July, 1918
T H E J O C R - V A L O F I N D U S T R I A L A N D ELVGINEERING C H E M I S T R Y
585
INDUSTRIAL NOTES Statistics compiled by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce show that’nearly twice as much sulfuric acid was produced in the United States in 1917 as 1913, which is taken as a normal before-the-war-period. Contracts have been awarded by the Ordnance Department for the establishment of two large picric. acid plants a t Little Rock, Ark., and Brunswick, Ga. It is expected that the Little Rock plant will be in operation in September 1918. These will be the first Government-controlled picric acid plants to be established in this country. How z,ooo,ooo gallons a year of cymene which is now going to waste in the manufacture of paper pulp can be used to produce a line of dye colors very close in their properties t o aniline dyes has been worked out in the Color Investigations Laboratory of the Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture. This is the first and very important result of extensive research, investigation, and experimentation conducted in this laboratory under the direction of Dr. H . D. Gibbs. Paul Wenger and Co., 35 Nassau Street, New York City, well known in the metal trade, have opened a chemical branch in which they will act as buyers, sellers, exporters, and importers. They intend eventually to enter into the manufacture of chemicals and drugs. Charles W. Buck, who up to now has been manager of the Cooperative Drug Company, a t South Norwalk, Corm., has been appointed manager of the new plant. The Cobwell Corporation will have completed in Cleveland within the next 35 days a plant of 2 5 to 3j tons’ daily capacity handling garbage, butcher’s offal, and dead animals. This will be of most modern construction and will incorporate all of the newest features covered by the patents of Raymond Wells including a complete equipment for the manufacture of alcohol as an additional product. This plant has been undertaken as a large scale demonstration and experimental plant and will be open a t any time t o those interested in the business or its development. On June 2 the J. K. Mosser Tanning Company’s plant at Noxen, twenty-five miles from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was destroyed by fire. The loss is estimated a t $3,000,000. The cause of the fire is believed t o have been due to crossed wires in the hair-drying room. The plant was controlled by Armourand Co. For the first quarter of 1918 the metalliferous production of the Province of Ontario was $~j’,gog,aoo,a gain of $2,315,000 over the same period last year. Gold production amounted t o 113,387 ounces, and of that amount the Hollinger mines contributed 68,804 ounces, or a little more than half of the total. The increase was principally silver, owing t o the higher price obtained. Gold, on the other hand, in the aggregate fell off, owing to labor difficulties. The three months’ silver total was $3,740,000, against $2,831,000 in 1917. Total gold production fell from $2,6u1,000 to $2,265,000. Nickel and copper show a small decrease. Hollinger is now producing gold a t the rate of approximately $6,000,000 annually. H.Koppers Company announce that they have been awarded a contract by the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company for the construction of a by-product coke plant of 300 ovens. This plant will have a carbonizing capacity of approximately 2,000,000 tons per year, and will replace beehive coking capacity t o that amount. The plant will be complete in every respect, and will be equipped for the recovery of ammonia in the form of ammonium sulfate, of tar, and of benzol and toluol as pure products. The ammonium sulfate and pure toluol from this plant will be sold t o the Government for war purposes. The steel company proposes to use the gas in its steel plant operations. It has also been announced recently that H. Koppers Company are to build two more batteries of by-product ovens for the plant of the Steel Corporation a t Clairton, Pa. This will give the Steel Corporation a plant of 748 ovens which, when completed, will be the largest by-product coke plant in the world. The plant of the Illinois Steel Co., Gary, Ind., which has recently added 140 Koppers ovens t o its original installation of 560 ovens, is a t present the largest by-product coke oven plant in the world. The War Industries Board has announced that a commodity section on medicines and medical supplies has been created, with Lieut. Col. F. F. Simpson as its chief. The work of this section will be closely coordinated with that of the Chemical Division. This new section will deal incidently with chemicals as they enter into medical compounds, preparations, etc., and will work in conjunction with the section of the Chemical Division dealing with fine chemicals and bulk medicinal chemicals.
Any doubt about the status of the steel industry in relation t o the Government was cleared away Friday, May 24, a t the annual meeting and banquet of the American Iron and Steel Institute. A good index to the situation was furnished by Judge E. H. Gary, representing the steel interests; Charles M. Schwab, representing the Emergency Fleet Corporation; and J. Leonard Replogle, director of steel supplies for the Government. The steel manufacturers pledged their support to the Government to the extent of IOO per cent of their respective outputs. They also agreed that steel would be allotted to consumers in order of the importance of its use for national purposes, the judge being the director of the steel supply. Preference is now given to shipbuilding steel, following which in importance comes shell steel, and then steel rails. Mr. Replogle has announced that to fill the Government’s demands will require the entire capacity of the steel mills for a t least a year. The prospects of manufacturers engaged upon other than Government work keep growing dimmer, though producers are anxious to aid them so far as possible. Steel for Japan has begun to go forward. Already 20,ooo tons have been shipped from the Pacific Coast, and the balance, 155,000 tons still due, will follow later. The Independent Filter Press Company has removed from 47 West 34th Street, New York City, to 418 Third Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y . Like most other countries Japan has suffered from the shortage of dyes and chemicals due to the European War. Prior to the war, Japan imported annually dyes valued a t $3, joo,ooo, nearly all of which came from Germany. As most of these‘ dyes were used in the important textile industries of Japan and prices had been advancing by leaps and bounds, the Government passed a law in 1915 providing for the grant of subsidies to companies engaged in the manufacture of dyes (including aniline salt, aniline dyes, alizarine dyes, and synthetic indigo) and chemicals in Japan, and requiring that more than half of the capital of any such company be subscribed by Japanese subjects. The amount of the subsidy t o be granted is sufficient to enable the companies to pay a dividend of 8 per cent per annum on their paid-up capital. The subsidies are for a period of ten years from the date of the promulgation of the law. Medicines or perfumery specified by Imperial Ordinance, manufactured from by-products of coal tar, are regarded as manufactured dyes and chemicals. The manufacture of the materials of gunpowder and explosives and of certain medicines, to be determined by Imperial Ordinance, are also regarded as the manufacture of dyes and chemicals. One of the results which attended the efforts made by the Japanese Government to solve the dyestuff problem was the formation of the Japan Dyestuff Manufacturing Company, Ltd., with a capital of 8,000,000 yen (about $4,9oo,ooo), subsidized by the Government. The War Department authorizes the statement that operations in the Government’s new powder plants near Charleston, W. Va., and Nashville, Tenn., have begun two months ahead of schedule. The Nashville plant started June 5, and the These plants will produce Charleston plant started June 1 2 . sulfuric and nitric acids. The capacity of these two plants is expected to equal that of all the other American smokeless powder plants combined. At a meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute on May 3 , awards of $500 from the Carnegie Research Fund were made to Mr. George Patchin, of London, an associate of the Royal School of Mines, and formerly head of the metallurgical department of Birkbeck College, to enable him to pursue research on “Semisteel and its heat treatment;” to Mr. Samuel L. Hoyt, U. S . A., to enable him t o study “The foreign inclusions in steel, their occurrence and identification;” and to Professor J. A. Van den Broek, of the University of Michigan, for research work on “The elastic properties of steel and alloys.” During May nine new companies were organized for the manufacture of drugs, chemicals, and dyestuffs. The aggregate for the entire war period now stands a t $378,987,000. The figures for May compare with eighteen concerns formed in April for an aggregate capitalization of $3,980,000. The average incorporation per company in May was $133,333. This figure compares with $22 I , I I I in April and $439,838 in March. Two war companies were created during May. They were the Swift Aircraft Manufacturihg Company with an authorized capital of $~O,OOO, and the United States Ammunition Company, The addition of these two with a capitalization of $Z,~OO,OOO. concerns brings the total of investments in this industry up to $269,625,000.
