4/0  Contributions  to  Industrial  Chemistry.  |Alg-  l^m- 
was,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war,  competing  with  the  Sicilian 
product  in  Mediterranean  ports. 
We  have  two  distinctively  American  products  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom  which  serve  to  furnish  the  starting-point  or  raw  materials 
for  two  highly-developed  American  chemical  industries,  viz.,  the 
cotton  plant,  furnishing  the  cotton  seed  and  its  products,  and  the 
maize  or  Indian  corn,  furnishing  corn  starch  and  its  alteration 
products,  corn  oil  and  gluten. 
The  cotton  seed  and  its  products  have  become  among  the  most 
valued  assets  of  the  cotton  planter.  From  each  ton  of  cotton  seed 
over  300  pound  (40  to  50  gallons)  of  oil  can  be  obtained,  which, 
when  properly  refined,  furnishes  us  one  of  our  most  valuable  oils, 
both  for  technical  use,  as  soap  stock,  and  for  food  purposes.  Hun- 
dreds of  mills  throughout  the  South  are  engaged  in  pressing  this 
cotton  oil,  as  it  is  called;  enormous  quantities  have  gone  to  be 
blended  with  stearine  to  make  so-called  compound  or  substitute  lard, 
and  other  large  amounts  brought  to  a  white,  deodorized  condition, 
used  directly  for  food  and  baking  purposes.  More  recently  it  has 
been  converted  into  a  soft,  white,  solid  condition  by  the  hydro- 
genating  treatment,  and  in  that  form  is  again  available  as  an  edible 
oil  for  cooking  and  baking.  After  the  expulsion  of  the  oil,  we  have 
left  the  oil-cake,  which,  ground  to  meal,  makes  a  very  valuable  feed- 
ing stuff  or  addition  to  fertilizers  because  of  its  nitrogen  content. 
The  hulls,  burned  as  fuel,  yield  an  ash  rich  in  potash  and  phosphoric 
acid,  hence  of  immediate  value  in  the  making  up  of  fertilizers.  The 
success  with  which  the  cotton  seed,  at  one  time  a  waste  product, 
after  the  removal  of  the  seed  hair  or  valuable  fibre  by  ginning,  has 
been  turned  into  a  source  of  wealth  for  a  great  section  of  our 
country,  illustrates  how  a  great  chemical  industry  was  built  up  and 
values  created  out  of  material  at  first  entirely  neglected.  The  other 
distinctively  American  industry  that  I  coupled  with  the  cotton  seed 
industry  was  the  utilization  of  maize  or  Indian  corn,  and  has  come 
to  be  known  generally  as  the  corn  products  industry. 
While  the  starch  production  from  wheat,  potatoes,  and  rice  had 
been  worked  out  elsewhere,  and  while  a  hydrolyzed  product  of 
syrupy  consistency  had  also  been  obtained  from  potato  starch,  the 
manufacture  of  corn  starch  and  of  corn  syrup,  the  latter  first  known 
as  glucose,  was  worked  out  in  this  country,  and  upon  and  around 
this  has  been  built  up  a  great  industry,  producing  a  great  range  of 
products  of  great  commercial  importance.  Corn  starch  was  manu- 
