T H E J O U R N A L O F 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 Vol.
1036
Captain W. G. Gribbel, of the First Gas Regiment, has returned from active service in France to act as instructor in gas offense. Dr. Robert P. Fischelis, director of the control department of the H. K. Mulford Co., has entered the Chemical Warfare Service and is now stationed a t the control laboratory of the Gas Defense Plant, Long Island City, N. Y . Dr. A. D. Hirschfelder, of the University of Minnesota, is now with the Research Division of the Chemical Warfare Section and is stationed in Baltimore. Mr. G. W. Gray, of the Midland Refining Company, El Dorado, Kansas, has been appointed a director of the Bureau of Refining, Oil Division, U. S. Fuel Administration. Mr. Charles D. Test, formerly chemist for the Western Potash Works of Antioch, Nebraska, has accepted a position on the staff of the United States Tariff Commission. Mr. Otto Kress, formerly in charge of the research work in pulp and paper at the U. S.Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wis., is now director of the new technical dyestuffs laboratoryinthe dyestuffs sales department of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Wilmington, Del. Major Henry S. Spackman, of the Spackman Engineering Co., Philadelphia, has been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Engineers Corps, U. S. A.
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No.
12
Mr. John E. Schott, formerly an Industrial Fellow a t Mellon Institute, has accepted a position with the Experimental Division of the Hercules Powder Co., Kenvil, N. J. Mr. Phillip Wealey has been appointed manager in charge of the oxyhydrogen plant and sales office of the International Oxygen Co., Pittsburgh, Pa. Professor E. C. Franklin, of Stanford University, California, is on leave of absence and is engaged in research work for the Nitrate Division, Ordnance Department of the Army. This Division has taken over the experimental ammonia plant and laboratory which has been conducted near Washington by the Department of Agriculture. The work is in charge of R. 0. E. Davis and L. H. Greathouse. Mr. George Quelch, one of the staff engineers of the International Oxygen Co., New York, sailed recently for England to supervise the installation of a 460 cell plant of the I. 0. C. Unit Oxyhydrogen Generators for the British Admiralty. Dr. Alfred J. Larson, assistant professor of chemistry, Carleton College, Northfield, Minn., has been in the chemical service of the Government for a year and was recently commissioned Captain. Mr. F. K. Bezzenberger, OF Harvard University, has been commissioned Captain, and is stationed at Cleveland as gas chemist in the Chemical Warfare Service.
INDUSTRIAL NOTES The editorial office of PaPer and the office of the Secretary of the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry have moved to 131 East 23rd St., New York City. The Director of Munitions, Washington, has stopped the construction work a t the government air nitrate plant a t Ancor, near Cincinnati. Col. Joyes, who was in charge of the work, states that a study is being made to determine the best way to utilize these plants to meet the changed needs of the country.
A contact sulfuric acid plant will be located a t Grand Rapids, Mich. The plant is to be situated upon a tract of land which is the property of the United States Government and upon which a picric acid plant is now being erected. When in operation this plant will produce approximately 75,000 net tons per year. Arrangements have been made by the Subsistence Division of the Quartermaster’s Corps whereby the laboratories of the Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, throughout the United States are to be more fully utilized by the Army. The British Board of Trade Journal announces that as potash salts form an essential ingredient in glass making, the very great development which has taken place in the production of British glass would not have been possihle had not a parallel development in potash production also taken place. In view of the need of a permanent exposition of textile and allied industries, a site a t San Gines, in the suburbs of Barcelona, Spain, near Catalonia, the center of the textile industries, has been chosen for an imposing edifice for the exposition. The scope of the exposition as planned is both practical and theoretical. Work has recently been commenced a t the salt mines a t Buurse, Holland, which is near the German frontier. Previously all the salt for household and industrial needs in the Netherlands was imported from Germany and when these importations stopped there was a great shortage of the commodity. At a conference on the American potash situation, held October 15 in the office of William Wallace Mein, assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture, in charge of fertilizer control, i t was stated that the view of the Department of Agriculture is that the Government should do all that is possible to encourage the production of potash from the cheapest sources in this country in order to enable the farmers to obtain i t a t a low price, because foreign supplies are now unavailable. Predictions made a year ago that the deposits of tungsten ore or wolframite in South China would prove to be one of the most important additions to the world’s supply of this ore, have been amply fulfilled in the development of the industry. Shipments of the ore from Hongkong alone have totaled $1,831,590 gold in value so far for the current year. I
Arrangements have been made by the Conservation and Reclamation Division of the Quartermaster’s Corps to take over the disposition and reclamation of waste materials a t ordnance depots and arsenals which were heretofore handled by the Ordnance Department. An order has been issued by the Chief of Ordnance directing that all waste products a t ordnance stations be turned over to the Conservation and Reclamation officers. Equipment will be installed at the Picatinney Arsenal for the reclamation of empty cast iron and steel shells. A very fine deposit of kaolin, the fusion point of which is about 3500 F., has been discovered in northeastern Oklahoma by W. T. Croslin, president and chief engineer of the Southwestern Light and Power Transport Co., Miami, Okla. The first concrete ship built in China, a small ferro-concrete vessel named Concrete, was taken out on trial recently and proved very satisfactory in every way, especially as i t was found to be easy to handle.
Due to the difficulties in the shipping situation, England is now utilizing domestic waste material such as fen grass, reed, lumber trimmings, and straw in the manufacture of paper. Dr. Charles S.Venable, formerly gas chemist a t the American University, Washington, is now a captain in the Development Division of the Chemical Warfare Service doing gas offense work in Cleveland. The largest plant in the world for the manufacture of ammonium nitrate with which to fill high explosive shells is located at Perryville, Md. This government plant which is of concrete construction has all been built since ,March 4, 1918,and began operations on July 26. It consists of two distinct operating units with a capacity of 300 tons of ammonium nitrate daily, A special commission spent a month studying ammonium nitrate production in England and planned a plant closely resembling the British works. Proctor & Gamble, soap manufacturers of Cincinnati, have offered to run the New York City garbage plant on Staten Island in order to obtain the I,OOO,OOOlbs. of glycerin which can be produced there. Artificial rubber has been made in an experimental way for many years, but i t is now reported that the great dye and color works at Elberfeld, Germany, are erecting a large factory for the production of synthetic methyl rubber on a large scale. Secretary Lane of the Department of the Interior says: “The United States does not need German potash. Germany has thought that she had a whip-hand over America because of her supply of this material, but America can in two years become entirely independent of Germany by the development of her own deposits and the use of the process devised by Dr. Cottrell of this department.”
