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the phrase in Goethe’s “Faust” in which “a little word” is said t o take the place of missing ideas. One is particularly struck in the work of Michael with the constant emphasis on principles. H e was never content t o make compounds, however interesting and valuable. Unless a problem had in i t the possibility of establishing a principle, i t was soon abandoned for one more promising. As he went on Michael grew as a chemical philosopher-in fact, a number of his papers published in recent years had t o do very largely with fundamental physical chemistry. Many of his students have spoken of his marvelous memory, and his ability t o cite articles by journal, year, and even page. They were still more impressed by what one man has called his “almost uncanny ability t o predict the course of an organic chemical reaction,” and refer t o it as a “chemical instinct” and a “sixth sense” with which few men, even great research workers, have ever; been blessed. Professor Michael has done little active laboratory work in the last ten or twelve years. For many years before that time he had begun t o transfer some of his interest t o several most delightful hobbies. There are few more beautiful grounds in all the suburbs of Boston than those of Professor Michael in the Newtons. To the west of his lovely house there is a great grove of magnificent trees, and nearby a little summer house. His tulips rival those of the Public Gardens. During the outdoor season his flower beds are gorgeous, and even in the dead of winter his greenhouse yields its treasures for his desk and table. Being a most enthusiastic golfer, Professor Michael would occasionally desert his laboratory in the late winter for a few weeks at Pinehurst. H e once rigged up a complicated canvass
Vol. 22, No. 10
screen and a small putting green in his laboratory attic in order not t o get “off his game” in the winter. He is a member of the “hole-in-one” fraternity. The Michael home in Newton is a perfect treasure house of the most discriminatingly chosen and varied museum pieces. There are a few paintings, chief among them a Blakelock; there are jade carvings and lacquered chests; there is a great cabinet full of silverware, masterpieces of early American skill; but the most valuable of all are innumerable Chinese and Japanese paintings on scrolls and screens. Professor Michael is no amateur as a collector. Much of this material was gotten from out-of-the-way places of the earth, where the dealer in antiques never penetrates. Professor Michael will be remembered by his students as a perfect host, and dinner at his home was an event t o be treasured as a memory. No matter how heavily he had ‘:landed” on a student for some mistake or lack of thought, in his home he was always charming and delightful. Hardly a part of the world where he had not been; few great works of a r t he had not seen; most operas were familiar t o him; a keen student of world affairs, his conversation was an education in itself t o younger men. The progress of chemistry for four decades owes much t o Arthur Michael. Scores of men were trained in his laboratory. He will always be a memorable figure in the scientific world. With all of this, the few who have been privileged t o know him will remember him as a broad and well-rounded citizen of the world.
W. T. READ
AMERICAN CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES The Champion Fibre Company A sulfite-pulp mill was erected t o accomT IS a little more than twenty-two years pany the soda mill and the extract plant since operations began at The Champion in order t o make use of the supply of hemFibre Company’s plant at Canton, N. C. lock and spruce wood from the higher alThe location of a pulp plant in the mountitudes of the surrounding mountain region, tains of western North Carolina was someand thus enable the plant as a whole t o furthing of an adventure and a departure from nish all the essential wood pulp for the prothe path which up t o that time led the pulp duction of higher grade paper at the plant industry westward from New England. Alof the parent organization, The Champion though the potential lumber resources of the Coated Paper Company, at Hamilton, South were, and still are, enormous, most Ohio. In 1917 a sulfate-pulp mill was of the standing timber in the southern Aperected alongside the other two pulp mills, palachians is chestnut wood, which is rich t o produce kraft pulp from short-leaf pine, in tannin and not suitable for pulp unless which is available in large quantities from the tannin is first extracted. the lower altitudes within easy reach :of The Champion Fibre Company’s objective Canton. was primarily the production of soda and Because of an interruption in the supply sulfite wood pulp, but t o employ chestnut of chlorine in the early days of the Great wood as the raw material for soda pulp inWar, it became imperative t o build an volved the construction of a plant t o exelectrolytic plant for the production of this Reuben B. Robertson President, tract the tannin and prepare the wood for The Champion F i b r i Company very necessary material for the bleaching the soda-pulp mill. Side by side with the of Dulp. So for several years The Champion pulp mill the largest single unit for the - manufacture of tannin extract was built, having a capacity of 500 Fibre Company has produced its own chlorine from a plant having a capacity of 70 tons daily and i t has available a supply of caustic barrels of liquid tannin extract per day. This combination of plants, one t o serve the paper industry and the other t o serve the soda which is produced in liquid, solid, and fused forms and furnished t o the southern textile mills. The other by-product of the tanning industry, was unique in the history of industrial development. The coordination of the requirements of these two separate electrolytic plant, hydrogen gas, is now being recovered and will be used for hydrogenated products. and distinct industries presented many difficulties a t the outset, The next development was the erection of a mill for t h e p r o but as experience was gradually gained the products of the reduction of book, bond, tablet, and envelope papers.,After spective plants achieved a high distinction for quality.
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October, 1930
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGISEERING C H E M I S T R Y
a short period of operation, this unit was doubled t o permit a daily production of 100 tons of high-grade paper. In the variety of its wood-pulp products and their derivatives the Canton plant is unique. This variation gives the plant a certain flexibility and adaptability which permits many advantages in a changing market. On the matter of the supply of raw material The Champion Fibre Company has for many years inaug ?rated a forest policy on its timber land-holdings, which consist of over 150,000 acres, which assures indefinitely a continuity of t h e supply of much of its wood. The operations of the company are essentially those of a chemical industry and the laboratory controls every step in each department. Efficiency demands a close attention t o details and every effort is made t o recover all materials having any market value. The production of tannin extract from chestnut wood is a primary process, so t h a t it does not partake of the nature of by-product recovery. In the cooking of pine wood for sulfate pulp, three separate by-products are obtained. Besides the highly volatile methyl compounds, the cooking liqiors yield turpentine and sodium resinate. In refining the crude turpentine, dimethyl sulfide is obtained, and this is finding a use as a warning agent in natural gas. The removal of the dimethyl sulfide leaves the turpentine entirely free from objectionable odor. The recovered sodium resinate is used as a size and also in the making of soap. The recovery of the cooking liquor from the sulfite process still presents a problem which has only been partially solved, by concentrating the liquor into heavy extract and dry powder, in which form it finds use as a cheap adhesive under the name of “Bindex.” The cooking of all woods by the soda process involves the recovery of the materials employed, and these are returned t o the process and constitute a continuous cycle of operations which call for close chemical supervision t o insure economy. Most of the executives of The Champion Fibre Company’s organization have been with the company since it was founded, and under the leadership of Reuben B. Robertson, who took charge as general manager in 1910 and became president in 1926, the history of the company has been one of progress and steady growth. In spite of a record of achievement which would justify a pause for its contemplation, the management of The Champion Fibre Company have plans for development which promise still greater economies and which will enable the company t o continue that service t o the public which is now recognized as the real basis of progress. R. W. GRIFFITH
Half-Million-Volt X-Ray Tube X-rays a t 500,000 volts, more than twice as high a voltage as is being used in today’s most powerful therapy tubes, have been attained by W. D. Coolidge, associate director of the General Electric research laboratory at Schenectady. Such a decided increase in voltage, and hence increase in penetrating power of the rays, was made possible by a system of “cascading” the tube. Earlier attempts t o build experimental x-ray and cathode-ray tubes for voltages apEreciably in excess of 260,000 ran into difficulties due t o a cold cathode” effect, whereby current flowed through the tube even when the cathode filament was not heated. Continued investigations showed that this limitation could be removed by dividing the voltage applied t o the tube between different pairs of tubular electrodes. Such a cascade or multisectional system, Doctor Coolidge found, promises t o permit the building of vacuum discharge tubes for as high voltage as can be generated. The use of the cascade tube applies equally well to x-ray and cathode-ray tubes, since the latter may be converted into the former by the addition of a suitable target. The highest-voltage Coolidge x-ray tubes used commercially a t the present time are of 200,000 volts peak capacity, and are of two types-water-cooled and air-cooled. Both are adaptable for x-ray therapy. The air-cooled type has been used to considerable advantage in industrial applications of x-rays, since the high voltage gives the necessary penetration required for examining the heavier metal objects.
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