May 10,
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING
1923
Tanners' Council t o Erect Research Laboratory The Tanners' Council of America, at its meeting in New York on May 4, unanimously voted to erect a research laboratory at the University of Cincinnati, contributing $110,000 for the erection of the building This action followed addresses of President Fraser M. MofTatt, of the council, and President F. C. Hicks, and Prof. G. D . McLaughlin, both of the university. The board of directors of the council at a closed meeting recommended the move. Ways and means of raising the money will be taken up by the executive committee. The university for a number of years has been conducting research work for the tanning industry, and it was felt that further expansion was essential.
CHEMISTRY
5
"Bunkum" after the Boll Weevil
Alex. L. Feild, of the Union Carbide and Carbon Research Laboratories, delivered a very instructive and interesting lecture on metallography before the Senior Class of the Cooper Union Night School on the evening of April 23rd.
Unfortunately the framers of our insecticide laws did not foresee and devise means of preventing such exploitation of the cotton grower as he is now experiencing at the hands of selfish parties marketing various boll-weevil nostrums. The U. S. Department of Agriculture has recently made some announcements in a very modest way concerning the comparative worthlessness of "secret" preparations for protecting the cotton plant. These announcements perhaps have not received the newspaper space their importance deserves. Whether this has any connection with the considerable amount of advertising paid for by the "discoverer," "practical farmers," "scientists," et al., who market them, is best known to the parties involved. It is not easy to understand why planters will willingly pay GO cents or a dollar for a gallon of dope which doesn't contain more than 25 cents worth of calcium arsenate, unless it is his lack of understanding of the facts. They do it though—and go back for more. With the present knowledge of the problem those mixtures which do not contain one of the arsenates can be classed as absolutely wrorthless for weevil control. And the value of those which are built up around a small content of arsenate should be based on the amount of arsenic and binder they contain—and on nothing else. Other "secret" substances added to attract the weevil to the poison are just so much bunk. Preparation of mixtures of molasses, water, powdered arsenate, etc., is too simple a process to justify addition of 200 per cent or more to the cost. A person with intelligence enough to use arsenate protection on his cotton can handle most of the details of getting the material in the proper suspension. It is not the purpose of this bulletin to recommend any treatment or means of boll weevil control. These have been given out thousands of times and by as many agencies. But the Georgia Experiment Station does earnestly urge that, before the cotton grower spends his honest money on fakes (which are usually backed up by testimonials), he consider whether or not he is able to make up his own mixture from whatever ingredients he wants to use. All the propagandism connected with distribution of named preparatir .3, the containers, the "secret" (and worthless) lure for weevils, freight on the bulk of water, and other incidentals must cost somebody something. Possibly ?t i? passed on to the user. Such stuff doesn't add a fraction to the insecticidal value of the preparation*. The farmer can buy arsenate of lead very nearly as cheap as anybody else and if he prefers to use some sort of liquid mixture in preference to the government dusting method, it is not necessary for him to buy water, nor is molasses hard to obtain. His home-made mixture will be just as effective, whether he labels it "Weevil-Colic" or just calls it plain "calcium arsenate-molasses suspension."—F. H. SMITH, Chemist, Georgia Experiment Station.
Norman D. Doane, who was reported as leaving the Indianapolis Water Co., to go t o St. L,ouis, Mo., with the Wayne Tank & Pump Co., is to be transferred t o the Chicago, 111., district instead, where he will b e engaged in selling the Waynite water softening equipment.
Anti-Narcotic Conference Tables Drastic Resolution
PERSONALS Ellwood Hendrick, consulting editor of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, has completed a tour of the mid-western sections. He spoke before the Michigan Agricultural College Section at Lansing, April 18, before an assemblage at" Northwestern University, April 19, and before the joint meeting of the Indiana and Purdue Sections a t Lafayette, April 21, on "The Chemistry of Smells." On April 20, he spoke before the Chicago Section and on April 23 before the Cincinnati Section on "The Obligations in Chemistry." Wlthrow Morse, Ph.D., has been elected by the Trustees of the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, to the professorship of Physiological Chemistry and Toxicology. Professor Morse is at present head of the department of Physiological Chemistry in the School of Medicine, West Virginia University. William Haynes, 3 Park Place, has accepted the chairmanship of trie chemical division in the forthcoming Home Service appeal of the Salvation Army for a $500,000 fund with which to maintain and extend its activities in Greater New York. A. B. Carter, director of the bacteriological laboratories of the Swan-Meyers Co. of Indianapolis, has an article in the forthcoming number of the Hexagon, on Biological and Bacteriological Preparations, \'accines, etc. A. D . Thorburn, of the SwanMeyers Co., had an article on *'The Personality of John Dalton" in the March number of the Hexagon. O. A. Pickett, research chemist for The Hercules Powder Co., delivered a very interesting lecture on the evening of March 20, to the senior class of the Cooper Union Night School, on the topic, "The Application of Colloidal Chemistry in Industry."
SYRACUSE SECTION ELECTS Ross A. Baker of the chemistry department, Syracuse University, was elected president of the Syracuse Section of the American Chemical Society a t the meeting on April 27. Other officers chosen are as follows: W. B . Hicks, vice president; John H. Nair, Merrill-Soule Co.; Paul S. Craig; A. W. Kimman, local councilors. I n March nineteen new companies were formed for the manufacture and distribution of chemicals, dyes, and drugs. The aggregate capitalization is $11,585,000, as compared with $55,125,000 for the seventeen companies organized in February, and $12,025,000 in March, 1922. The following table shows the investments i n drug and chemical companies since 1914: 1914, five m o n t h s 1915 1916 1917 1018 1919 1920 1921 1922
$ 16,838,000 65,565,000 99,244,000 146,160,000 73,403,000 112,173,000 487,148,900 108,410,900 112,901,000
A resolution urging that "the United States break off diplomatic relations with any country which directly or indirectly countenances the continuance of the habit-forming drug traffic and decline to enter a world-wide agreement for the suppression of this evil" precipitated a lively discussion in the closing session of the National Anti-Narcotic Conference in Washington on May 4. The resolution was offered by Frederick W. Wallis, commissioner of the port of New York. Exception was taken to that part which urges the United States to break off diplomatic relations with foreign countries on the grounds that such action would bring about war. The discussion subsided when a motion to table was passed unanimously. Mr. Wallis recommended that the habit-forming drug trade should be placed entirely and exclusively under the control of the various national governments. Dr. George M. Kober of Washington was made chairman of the executive committee of the permanent organization and R. L. Holmes, of Washington, executive secretary. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley urged stricter enforcement of the antinarcotic law. He said the Federal law was all-embracing, and that all that was needed was rigid enforcement. He also recommended that a crusade against tobacco be started. Tobacco, according to Dr. Wiley, has done more harm to the human race than either narcotics or liquor.
