ygS  Industrial  Organic  Chemistry.      { Am'NJ0°vur'IJ,I8arm' 
subordinate  part  in  supplying  the  American  market  with  the  dyes 
required  for  our  textile  industries. 
This  brief  survey  shows  that  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  assume  that 
there  were  no  organic  chemical  industries  existing  in  this  country  in 
1 914  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  Nevertheless,  the  general  public 
knew  little  of  the  chemist  and  his  actual  or  potential  value  to  indus- 
try or  commerce.  Capital,  which  frequently  made  large  invest- 
ments in  mining  and  similar  enterprises,  many  of  which  were  largely 
speculative,  had  not  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  chemist  to  any 
notable  extent,  perhaps  because  the  language  of  chemical  reactions 
used  by  him  was  something  foreign  to  the  experience  or  training, 
of  the  capitalist  and  hence  distrusted.  The  war  came  and  we  soon 
learned  how  great  a  disturbance  such  a  great  war  could  be  to  the 
world's  commerce,  in  which  the  United  States  played  a  vitally  im- 
portant part.  We  also  learned  promptly  how  chemical  industries 
were  the  foundation  stones  for  this  great  commerce.  It  soon  de- 
veloped that  war  in  its  modern  form  was  based  upon  the  chemical 
activity  and  scientific  development  of  a  country  and  then  the  chemist 
began,  as  has  been  repeatedly  said,  to  come  into  his  own. 
Our  special  topic  therefore  is  to  briefly  note  how  our  American 
chemical  industries,  and  in  particular  those  involving  organic  chem- 
istry, have  responded  to  this  war  impulse  and  demand  in  the  four 
years  that  have  elapsed  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  period  in 
1914. 
Our  petroleum  industry,  which  we  have  shown  was  already  in 
a  highly  developed  state,  had  important  problems  at  once  presented 
to  it.  Great  as  was  our  refining  capacity,  it  was  utterly  inadequate 
to  produce  in  normal  course  the  quantities  of  gasoline  that  were  re- 
quired. Besides  the  growing  automobile  consumption,  the  war  de- 
mands for  motor  trucks  and  for  aeroplane  and  tractor  engines  came 
as  an  added  load  on  the  industry.  Because  of  the  demoralization  of 
the  Russian  oil  production  and  the  German  occupation  of  Roumania, 
the  whole  gasoline  supply  for  the  allied  nations  has  to  come  from 
America.  To  meet  this  demand  we  have  in  addition  to  what  may 
be  called  "  straight  refinery  "  gasoline,  blended  "  casing-head  "  gaso- 
line and  "  cracked  "  gasoline.  Under  the  pressure  of  the  great  de- 
mand, large  quantities  of  volatile  hydrocarbons  are  washed  out  by 
suitable  solvents  or  condensed  out  of  natural  gas  and  then  blended 
with  heavy  naphtha  to  bring  down  the  gravity  to  a  proper  average. 
Such  a  gasoline  will  necessarily  have  a  wide  volatility  range  but  is 
