Am.  jour,  pharm.  \    Chemical  Manufacturing  in  Philadelphia. 
January,   1917.    }  j  u  1 
29 
chemicals.  The  theory  of  the  lead  chamber  process  was  already 
understood  by  chemists,  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Ward  had  made  it  in  England  in  1740  on  a  large  scale  in  glass 
vessels,  and  Dr.  Roebuck  first  used  leaden  chambers  instead  of 
glass  in  Birmingham  in  1746.  The  first  lead  chamber  was  erected 
in  France  at  Rouen  in  1766. 
Mr.  John  Harrison,  the  son  of  Thomas  Harrison,  a  member  of 
the  Society  of  Friends,  was  an  early  Philadelphia  druggist  who  had 
completed  his  education  by  spending  two  years  in  Europe,  in  part 
under  the  instruction  of  Dr.  Joseph  Priestley,  the  famous  English 
chemist.  Upon  his  return  he  began,  in  1793,  the  manufacture  in 
Philadelphia  of  various  chemicals,  and  notably  of  sulphuric  acid. 
He  had  at  first  a  lead  chamber  capable  of  producing  300  carboys  of 
acid  per  annum,  and  his  laboratory  at  this  time  was  on  the  north  side 
of  Green  Street,  west  of  Third.  In  1804,  he  established  a  new  fac- 
tory at  Second  and  Huntingdon  Streets,  near  Frankford  Road, 
Kensington,  but  continued  for  a  time  the  work  on  Green  Street.  In 
1807  he  built  what  was  for  that  time  quite  a  large  lead  chamber;  it 
was  50  feet  long,  18  feet  wide,  and  18  feet  high,  and  capable  of 
making  nearly  half  a  million  pounds  of  sulphuric  acid  annually,  the 
price  of  which  was  then  as  high  as  15  cents  per  pound. 
As  is  well  known,  acid  produced  in  lead  chambers,  is  not  the  oil  of  vitriol 
of  commerce,  and  the  only  method  known  at  that  time  to  concentrate  it  to 
the  required  strength  was  by  boiling  it  in  glass  retorts — a  very  precarious  and 
dangerous  process.  The  constant  breakage  of  the  glass  largely  increased  the 
cost  of  the  concentrated  acid  and  the  dangers  of  the  work.  To  obviate  this 
great  trouble  Mr.  Harrison,  in  1814,  introduced  the  use  of  Platinum  for  the 
manufacture  of  sulphuric  acid,  for  the  first  time,  at  least  in  this  country.  In 
the  previous  year,  1813,  Dr.  Eric  Bollman,  a  Dane,  had  come  to  Philadelphia. 
Dr.  Bollman  was  familiar  with  the  metallurgy  of  Platinum,  and  a  highly 
scientific  man.  He  brought  with  him  from  France  Dr.  Wollaston's  method 
for  converting  the  crude  grains  of  Platinum  into  bars  and  sheets.  About 
the  first  use  that  Dr.  Bollman  made  of  these  Platinum  sheets  was  the  con- 
struction, early  in  1814,  of  a  still  for  the  concentration  of  sulphuric  acid  for 
the  Harrison  works.  It  weighed  700  ounces,  had  a  capacity  of  25  gallons 
and  was  in  continuous  use  for  fifteen  years.  This  early  application  of 
platinum  for  such  purposes  was  highly  characteristic  of  the  sagacity  and 
ingenuity  of  the  American  manufacturer.  At  the  time  the  use  of  this  rare 
metal  was  a  novelty  in  Europe  and  known  only  to  a  few  persons  and  cer- 
tainly entirely  unknown  in  this  country.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  Mr.  John 
Harrison  was  not  only  the  earliest  successful  manufacturer  of  Sulphuric 
Acid  in  America,  but  the  first  in  this  country  to  concentrate  it  in  Platinum. 
