Chili  salpetre  or  sodium 
nitrate.  This  has  been  drawn  upon  increasingly  until  in  1908  the 
quantity  shipped  was  1,730,000  tons,  valued  at  $87,500,000.  But 
the  Chilean  deposits  are  far  from  being  inexhaustible.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  if  the  annual  consumption  increases  merely  by  50,000 
tons,  and  this  is  to  be  reasonably  expected,  from  thirty  to  forty 
years  will  see  the  practical  exhaustion  of  this  supply.  So  in  1899, 
Sir  Wm,  Crookes  startled  the  industrial  world  by  calling  attention, 
in  what  the  newspaper  men  would  call  a  "  scare-article,"  to  the  nitro- 
gen problem  and  the  necessity  of  maintaining  a  supply  of  nitrogenous 
plant  food  if  the  world's  food  requirements  were  to  be  met.  Crookes 
pointed  out  the  way  of  relief  when  he  said  "the  fixation  of  atmos- 
pheric nitrogen  is  one  of  the  greatest  discoveries  awaiting  the  in- 
genuity of  chemists.  It  is  certainly  deeply  important  in  its  practical 
bearings  on  the  future  welfare  and  happiness  of  the  civilized  races 
of  mankind."  The  chemical  engineer  has  responded  nobly  to  this 
demand  for  conservation  of  available  nitrogenous  material  by  the 
working  out  of  practical  methods  for  the  manufacture  of  what  we 
called  "  air-salpetre."  It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that 
success  was  easily  obtained. 
