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T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D E N G I N E E R I N G C H E M I S T R Y .
papers. We are still polluting our streams with wool grease, still wonderTng whether we can make alcohol from waste molslsses, still buying coal without reference to heating power, and paying 65 cents a gallon for cylinder oil. When wastes so obvious and co easily remedied are everywhere taking heavy toll of our manufacturers, it is not surprising that in all lines of productive effort subtle and elusive problems present themselves and still further lower our industrial efficiency. Steel rails break by thousands, trolley wires snap, boilers corrode, milk-cans rust, unsightly bloom appears on leather, cloth is stained or tendered, paints fail to protect the metal underneath. I n a large proportion of cases, those who are confronted by the problem, have neither the time, the training, nor the equipment required for its solution, and yet such problems and thousands of others far more complex upon their face must be solved if our industrial efficiency is to be brought to its proper level. No one a t all conversant with the facts can doubt that our industrial salvation must be found in a closer alliance and co-operation between the scientific worker and the actual agencies of production. Such co-operation exists, as we are all beginning to learn, in Germany, and its results are evident throughout the world in the tremendous expansion of German industry. No one a t all familiar with the conditions under which thousands of American manufacturers are working can fail to realize the unique and fruitful opportunity which spreads out before the Laboratory nor can they doubt that the funds for its development will be forthcoming. Within the last few years there has opened out to the worker in applied chemistry a new horizon with a sweep so broad that it is seen to include far more than the mere material gains which come from more efficient effort. It has come to be recognized that the lives of great masses of the community are constricted and confined because our industrial efficiency as a people is still far below what it ought to be. I n this stage of our industrial development no agency is more directly available for increasing this efficiency than that afforded by chemistry as applied to industry. Every waste that is prevented or turned to profit, every specification which gives a better control of raw material, every problem solved, and every more effective process which is developed, makes for better living in the material sense and for more wholesome living in the higher sense.
It means much to the material and more to the higher well-being of German workmen that their nation now controls the coal-tar industries, the manufacture of fine chemicals, and the markets of the world in many other lines, chiefly as the result of the application of the scientific method to the problems of production. The general application of these methods will mean even more to our own ARTHUR D. LITTLE. country.
STANDARDIZED SAMPLES. IT is not a t all surprising that the subject of accuracy in chemical analysis is constantly undergoing discussion. As so much depends upon the analysts’ work, both in settlements for materials bought and sold and in the control of works’ processes, it would seem that almost anything within reason ought to be done to insure the accuracy of his results. At frequent intervals, papers appear dealing with the preparatory and technical training of the chemist, the formation of an Institute of Chemistry, the use of reagents of guaranteed composition, the calibration of weights and measuring instruments, and the development of new or improved analytical pro :ewes. In addition, much effort is expended in the endeavor to obtain uniform or official methods of analysis for use in certain industries. Experience has shown that the cooperative analysis of a given sample by a number of chemists serves only to call attention to the probable variations in results obtainable by men who strive for accuracy, but who work under such different conditions that non-concordant determinations are almost inevitable. As a means for developing better, and perhaps uniform, methods of analysis, it would be desirable to have a limited number of well trained men work out what they consider the best method available, with one or more optional methods in addition, and then put their analytical “scheme,” together with carefully standardized samples, in the hands of chemists a t large. An analyst of any degree of experience or skill could then practice with the standardized sample until he had perfected himself in the proposed method. This way of working brings splendid results with students of quantitative analysiswhy should it not be equally successful with chemists of greater maturity? The use of a standardized sample as a check
EDITORIALS.
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upon different chemists using the same method of analysis, upon the same chemist using different methods of analysis, and as an umpire sample in cases of dispute between analysts, will suggest themselves immediately. As a check upon original methods of analysis, enabling th: operator to determine with comparatively little effort the applicability and accuracy of his method, standardized samples are well worth their cost. In cases of disputed analytical results it would doubtless lead to a better agreement were both parties to analyze a standardized sample of the same kind of material and discover which is a t fault, rather than go through the usual process of submitting the original sample to a third party-who may be no more capable than the contending analysts-for anumpire analysis. Some ten or more years ago, a foundrymen’s association did a real service to the chemists of the iron and steel industry by preparing, with great care, a set of iron samples, having them analyzed by three or four chemists of recognized ability, and then selling these standardized samples a t a reasonable price. I n a recent number of Science (October 2 , 1908), Launcelot Andrews proposed that similar work, but on a much larger scale, be undertaken by the Bureau of Standards. He would have the Bureau furnish both substances used in the preparation of standard solutions and samples of raw materials or finished products. The Bureau of Standards has already prepared a number of standardized iron and steel samples which it sells a t fixed prices (THISJOURNAL, page 41) and has under consideration the preparation of special steel samples. The National Fertilizer Association has prepared and distributed four samples of phosphate rock which may now be considered to be standardized. The Committee on Analysis of Fats, Soaps and Glycerine, of the American Chemical Society, has prepared and distributed samples of the products which it has under consideration and these after analysis by experts may be considered as standardized. Thus, even up to the present time, some work on the preparation of standardized samples has been done. Even before Andrews’ paper appeared, the thought had occur:ed to some members of the American Chemical Society that this was a field which the Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry might do yeomen’s service. With a membership made up of representatives of almost all the chemical industries carried on in this country, with three publications of large circulation a t its disposal,
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and with the enthusiasm of youth to enable it to carry out successfully big undertakings, the Division ought to be in a position to prepare, standardize and distribute samples of materials for which there may be a demand. The expenses involved could be defrayed from the sale of the samples. Is the suggestion not well worth considering ? W. C. EBAUGH.
THE ROAD PROBLEM AND THE CHEMICAL ENGINEER. ONE of the most important problems of the day, which requires the consideration of those who are in charge of the construction and maint-nance of our highways, is that of how to meet the destructive effect of modern motor traffic. It has become one of such prominence that an International Road Congress was held in Paris in October last, on the initiative of the French Government, to consider the subject, at which twenty-five nations were represented by nearly twenty-three hundred delegates and individuals. It was surprising to find, as a result of the Congress, how little the chemical engineer and chemist have been utilized abroad in solving the problem, and that America is far in advance of other nations’in this respect. Nothing has been done abroad which in any way corresponds to the investigations carried out in the laboratory of the Office of Public Roads of the United States Department of Agriculture, and it is rumored that an effort has been made to interest it in an examination of the stone in use in the construction of roads in Great Britain. For a t least twenty years, American chemists have been engaged in the study of the native bitumens in the light of their application to the construction of pavements and roads, and it is interesting to note that the appreciation of their usefulness in this work has grown to such an extent that the services of a very considerable number are employed by municipalities and others in regulating the construction of pavements and the materials employed therein, as well as in investigating the character of the bitumens available for rendering macadam roadways more resistant to the attacks of motor travel. The field of usefulness is constantly increasing and widening, and the opportunity for accomplishing something by chemists in aiding to solve the road problem is large. CLIFFORDRICHARDSON.
