800  Industrial  Organic  Chemistry.      { Am"I/0°"nIJI8arm* 
of  ammonia,  so  that  sulphate  of  ammonia  may  be  obtained  as  a  by- 
product. In  Bulletin  691  B.  of  the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey,  D.  E. 
Winchester  has  described  this  occurrence  and  gives  records  of  dis- 
tillation. These  shales  are  said  to  be  like  the  Scotch  shales  but 
richer  in  oil.  With  the  gradual  exhaustion  of  the  oil  fields  they  will 
prove  a  welcome  addition. 
The  vegetable  and  animal  oil  markets  have  been  greatly  affected 
by  the  war,  and  the  industries  based  upon  them  have  been  changed 
in  a  revolutionary  way  in  many  cases.  The  first  cause  may  be  said 
to  have  been  the  export  embargo  established  by  Great  Britain  upon 
all  glycerine-containing  oils  with  the  beginning  of  the  war.  Fol- 
lowing this  came  a  shortage  in  the  cotton-seed  crop  in  191 5  and  the 
introduction  of  soya  bean  culture  in  the  South.  As  the  refined 
cotton-seed  oil  took  more  and  more  the  position  of  an  edible  oil, 
commanding  corresponding  higher  prices,  the  soya  bean  oil  took  its 
place  for  industrial  uses,  for  soap  and  paint  manufacturers  and  as 
a  constituent  of  compound  lard  and  oleomargarine.  The  soya  bean 
cake  has  also  been  readily  taken  up  for  stock  feed  and  for  fertilizer. 
The  soya  bean  contains  more  protein  than  either  cotton  seed  or 
peanuts,  as  much  fat  as  cotton  seed,  and  only  one  fourth  as  much 
fiber  as  cotton  seed  or  peanuts. 
It  has  a  lower  iodine  number  than  linseed  oil  and  is  slow  in  dry- 
ing, so  that  it  can  not  completely  replace  linseed  oil  in  the  paint 
industry,  but  can  be  admixed  with  it.  Besides  the  production  in 
the  South,  which  according  to  government  reports  in  the  year  191 7 
was  from  531,000  acres,  we  have  had  an  enormous  development  of 
the  soya  bean  oil  importations  as  the  following  figures  will  show. 
Importation  for  year  1914,  12^  million  pounds;  for  1917,  264.9 
million  pounds,  and  for  1918,  336,824,646  pounds. 
Most  of  this  coming  from  Manchuria  enters  Seattle  and  other 
Pacific  coast  ports.  All  available  storage  facilities  at  Seattle  and 
other  coast  points  have  been  overtaxed  in  the  handling  of  this  supply. 
Another  great  development  in  oil  supplies  has  come  from  the 
greatly  increased  production  of  peanut  oil.  This  has  come  to  the 
fore  as  a  salad  oil  and  for  soap  making.  The  crop  in  the  United 
States  rose  from  3>4  million  bushels  before  the  war  to  40  million 
bushels  in  1916  already.  For  191 7,  the  government  reports  shows 
that  3,277,000  acres  were  devoted  to  its  culture  in  the  South,  and 
for  the  year  of  1918  it  is  estimated  that  in  the  State  of  Texas  alone 
3,000,000  acres  will  be  devoted  to  it.    The  importations  have  also 
