Chemical Industries in India' By H. E. Watson INDIAN 1NSllT"IH 01
scrsncs. €I€msai., U*"AI.OX.,
CASUAL observer attempting t o review the position of fhcinicai industries in India by noting the size and the limber of chemical factorics might easily conclude that these industries are a negligible factor in the natioiial economy, particularly when the sire 01 the country arid its population arc taken into account. In one sense this is true, but it is hardly justifiable to compare a couiitry like liirlia with western countries, in which the mode of life is essentially rlificrciit. I t is a commoiiplace t o say that India is iiidustrially w r y hackward. It will probably remain so for many years, for such factors as abuudailce of suitable natural I C S O U ~ C ~ Sand ovcrpopulation which have led to the devclopmeiit of industries arid the growth of large towns iii Europe axid America are not present to such an extent in India. Here tlicre has been no spontaneous growth of industries on western lines and such industrics of this type as exist have brcii, for the most part, hrodily imported. They arc, so t o spcak, foreign to the country, and it is sale to say that about 75 per ceiit of the pupulation would be quite unafiectcd if they were to disappear. In addition to the imported industries, however, there is a vast system of indigenous industries; and although the most important of these, the manufacture of cloth, has been nearly exterminated by the introduction of mill-made goods, yet many others remain, and i t is these ilrdustries which are of real importance t o the bulk of the people. Many of them are of a chemical nature and, although a t first they may appear insignificant owing to their lack of organization and the smallness of the units employed, yet owing t o their numbers they are of very great importance when considered as a whole. Morcover, a close examination irequently reveals the fact that when all factors are taken into consideration their efficiency is very high and a lowering of the cost of production would be most dklicult. These are the real Indian chemical ind u s t r i e s and the more&portant of them will be described.
A
Indleenous Industries
From the point of view of both weight and value, the production of sugar is India's largest chemical industry. The yearly output varies from 2.5 to 3 million tons, but almost all of this is in the form of a crude material termed "gur" or "jaggcry," less than 3 per cent oi the total being refined sugar. The process of manufacture is simple. The fane is crushed between small rollers of primitive design turned by bulls and the juice collected, treated with lime, and boiled down over an open fire in a shallow iron pan about 6 feet in diameter. The product, which i s galerally dark brown, is run into molds and allowed to sct. A certain numbex of improved mills which express a g r a t e r percentage of juice have been introduced recently, but great care hss to be exercised in their design lest they become too heavy for
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the hulls to turn. By using a little more care in the boiling-dowu process and tlie seiting of the pans, it has becn demonstrated by the Mysorc Agricultural Department that it is quite possible to obtain a pale brown or yellow crystallinc jaggery a t no additional cost, but it is exceedingly difficult to introduce such a process as a general practice. i he production of gur is typical of an hidustry ideally suited to Indian conditions. The capital cost of the piant is small, iity dollars; the whole factory can be moved to the iields where the cane is grown; cattle which an: nut required for other purposes when the cane is iiyc form the motive power; laimr is supplicd b y the agriculturalist sild his family; and the market is in many cases the local village. If thcse conditions arc compared with those under which an iilrportcd industry has to bc carricd on, which will be mentioiied later, i t will be seen why it is possii,le for thc indigenous industry, in spite of its low tcclinicai efficiency, to compete successfully with its foreign rival.
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Manilfedwe of sair ,~
1 hc maiiulacturc of salt ranks next in impoitltiicc to the sugar industry, the annual outtuin being some 1.75 million tons. AIthough closely supervised by the Government for the purpose of tax collcction, the actual manufacture is almost entirely in the hands of small owners or pctty contractors. With the exception of about 150,000 tons of rock salt mined in the Punjab, the whole productiou is by the process of solar evaporation of sea water or natural brines, and it is conducted by mort p r i m i t i v e methods. In general principles the method is similar to that used in other countries -viz., concentration of the brine in a series of reservoirs of gradually decreasing sizebut the layout of the so-called factories in most cases is bad. Sea salt is crystallized in small reservoirs about 10 by 20 feet, and as soon as a thin layer of crystals has fumed these are scraped out, and although the men who perform this operation are very skilful a certain amount of mud irom the pan inevitably gets mined with the salt. In many factories the scraped salt is next stacked on the ground by the pan to draiii and thus gets mixed with more dirt and dust; it is then carried in baskets to the drying ground, where i t is left for about a week, a t the end of which, partintlarly if high winds prevajl, i t is thoroughly dirty. The whole sequence of operations is exceedingly primitive. For the most part the brine is raised by hand. although recently oil engines and pumps have been installed in some of the larger factories, while thc manual labor required for constructing the numerous crystallizem and handling the salt is excessive. The usual system of allowing a thick cake of salt to grow does not find favor, although it is practiced in one or two factories and is known as the accretion systcm. Even so the cake is not allowed to erccetl 1.5 inches in thickness, Thc main reason, in the Madras Presidency, is thnt salt is sold by measure and not by weight. arid
July, 1926
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
thus all the efforts of the producers are to produce a light salt at the expense of purity. In Madras salt must contain a t least 90 per cent of sodium chloride after drying a t 100 degrees; the average is about 93 per cent and the moisture content is 7 per cent. I n Bombay there is no control of quality and this is frequently worse than in Madras, although a t some factories an article of much higher grade is produced. There have been many attempts to improve the quality of Indian salt and considerable improvement is undoubtedly possible a t little expense, but there are two main adverse factors-first, the extreme ignorance of the salt. makers; and .second,the fact that a large proportion of the population in South India actually prefer an impure salt, as the flavor of the magnesium .salts is appreciated. In certain districts a very black salt is most highly esteemed. I n Bengal, on the other hand, it clean white salt is in request and the demand is almost entirely met by importation. Experiments carried out by the author indicate that there would be little difficulty in producing in South India a t a very small additional cost a salt fit for the Bengal market, but t h e freight charges, even by sea, are so high that there is very little chance of competing successfully with salt shipped from Aden or Liverpool. Very little serious attention has been paid to the possibility of recovering by-products from the bitterns and, in fact, a large number of salt makers declare that there are no bitterns in their factories so that they have not considered the question. During the war appreciable quantities of epsom salts were made from magnesite and sulfuric acid, while within a few miles of the factory .hundreds of tons of magnesium sulfate were being run into the sea. One attempt has been made t o produce magnesium chloride, .and this was a t Kharaghoda, near Ahmadabad, where the conditions seemed unusually favorable. Large quantities of salt are made from the local brine and the climate is so hot and dry that crystals of magnesium chloride form when the bitterns are .allowed to evaporate in the sun and cool overnight. A factory was erected in which the concentrated liquors were boiled down .and about 8000 tons of fused magnesium chloride were sold between 1916 and 1923. The cost of production, however, was too high to meet competition with the imported article, and the .factory has now closed.
Oil Pressing After salt making, oil pressing is the most important indigenous chemical industry. Although a number of factories using ;modern machinery have been erected, a large proportion of the . oil pressed in India is obtained by means of the ghani, a large .mortar of more or less conical form made of wood or stone. The pestle is connected t o a framework t o which bulls or camels can be harnessed, and this is weighted so as to press the lower part of the pestle against the side of the mortar. The seeds are put in the ghani and the animals walk round and round until the oil .separates. I n some cases the oil runs out from a hole in the bottom; in others the whole mass is removed and the oil separated by straining. The owners of the ghanis know very exactly the best conditions for pressing different kinds of seeds; usually a definite quantity of water is added, but for some seeds a sugar : solution gives improved results. With care, the ghani will produce a good quality oil and a cake . containing 8 per cent of oil, or even less, but usually the oil . content of the cake is 10 to 12 per cent and sometimes much higher, and the oil is frequently dirty. It is very difficult to estimate the quantity of oil expressed annually in India in ghanis, as the consumption is almost entirely local. The number must be very large as they are to be . seen in nearly every village in the oil-seed growing districts, but the output is very small per mill as each ghani can handle only 60 pounds of seeds per day. I t has been estimated2 that the ghanis in the Bombay Presidency are capable of crushing 125
. t
74 9
tons of seeds per day of 12 hours. On this basis, and taking into consideration the fact that working is not continuous throughout the year, it is probable that the weight of seeds crushed annually in the whole of India by this method is in the neighborhood of 300,000 tons. The country ghani is in many ways uneconomical and its output is small. Recently, however, power-driven ghanis have been introduced in considerable numbers. These are made of iron and the pestle is fixed except for a rotational motion around its axis, while the mortar is turned around, usually by an oil engine. These machines will treat 5 cwt. of seeds per 12-hour day, the capital cost is low, and the quality of the oil, if reasonable care is taken, is very good. The total output from these machines may be taken as approaching that of the country ghanis.
Scraping Salt a t Tuticorin
The other indigenous chemical industries are of minor importance when compared with those already mentioned and want of space precludes anything but a brief reference to them.
Saltpeter The production and refining of saltpeter has been fully described by H ~ o p e r ,Leather ~ and M ~ k e r j i ,and ~ Hutchinson.s I t suffices here to explain that the material is extracted from the soil in certain districts and the crude product containing from 30 to 55 per cent of potassium nitrate is sent to a refinery which raises the percentage t o about 94 per cent. The quantity produced in 1918 reached 25,000 tons, but or'dinarily it is much less, about 10,000 tons.
Shellac The manufacture of shellac is an industry peculiar to India, and it is remarkable that, in spite of the many defects in the product manufactured by indigenous methods, no really satisfactory substitute has been found. At the time of the last census (1921) there were 151 lac factories employing some 10,000 hands.
Essential Oils Essential oils are produced in considerable quantity but any estimate of this quantity is exceedingly difficult to form. The indigenous method consists in boiling the raw material with water in a copper vessel and passing the distillate through a bamboo tube into an earthenware pot which is cooled in water. As might be expected, the product is of bad color and the yield is poor, while the daily outturn per still is exceedingly small. Nevertheless, the oils find a ready market and in many cases are exported. The more important oils thus manufactured are lemon grass, sandalwood, rusa, and ginger grass. Rosewater is also produced
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* Yuill, Dept
of Industries, Bombay, Bull. 3 (1921).
3
A g r L e d g e r , 12, 17 (1905). Bull. Agr. Res Inst. Pusa, 1911, No. 24. I b t d . , 1916, N o 68
I-VD USTRIAL AND EYGI-VEERING CHEMISTRY
750
in large quantities, but very little attar or pure essential oil is obtained and what is made is usually in the form of a mixture with sandalwood oil, as i t is a common practice to distil mixed raw materials. Similarly, there is a considerable outturn of omum water from ajowan, but no attempt is made to obtain thymol. A number of perfumes are made, particularly in Northern India, and the art of enfleurage has been practiced from quite ancient times, jasmine being one of the chief flowers to be treated by this process, but usually the whole of the scented material is used and the essential oil is not isolated.
Dyes
Vol. 18, No. 7
account for some of the failures which accompanied the industrial boom following the war. The extent to which chemical industries on western lines have succeeded may be roughly gaged by the following brief survey:
Iron The largest concery in the country, the Tata Iron and Steel Company with its associated companies, scarcely belongs to the class of chemical industries and, moreover, any adequate description would occupy more space than is a t present available. It must suffice, therefore, to mention that, in spite of supplies of raw materials which are possibly unequaled anywhere in the world and a plant into which every modern improvement has been introduced, the company finds it impossible to continue operations without a substantial bounty from the Government.
Finally, mention must be made of the indigenous dyes, which have a -great reputation for beauty and fastness. It is a little difticult t o ascertain the basis upon w h i c h this reputation rests, for a comparison with Lead modem dyes is distinctly unfavorable to the former. The A n o t h e r important metalextensive use of indigo and lurgical product is lead, which madder is probably to a large is m a n u f a c t u r e d in Burma. extent responsible for the idea The annual output is of the that all the vegetable dyes are order of 40,000 tons and that of fast, in spite of the fact that the silver associated with the many of them, such as anatto, a lead 4,000,000 ounces, in addivery favorite dye, are quite the tion to which a certain quantity reverse. of copper is also produced. The preparation c a l l s f o r It is remarkable that up to little comment from a chemical the present time it has not been point of view, as i t usually confound commercially practicable sists merely in grinding the apto utilize the very large acpropriate part of the plant. In c u m u l a t i o n s of zinc concensome cases, notably that of trates either for the production indigo, fermentation forms part of zinc or of sulfuric acid. An Oil Mill a t Kriehnagui of the process, and it would be experimental zinc plant has, interesting to know what led to however, quite recently been the discovery of this dye and to the by-no-means simple method erected and may lead to developments. of using i t for dyeing. Gold Imported Industries The other main metallurgical industry OR modern lines is the On turning to what may be called imported industries, it is a t once evident that conditions are totally different from those production of gold in Mysore. This is in the hands of a group of companies under English management and the mines are rewhich prevail in the indigenous industries. This subject has markable for their depth, one being the second deepest in the been dealt with elsewhere by the author a t greater length,6 world. The annual production amounts to some 400,000 ounces but it may be well to recapitulate the main features. and the companies are in a prosperous condition. I n the first place, most of the population is not interested in goods made by modern processes, with the solitary exceptions of Wood Distillation cloth, kerosene oil, and matches, and where chemical products Another venture of fair magnitude is the wood distillation and are concerned the demand is restricted to an exceedingly small section of the community concentrated to a certain extent in large charcoal iron plant of the Mysore Government. This plant has towns separated by great distances. In spite of this, owing to the been erected on American lines and numerous difficulties have magnitude of the population the total demand is in many cases been encountered in adapting it to Indian conditions. Further very considerable. The problem is, therefore, largely one of dis- troubles have arisen due to the quality and availability of raw tribution, Numerous articles are required in sufficiently large materials which, although plentiful, are difficult of access because of the hilly nature of the country. Another adverse factor is quantities to maintain a medium or even a large sized factory, if such a factory could supply the whole of India, but the freight the long distance the products have to be carried by rail. As a charges are so heavy that, with one or two possible exceptions, i t result the concern has not yet succeeded in paying a dividend. would be difficult to compete with imported articles landed a t the Mineral Oil nearest port. If several smaller factories are contemplated, the Turning to more purely chemical concerns, first place must be overhead charges, particularly for technical management, become excessive. This item is of considerable moment even where given to the production and refining of mineral oil and the manubigger schemes are concerned, as imported experts require a facture of by-products such as paraffin wax and greases. The far higher salary than they do in their own country. A third annual output of crude oil in Burma amounts to nearly 300 difficulty is fuel, since the coal-bearing area is comparatively small, million gallons and within the last decade appreciable quantities and another is the difficulty of obtaining raw materials in suffi- have also been obtained in Assam and the Punjab. Kerosene oil is one of the few modem products which has become almost cient quantities. These are by no means all the problems which confront a universally used in India, although the employment of vegetable would-be manufacturer, but they are the more important and oils for burning has by no means died out. The demand is in consequence very large and the local production suffices only 6 J . Indian Znsl. Sci., 6, 223 (1921).
INDUSTRIAL A S D ENGINEERING CHEMIXTR Y
July, 1926
for about 70 per cent of the total consumption. The manufacturing processes are on more or less standard lines and call for no comment. Vegetable Oils Of the chemical industries not connected with mining that of oil pressing on western lines has developed to the largest extent. A large factory was recently erected on the West Coast in the center of the coconut district with the object of pressing and exporting oil in bulk. Its design, however, was too generous and it was found impossible to obtain sufficient raw material for continuous operation, while the cost of the oil was as high and the quality not superior to that of the oil produced locally in rotary ghanis. Consequently, i t has for the present been found necessary to suspend pressing operations and the sole product is a highly refined oil for edible purposes. Less ambitious schemes have, however, met with a greater measure of success and some two hundred oil mills equipped with machinery are in operation. This figure includes a large number of power-driven ghanis, and many of the others consist of a single expeller, so that the actual number of real factories is very small. Bengal is the center of the industry and there is a large company in Burma. It is difficult to estimate the total quantity of oil produced, but i t is probably of the order of 300,000 tons per annum, of which about 100,000 tons "are exported. The great obstacle to the development of this industry is the fact that the local market for cake is very limited, so that it is necessary to export cake as well as oil and the extra cost of packing the oil as compared with the original seeds counterbalances any saving arising from the cheapness of local crushing.
Soap There are about a dozen soap factories which produke a boiled soap of good quality. They are, however, small and the average output is only 1 or 2 tons a day from each. One larger factory has recently been started in Calcutta. As the annual imports of soap amount to some 15,000 tons, it is rather remarkable that this industry has not made greater headway. I n addition to soap of good quality quite an appreciable quantity of very lowgrade material is made by the cold process, chiefly on the West Coast where manufacture is carried on as a cottage industry. Owing to its low price it finds a ready sale. Glycerol is not usually recovered, except in one or two factories which have installed concentrating plants.
751
from cane. It is a common practice in these factories to crush cane when it is available and to refine gur during the off season. The yield of refined sugar from gur averages 57 per cent in South India and 52 per cent in the North. There are two main difficulties in the way of the establishment of large sugar factories in India. The first is that in many places gur is preferred to refined sugar, so that the demand is greater than the supply and any attempt to utilize a large quantity of cane for making sugar would raise the price of gur and consequently that of the cane. Even now there is a very fine margin between the value of gur based on its sugar content and refined sugar as such. I n spite of its large production, India has to import annually about 700,000 tons of sugar, and it seems more rational to import refined sugar and consume the gur rather than to produce refined sugar and import gur which might not suit local taste. The second difficulty is the assurance of a sufficient and suitable supply of cane to maintain a large factory. Under the present system of small holdings, and also owing t o the indebtedness of the farmers, such a supply is almost impossible to obtain and the only solution appears to be to acquire a large tract of land and farm it. It was largely owing to this second cause that the sugar corporation, formed a few years ago with a considerable capital, considered it inadvisable to start operations.
Alcohol There are about twenty distilleries of appreciable size and a similar number of breweries. The former produce country spirits and a fair quantity of 86 per cent alcohol which is denatured with pyridine and caoutchoucine, an oil obtained by distilling rubber. A number of much smaller concerns exist, but these confine themselves to the production of spirits for human consumption.
Cement The manufacture of cement in rotary kilns has recently developed to a considerable extent. Raw materials are plentiful and of good quality, but in most cases the high rates which have t o be paid for freight on fuel are an adverse factor. The production, which was practically negligible ten years ago, has now risen t o some 250,000 tons, and the productive capacity is largely in excess of the demand since it has so far not been found possible to compete with English cement a t the large ports which are the chief consumers. Inland, Indian cement is used to a larger extent than the imported article, but owing to intense internal competition the price at which i t is sold is unremunerative and Indian manufacturers have recently applied for a bounty to assist them to compete with foreign cement. This has not been granted and it is probable that several factories will have to shut down.
Sugar As already mentioned, the output of refined sugar is insignificant when compared with the total quantity made in the form of gur; nevertheless, regarded by itself i t forms a very appreciable amount. Eighteen sugar refineries were in operation in 1923, half of which were located in the United Provinces. The total output amounted to 75,000 tons, of which 50,000 tons were made from gur or imported crude sugar and the rest directly
Salt Pans a t Tuticorin
One of the most interesting collections of distilleries is t o be found in Hyderabad, where a large number of stills worked by different owners are all assembled in one large compound for the purpose of revenue control. These vary in type from the most primitive to the most modern. They use mainly mahua flowers as raw material and attempts are being made to turn out a motor fuel similar to Natalite. Many of the distilleries compress carbon dioxide, for which there is a large demand for making soda water. Heavy Chemicals Sulfuric acid is made in six or seven factories, all of them small when judged by western standards. It is used in largest quantity for the manufacture of superphosphate, for pickling iron sheets, and for oil refining. The raw material is invariably imported sulfur. In 1918 the total output, including the acid made
I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING C H E M I S T R Y
752
at the government cordite factory, rose to 15,000 tons calculated It is now considerably less. Small quantities of nitric and hydrochloric acids are also produced for local consumption and still smaller quantities of pure acids, but these are turned out in many cases by what may be termed “laboratory methods.” A number of miscellaneous chemicals were made during the war, the more important of which from the point of view of quantity were alum, alumina ferric, ammonia solution, ammonium sulfate, carbon bisulfide, copper sulfate, ether, ferrous sulfate, litharge, magnesium sulfate and chloride, potassium sulfate, red lead, and sodium hydroxide, sulfate, and thiosulfate. With the exception of the magnesium salts and caustic soda, the output of each of the above was under 2 tons a day. Since 1920 the outputs have diminished considerably and in some cases manufacture has ceased altogether. Paints Although about 20,000 tons of paint are imported into India annually and certain raw materials such as linseed oil, barytes, and ochres are plentiful, paint manufacture has made little headway. This is largely due to the intense competition in this industry and the fact that the main demand is for very cheap low-grade material of a variety of shades. There are two fairsized factories in Calcutta and a small quantity of white lead is now being made in Bangalore. It is possible that when trade conditions improve further developments will take place.
as 100 per cent acid.
Drugs Opium and quinine and certain allied products are made a t the government factories at Ghazipur and Neduvattam. The output of opium is decreasing considerably and is now about 16,000 cwt. as against an average of 25,000 cwt. for the years 1913 to 1918. Essential Oils As already mentioned, the distillation of essential oils is one of India’s oldest industries, but i t is not until quite recently that modern methods have been adopted. Sandalwood oil is one of the most valuable of the Indian oils, as the true sandalwood tree, Santalum album, is not to be found in appreciable quantity
Vol. 18, No. 7
anywhere else in the world. Most of the wood was formerly exported, but in 1916, as a result of experiments carried out at t h e Indian Institute of Science, the Mysore Government erected an experimental factory on modern lines a t Bangalore. This was soon followed by a larger factory at Mysore, and in these two factories the greater part of the world’s supply of genuine sandalwood oil is now distilled. A few of the older factories in British India have adopted plants similar to that used in Mysore and are producing high-grade oil, and two are distilling a variety of other oils, of which cinnamon, clove, cardamom, vetivert, and patchouli are the more important. Appreciable quantities of thymol are also manufactured. Turpentine and rosin are made by the factories a t Jallo and Bhowali in the Punjab, which were originally started by the government but have now been handed over to a private company. Conclusion This brief list includes practically the whole of India’s imported chemical industries and it discloses the lamentable fact that, with the exception of the mining industries and certain concerns in Burma, the only venture of any magnitude which has so far been a distinct success is the manufacture of sandalwood oil. This is undoubtedly due to the monopoly enjoyed by the producers and the particularly favorable conditions under which the distillation was started. The larger concerns have so far been unable to contend against outside competition, and a perusal of the balance sheets of many of the other companies shows very small profit and sometimes a loss. So far, the class of industry which seems to have met with most success is that in which power-driven machinery has been introduced as an aid to the indigenous methods, the most conspicuous example of this being in oil pressing. This is a natural line of development and the establishment of small factories of this class is becoming a frequent occurrence. The future of the large factory is uncertain. The present unsatisfactory state of affairs is no doubt due largely to the depressed trade conditions now prevailing, and it seems likely that, some day, parts of India will develop industrially on more or less western lines, but how far off that day may be the future alone can tell.
The Practical Aspects of Research’ By G . J. F i n k
Report
of the Director of the
National Lime Association Laboratories presented at the Eighth Annual Convention the National Lime Association, French Lick, Ind., June I O , 1926
ESEARCH is always found in both the vanguard and the rear guard of sound and successful promotion of any product. As one of the advance forces it must develop information and data by means of which new roads are opened in attack and with which safe bulwarks of facts may be built up in defense. Behind the lines i t must be continuously bringing up new forces and ammunition in the form of further or different facts and results, and must be building up a reserve of new uses, methods, or processes to be rushed up as the original forces become out-of-date and useless or to be held in reserve as a defense against counter attacks. Men and forces engaged in promotion should not be compelled to rely entirely upon precedent. It is helpful to be able to tell a contractor or architect that his fellow contractor or architect in a neighboring city used or specified lime in the concrete for a certain famous job. But we will be still better armed and fortified and much more effective if we can demonstrate clearly
R
1
Received May 27, 1926.
of
and concisely just why lime improves concrete. The research department serves and should be utilized as the storehouse of such information as is already available relative to these problems and it proposes and should be expected to develop required data when they do not already exist. To paraphrase a recent editorial,2 i t may be said that the scientific research man and lawyer fight back to back, the researcher looking forward, the lawyer looking backward. Laws and legal decisions are founded largely upon precedent and lawyers are guided by precedent. Science, however, must be based upon verifiable facts and it is the task of the research man both to present and verify existing facts and to establish or uncover new ones. Then, having the,facts, we can proceed to the formulation of the fundamental principles involved. The use of lime involves operations all of which are governed by scientific principles and laws, and hence the success of any promotion efforts or of any organization such as this must 2
THISJOURNAL, 18, 442 (1926).