coMeWJEENtriBteH I HIOPHEXE has become an orphan child. SoconyYacuum made it until last spring but has discontinued production. The process can now be had on a license basis, but no one admits, at present, t h a t he is going to make the product. Appreciable stocks are reported to be on hand. One of the biggest uses at present is in the manufacture of antihistaminics. Jefferson Chemical Co. is reportedly interested in its manufac ture but has made no positive moves as yet. ilvad V&E1V For years educational institutions have been lament ing the nation's poor reading habits. Remedial read ing courses are being offered and urged at progressive universities. We'd like to express our support of these courses. Reason: Word has reached us t h a t vitamin Ε sales in drug stores have increased since compound Ε (now called cortisone) was first publicized as the arthritic's panacea. These buyers don't even deserve an Ε for effort. tiayiny the Future The National Security Resources Board is under taking new projects as part of its continuing program for national preparedness. The NSRB office of pro duction is placing "phantom orders" for standard gages, over $20 million,worth. They're phantom orders because so far only standby schedules for emergency production exist. This readiness measure is the third such program undertaken by the Production Office's Equipment Division. Appaitiny Elate We've just been handed a survey of work injury rates for 1948. Figures for the chemicals and allied products classification show a lower frequency but greater severity than the average for all manufacturing industries. In the industrial chemicals field 151 days were lost per injury; in the other-chemical-products field the number is 165, highest among all manufac turing except iron and steel. The Labor Department's proposed Bureau of Accident Prevention (C&EN, June 20, page 1771) will surely find support in the chemical process industries. For Emergency Mite Only For several years iodine compounds have been in use for purifying water. Developed since 1942 two such products—di- and triglycine hydroperiodide— are found to be effective purifiers. But the Army and Navy are concerned about possible toxic effects re sulting from ingestion of iodine over long periods. Ex tensive field tests in tropical areas will be made for a year. If no toxic effects are noted, iodine compounds might replace Halozone (p-sulfondichloroaminobenzoic VOLUME
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Today9s news of the chemical world likely to influence the happenings of tomorrow acid) as the official water purifying agent for use by troops in the field. Municipal water treatment isn't likely to result from an OK by the military, because sodium acid phosphate, a compound constitutent, might cause corrosion in water mains. About Aetual Courent rut en The U. S. Department of Agriculture is going to re pay exporters of concentrated orange juice when they send their wares to ECA countries. The concentrate will be used in experimental feeding programs abroad to correct common vitamin C dietary deficiencies. What interests us is the provision written into the Federal Register: "No member of or delegate to Congress, or resident commissioner, shall be admitted to any share or part of any payment made under this offer . . ." The Government seems to be getting cau tious about public servants. Out A gain9 in Again Big question in the new Alberta, Canada, oil fields— transportation—appears to have been decided if news reports reaching New York are correct. The oil will be pipe-lined to Superior, Wis., and then shipped by lake tanker to Sarnia, Ont. The pipe line terminating at Superior will cost $100 million, and the oil will come into this country under customs bond for ship ment back to Canada. Thus, under this unique but practical plan, Canada will route her own product through the U. S. and back to Canada. tmolA for Gusher* Sinclair Oil Corp. recently announced that it is embarking on a five-year expansion program. It will spend $250 million to bring to full development ex tensive acreages of proved petroleum reserves in five states—Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming. According to P. C. Spencer, Sinclair's president, this program will add 50,000 barrels a day to the company's present daily production figure of 100,000 barrels* Four Strihe* Three strikes usually means 4i out." The InterNational Oil Workers Union (CIO) ends the summer with a ball and four strikes in Texas petroleum and chemical industries. \ r oted down in attempts to unionize Diamond Alkali Co. (C&EN, July 4, page 1913), its "grievance" strikes closed Crown Central Petroleum Corp. and the Pasadena plant of Mathieson Chemical (C&EN, Aug. 15, page 2369). Latest strikes shut down Mrs. Tucker's Foods, large vegetable oil processing plant at Sherman, but strike-bound Con solidated Chemical Industries at Houston continued t o operate with a deadline date at which new employees would be hired unless strikers returned to work. Com-
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eonCENirates plete shutdown at Consolidated, which makes over 1,000 tons of sulfuric acid per day, might prove crippling to much of the area's heavy industry. Where9** the Market* U. S. consumption of rubber keeps going down. Use of new rubber fell to 70,457 long tons in July from 84,066 the month before. Comparisons with last year's rate show a downward trend since March. July's total is the lowest since December 1945. For the first seven months of this year new rubber consumption was 579,044 tons, 7.7% below 1948. Natural and synthetic uses fell to their lowest since July 1947 and December 1943, respectively. Relatively bright spot: Natural latex consumption in July was only slightly below June and well above July 1948. These Contacts Are Legal Less than a month ago a Military Procurement Information Center was set up under the Department of Defense. In its first two weeks of operation it answered over 2,500 inquiries from manufacturers interested in selling things and services to the military departments. We're wondering how many of those calls came from the famed 5 percenters—it would seem that ,MPIC was making things easy for these contact men. Small businesses, by the way, are getting a fair proportion of the military's business. The Department of the Army spent about 42% of its total procurement dollars with small—employing fewer than 500—business firms. Mitèrent Aim9 Same Worts The duplication is glaring. Just after Defense Secretary Johnson established the Military Procurement Information Center (see item above), Commerce Secretary Sawyer expanded the Procurement Assistance Service, which is now three years old. Purpose of this expansion: to stimulate business in areas where unemployment pools have developed. Open the Mtoor— One hundred twenty-five delegates to the UN Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources are due in Washington, D . C , Sept. 12. Agenda: inspecting various federal installations, such as the National Bureau of Standards and the Bureau of Mines. We hope that the courtesy of the U. S. in opening its laboratories to representatives of 40 nations makes as big an impression as the laboratories themselves. ttutl Thing Oil mill chemists and cotton researchists always look for new uses for cotton by-products. There is no current oversupply of cottonseed hulls in the big cottonproducing areas. However, the cattle population has been declining over recent years, farm-produced feedstuffs are abundant, and pasture conditions are extremely good. Responsible members of the cottonseed crushing industry anticipate an oversupply situation in hulls when southeastern and delta mills start crushing operations in mid-September. To offset a possible 8590
slow movement of hulls in feed outlets this winter they have asked researchers to investigate alternative markets. One suggestion has been treatment with phosphoric acid to provide a mulch. Fur-Seat Oils Those of you who missed this year's fur-seal hunting season in Alaska missed the biggest kill in 60 years. On one day over 5,000 skins were taken. By-products of this year's fur-sealing are 14,000 gallons of carcass oil and 33,000 gallons of blubber oil. These oils will be offered at public auction, in case you're interested Price Slashes A large chemical concern is announcing that price» have been reduced on 22 major products since the beginning of the year. Reason for the reductions: quantity and price structures have eased and operating economies have been effected. Some examples: price of anhydrous caffeine was cut $1.00 a pound a month ago, hydrous caffeine 95 cents; this brings present caffeine schedules to $4.00 and $3.80 for the anhydrous and hydrous products, respectively. Other reductions in price per pound: 25 cents for coumarin; 12 cents for benzyl benzoate and 64% potassium phenyl acetate; 20 cents for 0-phenylethylamine and phenylacetamide; and $3.15 for p-aminosalicylic acid Another Futp Story Seventeen months ago construction began. Today the world's largest pulp mill is open. Site: Iroquois Falls, Ontario; cost: $12 million. The plant, owned by Abitibi Power and Paper Co., has ten 500-horsepower motors which operate twenty 5-ton wood grinders. To us, it all adds up to newsprint. Government Service to Mnaustru The Department of Commerce's Office of Technical Services really does a good service. They're constantly taking steps to make formerly classified material available to industry. In cooperation with British investigators and U. S. research laboratories OTS writes reports on peacetime applications of war-developed techniques and publishes surveys on thousands of topics of value to the chemical and chemical process industries. Latest survey on 200 alloys in 40 magnesium systems shows that magnesium-zinc-silvermanganese-calcium is the most promising combination "for further study and development." This is the initial research that gives direction to further study For Baser English T o better and more efficiently learn her students of chemistry and chemical engineering how the English language should be wrote Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute this fall are going to completely assign a instructor to constructively and helpfully mark their papers in order to successfully get more better effective writing and grammatically show the students where they is at. Leave us face it—the chemist and chemical engineer must got to readily and fluently have a good command of the language to lucidly and clearly express his thoughts with! CHEMICAL
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