March, 1926
I N D U S T R I l L AND ENGINEERING CHEiMIXTRY
with the perfection of synthetic camphor. The advantage which abundant raw material has given the United States and Canada in the production of methanol from wood is threatened by synthetic methanol, Synthetic nitrates are the source of much concern to Chile, which has for years dictated the world’s nitrate policies. I n addition to recorded work, our increasing knowledge of petroleum as a raw material indicates that it, will yield a variety of olefins and diolefins as by-products which may serve admirably as raw materials for the synthesis of rubber. We may have here an entirely new and promising attack on a problem of long-standing difficulty. With this record of achievement, why should not the rubber associations, the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, or all the rubber-using companies in cooperation support a joint effort toward the synthesis of a material that will have the necessary properties of rubber even if it is not a molecular duplicate? We venture the opinion that research adequately supported in this field could produce results in less time than it would take to bring trees into bearing on the contemplated rubber plantations. Let us not quarrel with Great Britain over a well-earned advantage. There must be a better way out.
A Business Opportunity M A N Y analytical chemists find the standard samples offered by the Bureau of Standards very helpful in checking work on important compounds and mixtures. They afford excellent opportunity to check methods, personal technic, and accuracy. I n all schools chemists receive much of their early training in qualitative and quantitative analysis by working upon unknowns, supplied under code numbers from stocks of previously analyzed preparations. Obviously, if each of the laboratories is to prepare a satisfactory series of unknowns for all classes, a great deal of time is required. It becomes expensive, annoying, and to a degree unsatisfactory. This situation affords an opportunity which has been recognized in a t least one quarter abroad where a few of our schools have placed orders for unknowns. It seems to us that it should not be difficult for some one of our chemical manufacturers or supply dealers to collect considerable quantities of materials regularly analyzed for control purposes and, with a minimum amount of effort and expense, prepare for students’ use unknowns in sufficient variety to please any teacher. If done in one place it would save the time of many, should constitute a welcome service, and make unnecessary the importation of one inore item.
Technical Sales Advice HE chemist seems particularly qualified to render service in a field of growing importance in industry. We refer to service in sales departments where it is realized that the most satisfactory transactions are those based on sound technical advice, There are several examples of well-meant but, misdirected and costly efforts wherein attempts have been made to establish a market for a product not a t all suited to the uses for which i t has been advocated. Elaborate advertising campaigns, the time of high-salaried salesmen, and the manufacturing resources of concerns have been put behind such efforts, the net results of which have been substantial losses when i t has been found too late that the product was not adapted for the purposes indicated. Great patience is required to wait through an adequate testing period when expenses are mounting, and there is
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a great temptation to accept orders. However, it pays the manufacturer to wait until he knows more than any one else knows regarding his product, its application, and its use. It takes courage to say that his product is not the best for a particular service, and to apply honestly the technical information which the chemist can provide begets the confidence upon which every enduring business must be founded.
The Sterling Fellowships THE Graduate School a t Yale University is to be congratulated upon the establishment of the Sterling Fellowships by a gift of one million dollars from the trustees of the estate of the late John W. Sterling. The object is to stimulate scholarship and advance research in all fields of knowledge. The fellowships are to be open equally to graduates of Yale and other approved colleges and universities everywhere, both men and women, whether graduate students, instructors, or professors on leave of absence. Two general classes have been announced, research or senior fellowships and junior fellowships. The stipends from the first group range from $1000 to $2500 or more, dependent upon the character of the proposed investigation, while junior fellows are to be paid from $1000 to $1500, although for special purposes, such as the completion of an investigation, the awards may be less. Additional incentives for our best minds to choose research in the humanistic studies and the natural sciences as a special activity are thus established a t a center already renowned for its research. Many may thus be led to make research in science their career. Facilities for fundamental work are gradually coming to exist in our country to such an extent that America may be expected to maintain her rightful place in the world’s scientific procession.
Fixed Nitrogen Trends HE best figures available a t the moment indicate that during 1926 there will come into production in the United States plants giving a total of 101 tons of anhydrous ammonia daily. Of this a trifle less than 19 tons will be made from electrolytic hydrogen, 30 tons will result from by-product hydrogen, and the balance, 52 tons, will be based upon hydrogen derived from coal gas. These 52 tons represent the two largest American plants. The trend, therefore, as has been repeatedly emphasized, is away from large electric power requirements. While cheap hydroelectric power would be attractive to a fixed nitrogen plant, it would be more from the standpoint of mechanical power requirements, as for pumps and compressors, than for electrolytic or chemical processes. There is no development on the horizon to change the situation a t Muscle Shoals, in so far as chemical and chemical engineering considerations are concerned.
A New Word E HAVE been greatly cheered by the appearance of a new word, coined to describe those of us who make no pretense a t being high-brows and who are not always pleased by being classified with the low-brows in the absence of a further subdivision of that majority. “Mezzo-brow” is the new word and, after all, we suspect most people really come under that classification. It is strange that with so many people in this class no one has previously suggested a word so euphonious and high-sounding that it is sure to be adopted at once and may even tempt some of the high-brows to change their classification. Certainly, now that an intermediate stage is recognized, the low-brow will work to change his status.
