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T H E J O URiVA L O F I N D GS T R I A L ALVD E X G I X E E R I S G C H E M I S T R Y
BRITISH PIG IRON EXPORTS The exports of pig and puddled iron from the United Kingdom in August were 95,925 tons as compared with 73,450 tons in August 191.5, and 28,401 tons in August 1914, and, in these totals, pig of all kinds figured for 95,655, 73?283 and 28,342 tons, respectively. The aggregate exports for the first eight months of this year were 67j,221 tons as against 319,721 tons for the corresponding period of 1915 and 615,297 tons for the same period in 1914. The largest export of pig iron t o any one country has been made this year to France which took 390,584 tons to August 31, as compared with 45,57r tons in the first eight months of 1914. The great increase in French demands is, of course, due to the occupation of the northern French metallurgical districts by German troops. Italy imported 91,276 tons from Britain as compared with 47,610 and 64,672 tons for eight months of the years 1915 and 1914~respectively, while the United States took sh,647 tons to August 31 as com6 9 For 1915 and x914.-M. pared with 42,354 and ~ 7 ~ 6 tons
DUTCH TAR AND DYESTUFFS INDUSTRIES Ther'Gas World states that in Holland there are two small tar distilleries and three coal-tar dye works which depended on Germany for supplies of material. When war broke out, the German Government permitted the export of dyestuff material into Holland up to 50 per cent of the normal amount and, after October 1915, up to 75 per cent. In January last, however, owing to the rate oi' exchange and the method of payment, there \vas a considerable rise in the price and it was resolved to organize a Dutch coal-tar d y e industry. A company has been formed to cooperate with the Xaarden chemical works and a beginning has been made, confined so far to the manufacture of aniline oil. There is a difficulty in obtaining chemists trained in the industry. Meanwhile, Holland has prohibited the export of tar and tar residues and also materials containing phosphotic acid. --M . SPELTER OUTPUT According t o statistics, the output of speller in Great Britain is small, being only one-fifth of that annually produced in Germany, the largest European producer. The annual production for the last ten years has remained steadily between 50,000 and 60,000 tons. I n 1913, Great Britain produced 58,200 tons or 6 per cent of the world's output compared with 56,300 tons in 1912. Germany is the largest producer of zinc, the output for 1913 being about 280,000 tons, while Belgium produced 200,000 tons.-AI,
NUTRIENT VALUE OF EDIBLE OILS At a recent meeting of the French Academy of Medicine, M. E. Maurel, of Toulouse, speaking of the shortage of homeproduced fats in France (which he estimated a t 60,000 metric tons), recommended that colonial oils such as groundnut, coconut, sesamum and cottonseed should be used as substitutes. Owing t o the high price of butter, the first two of these are already in use t o some extent, but a certain part of the population considers that these oils are not suitable as articles of food. The difficulty is to get the general public to believe that these fatty substances have just as much nutrient value as ordinary fats and butter. Mr. Maurel showed that the calorific value of groundnut oil is practically the same as that of olive oil or nut oil and that coconut oil has about the same calorific value as animal fats, lard or butter.--M. OZONE GENERATOR On behalf of a new laboratory apparatus brought out by Messrs. Ozonair, Ltd., London, says the Times Engineering Supplement, the claim is made that it will produce ozone of a strength hitherto unobtainable in a commercial appliance. It is stated that by its use 16 g. of ozone per cu. m. of air (8,000 parts per I,OOO,OOO by volume) are readily obtained, or in other words, about 6 per cent of the oxygen of the air can be ozonized. The apparatus is fitted with a large cooling surface for the dissipation of the heat produced during the process and is enclosed in a lead-lined tank cooled by water for low concentrations and preferably by a freezing mixture for the higher ones. Its capacity a t the highest concentrations is about 2112 liters of ozonized air a minute, but a much larger volume is available a t lower concentrations, The efficiency is about 25 g. of ozone per kw. a t the high concentrations. If desired for the purpose of accurate estimation a special test meter can be furnished to measure the volume of air passed. Its large dial is marked for a total of IO liters, divided into tenths of a liter and there are three smaller dials registering a total of 10,ooo liters, Dia!s graduated in cubic feet can also be obtained.--M.
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BRITISH BOARD OF TRADE During the month of October, the British Board of Trade received inquiries from firms in the United Kingdom and abroad regarding sources of supply for the following articles Firms which may be able to supply information regarding these things are requested to communicate with the Director of the Gommercial Intelligence Branch, Board of Trade, 73 Basinghall St., London, E. C.
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Aniline dyes, suitable for copying ink Barrels for oil Brushes, quill for artists and marking Buttons, metal or celluloid, with Rag designs
MACHIKBRY AND PLANT: Automatic bottle machinery Grinding machines for razors and pocket-knife blades Automatic machines for casting lead and lead alloys Collapsible tube-making machin-
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CHEM:CALS: Arsenite of soda Fluoride of aluminum, chemically pure with small water content Fluoride of calcium Nitrobenzol Nitrophenol Aluminum phosphate, chemically pure and free from lime Thiazol Cellulose acetate, 2nd quality Phosphorus red Resorcin Potassium permanganate Lead sulfate
China-pots for ointments Combs, hair, horn or substitute thereof Cutlery Flint-ilass bottles X-ray plates Leather cloth
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"Cone-paper'' manufacturing m a chinery Pencil (chalk and slate) nlsking machinery Marbles, porcelain Mineral teeth Mouthpieces, vulcanite for tobacco Milkpg7:der OILS:
Edible refined rape oil Linseed oil Pharmaceutical castor oil Sweet refined castor oil Paints, bronze blue dry color for printing inks Razors. safetv Pins safety Steei-spring for taking machines Steel rustless for cutlery Stoves, oil with R in. and 10 in. wicks Vacuum cotTee extract pans and pumps for making
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SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES
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THE DECENNIAL INDEX TO CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS In vicix of the fact that the price of the Decennial Index to Chemical Abstracts to nlemlers of the American Chemical Society is to be $12 per copy instead of $10 to {hose who have not subscribed up to the end of the current year, it seems desirable once morc to call attention to this index and especially to the increase in price that is sosn to be made. In addition to the fact that a saving IS to be accomplished by subscribing
before January I , 1917, it is also to be noted that the decision as to the number of copies to be issued must be made early in 1917 and that this decision must he made on the basis of the number of subscriptions a t hand. To delay will be to run a risk of not getting a copy, In the December 10th number of Clzemicel Abslrects there will be published a complete list of subscribers to date, If your name is not on that list and you want a copy of the index it would be well to send your order
Dec., 1916
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
a t once to Chemical Abstracts, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. The above prices apply to copies bound in paper. Subscribers will be given an opportunity later to secure specially bound volumes (there will be four volumes) by paying enough extra t o cover cost. Specific information regarding this will be sent to subscribers when available. The fol1o)ving information regarding the nature of the index is taken from a “Preliminary Statement with Reference to the Decennial Index to Chemical Abstracts,” which was made in a dummy that was prepared for the American Chemical Society’s booth a t the Second National Exposition of Chemical Industries. “Although the collective author index will closely resemble the annual author indexes to Chemical Abstracts, the collective subject index has been greatly changed. The innovations have been made with the purpose of adding to the usefulness of the index and to its time-saving qualities. Special attention is called to the following features of the subject index: (I) “It is to be a subject index in the strictest sense of the word, not an index of ‘words’ or of ‘titles.’ Subjects are being indexed from the body of abstracts as well as from their titles and the selection of subjects to be indexed (this is checked by a second and sometimes a third person, along with other checking) is made on the basis of the meaning and not of the words which happen to be used in expressing it, as is very often the case in indexing. Special efforts are being made to insure consistency and to avoid the scattering of like subjects due to the fact that the idea is differently expressed. (2) “The entries under a given heading are to be printed in entry-a-line form with the idea considered to be the most important brought to the front of the modifying phrase; these phrases are to be alphabeted. This will result in the intimate grouping of similar subjects and will bring the most important parts of the entries into a vertical line, which should be a great help in examining a subject, especially if a particular phase of it only is being sought. (3) “The references are to be not only to the volume and page but also to the fraction of a page (ninths) in which the subject being indexed is first considered. For example, if the reference reads 3 : 320g7, the subject is to be found in the 7th ninth of page 3208 of Volume 3. By placing the fore or the middle finger one-third of the distance from the top of the printed matter on the page and the thumb one-third of the distance from the bottom, a procedure very easily carried out, i t % possible readily to estimate ninths of a page with considerable accuracy. I n the above example, then, the subject indexed would be found on or just below the line opposite the thumb. This scheme is going to save a great deal of time, especially in cases in which the subject indexed has been selected from the body of a n abstract and therefore cannot be located without reading down the page to the point of occurrence. (4) “All new compounds and those for which new data are given are t o be entered in the index. In order to facilitate the location of organic compounds these are to be indexed on the basis of parent compounds with a systematic order of radicals. This means that dinitrophenol and trinitrophenol, for example, $1 both appear in the same part of the index under the headings Phenol, dinitro-’ and ‘Ppnol, trinitro-,’ respectively, rather than one being under D’ and the other under ‘T.’ The many difficulties of such a method and the need of great care in carrying it out are ihoroughly realized. The indexing of the organic section of Chemical Abstracts is in the hands of Dr. Austin M. Patterson, who is preeminently fitted t o take care of this work and to produce a result which will be a great improvement over the ordinary type of organic subject index. “It may be said in general of the collective index that although not all of the imperfections of the old or other known systems of indexing will be removed, the new features, which will ensure thoroughness and convenience in use, the precautions which are being taken for the sake of consistency and accuracy, and the fact that Chemical Abstracts itself has covered the field of chemistry with a near approach to completeness, will make it an unusually valuable compilation. “The index will be published as soon as possible. It is desirable, however, to call attention t o the fact that it is going t o take a very great amount of time carefully to index, according to the scheme outlined above, the 1g0,ooo abstracts which will have appeared a t the end of 1916. In consideration of consistency, so important in indexing, and of certain other features
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of indexing, the best accomplishment of which is dependent on long experience, it is considered unwise to permit certain time-consuming features of the work to be done by anyone other than the few available workers of long experience in the office of Chemical Abstracts, so that we desire to ask for patience as regards the appearance of the index.” E. J..CRANE OHIOSTATE UNIVERSITY COLUMBUS, November 1, 1916
Editor Chemzcal Abstracts
ADJOURNED MEETING AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY WITH THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 26 TO 30, 1916 A t the ATewYork Meeting of the American Chemical Society it was voted to adjourn the meeting then being held to meet with the American Association for the -4dvancement of Science during Convocatio’n Week, the week following Christmas, 1916. It was voted that the meeting be held with Section C of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in S e w York City. The main part of the program of the adjourned meeting will be a symposium on “Atomic Structure,” in which it is hoped that Section B (Physics) will also take part. The meeting will be under the direction of the officers of Section C, of which Prof. Julius Stieglitz is chairman and Dr. John Johnston, secretary. All papers and all correspondence with reference to the meeting should be sent to Dr. John Johnston, Geophysical Laboratory, Washington, D. C.
RESULTS OF FURTHERCOOPERATIVE WORK ON THE DETERMlNATION OF SULFUR IN PYRITES’ By H. C. MOORS Received October 20, 1916
In the summer of 1914,after reaching the conclusion that a reasonable agreement in results of sulfur analysis reported by different laboratories, even when working on portions of the same ground sample, was quite unusual, the writer decided to investigate the cause of such discrepancies. The condition had become quite persistent and casual investigations had thrown but little light on the matter. It usually appeared that all laboratories claimed to have followed apparently practically the same details of analysis. The matter became serious, and arguments and disputes over the results of analysis submitted by the referee chemists for pyrites shipments were numerous. Allen and Johnston,Z Folin,3 and others had previously pointed out certain precautioris which must be observed when following any modification of the Lunge Method in order that even in the hands of the same analyst, concordant results might be obtained. It was apparent, therefore, that either these precautions were not generally heeded or else other causes were also contributing to errors in analysis. The best plan to follow seemed to be that of cooperative work on carefully prepared samples. Accordingly, two samples, ground to pass Wmesh, were carefully prepared, separately, thoroughly mixed, and sealed portions sent t o a number of laboratories who expressed a desire to participate in the work. Results were recieved from 17 laboratories, and a complete report was presented before the Fertilizer Division at the meeting of The American Chemical Society a t New Orleans, in 1915.~ Formerly, the Lunge Method, with many modifications, had been used almost without exception for the determination of sulfur in pyrites, and the same method was used by most of the laboratories participating in the aforementioned work, the results of which disclosed many sources of error, mostly 1 Presented a t the 53rd Meeting of the American Chemical Society, New York City, September 25 t o 30, 1916. 2 J . A m . Chem. Soc., May 1910, June 1911; THISJOURNAL, 2 (1910),
196.
* J . Bid. Chem., 1 (1906), No. 273. (THISJOURNAL,7 (1915), 643.
