CADY AND MCFARLAND.| Composition of Natural Gas. 285 
almost without number, and comprise a large and important 
part of the world of organic chemistry. While it is very diffi- 
cult to cause the elements carbon and hydrogen to unite, when 
they are once combined their compounds undergo further 
changes with comparative ease. It would seem a very worthy 
use for natural gas, with its high percentage of methane, to 
take it as the starting-point in the preparation of other more 
important compounds. 
For example, methane may be so burned that more than 22 
per cent. of the gas is changed into formaldehyde (CH.O), 
which is well known as a valuable antiseptic, greatly used, es- 
pecially for purposes of fumigation. Methane is rather resis- 
tant to chemical attack, and before it is utilized in a chemical 
way much work must be expended on the investigation of the 
problem, but the rewards for success in such research are quite 
enough to repay every effort. 
There are possibilities even for the use of gases that are not 
available for fuel or for such other purposes as have been in- 
dicated above. 
Prof. R. K. Duncan, of the University of Kansas, has found 
that the Dexter gas, which is very rich in nitrogen, will yield 
calcium cyanamid (CaCN.,) when passed over calcium carbid 
(CaC,) at a high temperature. The calcium cyanamid is a 
very good fertilizer, and its manufacture from those gases 
which are not serviceable as fuels would be an admirable use 
for what seems to be otherwise nearly valueless substances, 
were it not for the excessive cost of calcium carbid, which in 
this country is in the hands of a monopoly. In Europe, where 
the carbid is cheaper, large quantities of calcium cyanamid 
are now made and used, getting the nitrogen from the air by a 
fairly expensive process. 
Investigations of the character of the above would undoubt- 
edly lead to important uses of natural gas in fields where its 
application would not be blocked by monopoly. 
The use of natural gas as a source for the rarer gases, 
helium, argon, neon, etc., has already been mentioned (p. 236). 
and considerable quantities of helium and neon have been ex- 
tracted from this source. The uses found for them have been 
largely experimental. 
