February, 1923
INDUXTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
209
PARIS LETTER B y CHARLFSLORMAND, 4 Avenue de I’Observatoire, Paris, France
NITROGEN AND FERTILIZER NEEDS
The deficient harvest, especially in wheat, which we have had this year, has made it necessary for us to insure our needs for the coming season. The consumption of nitrogen in France before the war was 78,000 tons (measured in nitrogen) per year. A consumption of 125,000 tons is estimated for the year 1923. The annual production is only 19,000 tons (about 55,000 tons of ammonium sulfate), and the production of 36,000 tons by the Haber process at Toulouse will only be realized by 1924 a t the earliest. I n view of these conditions the French government made a contract with the German government to obtain from them deliveries of ammonium sulfate by virtue of the reparations, in conformance with the agreements of Wiesbaden. These contracts have not been fulfilled. Purthermore, the French government has offered in exchange deliveries of phosphate fertilizer, but here again without success. The mission in charge of these negotiations included in its .membership Eugene Roux, director of the Sanitary and Scientific Service of the Ministry of Agriculture. We obtained from him, on his return from Berlin, the reasons given by the German government for not accepting this delivery of nitrogen. In general, they use for fertilizer, one part of nitrogen and two parts of phosphorus. Before the war, for example, Germany used annually 210,000 tons of nitrogen and 610,000 tons of phosphoric acid. I n order not to deliver nitrogen to France, she consumed in 1922, 340,000 tons of nitrogen, and will even reach in 1923, 500,000 tons. In other words, she is going to use equal quantities of nitrogen and phosphoric acid. Professor Wagner, an eminent agronomist of Darmstadt, has for a long time been pointing out the danger of this measure, which will result fatally in two or three years with a total diminution of yield. When Frederick I1 committed unlawful arts, he claimed that he acted first and that he found professors of law afterwards to legitimize his act. It is the same in Germany now, for the German government has found two professors, Areboe and Wrangel, who, contrary to all the other agronomists of the world, sustain this theory and are carrying on experiments to legitimize this squandering of nitrogen. I n this same realm of nitrogen, an interesting study has just been made by Maze, of Pasteur Institute. It is known that one of the principal reasons why cyanamide is rejected by agriculturists is its toxicity to the plant. Maze has shown that it is possible to entirely remove this toxicity by mixing the cyanamide with peat. A fermentation process which he has studied, permits the use of this cyanamide-peat mixture as a fertilizer without any harmful action to the plant.
SEASONING OF WOOD One.oE the great difficulties of the wood industry lies in the seasoning. Wood is difficult to dry because the small cellules deep in the wood remain alive for a long time and a living cell does not easily lose its water; it can only lose i t through plasmolysis under the action of a gas or a vapor which kills the cellule. Maurer has subjected some fresh wood to the vapors of benzene in an autoclave. He obtained in this way the death of the cellule and under the action of hot air the drying of this wood then took place very rapidly.
LOUISPASTEURCENTENNIAL On the 27th of December, 1822, was born a t DMe, a small village in the Jura mountains, Louis Pasteur, whose centenary France is going to celebrate in 1923. The official ceremonies will take place in the month of June, but meetings have already begun this year which France wishes to place under the protection of Pasteur. Although the most celebrated works of his relate to the field of biology, we chemists cannot forget that Pasteur was at first of our profession. He was an assistant chemical worker at the Ecole Normale Superieure when he published his works on the unsymmetrical molecule. At that time a great problem revolutionized the sciencethat was the enigma of Mitscherlich. Para-tartaric acid (now
known as racemic acid), although having the same percentage composition as tartaric acid, did not act in the same manner under polarized light. Pasteur explained this anomaly-as a physicist, thanks to his profound knowledge of crystallography, he mechanically separated the right crystals and the left crystals of tartaric acid; as a chemist, he separated the right acidyand the left acid in the tartrates of cinchonine, and having found that that separation of the right and left acids could be effected by fermentation, he thus introduced biology. ATot mentioning his works on medical biology, we cannot forget that to him we owe the fermentation industries-lactic acid, vinegar, wine, beer. He was the real founder of biological chemistry, and the disciples which he won, and who worked at the Pasteur Institute, are continuing his work. This work is great, not only because of the results achieved, but also in the field which it has covered, and we Frenchmen are proud to see Pasteur the benefactor of all humanity which claims him. At the ceremonies which preceded the visit to the tomb of Pasteur, Dr. Albert Calmettes, assistant director of the Pasteur Institute after having summed up his work, said: Pasteur has saved, by his discoveries, millions of human lives. It is sufficient, in giving an account, to compare the former mortality by contagious maladies with the present mortality. Starting from 1885, i t is stated, for all the nations, in spite of wars, there has been a progressive increase in the average duration of human life. Where fifty years ago, two persons died, per thousand population, only one dies now. At the middle of the last century, every person fifteen years of age could look forward to only thirty-six years of life, he now has an average of forty-eight ahead of him,
The progress in the domain of hygiene is also greatly due to Pasteur. Unfortunately, in our country of low birthrate, we do not apply enough the information furnished by science and the laboratories. Leon Bernard, professor of hygiene at the Facult6 de Medecine of Paris, has just returned from a visit to the United States, and he has published a report of what he has seen. The organization of hygienic service in America is absolutely perfect, especially from a point of view of the organization of the laboratories and the extent of the research which is being pursued. The average mortality in America is less than that in France, and that statement in the country of Pasteur is not one to be proud of. The government expects to take advantage of this year consecrated to Pasteur by conducting a lively campaign in behalf of hygiene, and also to interest the public in regard to the needs of the laboratories-that is, to encourage scientific research which the young generations, driven by the necessities of life, are unfortunately abandoning more and more. December 28, 1922
Schedule of Trip of President E. C. Franklin The following schedule has been arranged for a speaking trip for President Franklin. In most cases his subject will be “The Ammonia System of Compounds-Experimentally Illustrated.” Los Angeles, Calif. Houston, Texas New Orleans, La. Nashville, Tenn. St. Louis, Mo. Pittsburgh, Pa. Morgantown, W. Va. Maryland Boston, Mass. New York, N. Y. Philadelphia, Pa. New Jersey Lehigh Valley Rochester, N. Y . Syracuse, N. Y. Cwsell, N . Y.
March 16 March 19 March 21 March 32 March 24 March 26 March 27 March 29 April 9 April 11 April 12 April 13 April 14 April 16 April 17 April 18-19
Buffalo, N. Y. Akron, Ohio Cleveland, Ohio Detroit, Mich. Ann Arbor, Mich. Midland, Mich. East Lansing, Mich. Notre Dame, Ind. Lafayette, Ind. Urbana, Ill. Evanston, Ill. Milwaukee, Wis. Madison, Wis. Iowa City, Ia. Ames, Ia. Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.
April 21 April 23 April 24 April 25 April 26 April 27 April 30 May 1 May 2 May 4 May 7 May 8 May 9 May 11 May 14 May 18-17
