This is done by delivering the stream of molten slag to the action of a rotary feeder, driven a t a high rate of speed, the feeder members of which scrape or shear off extended portions of the stream of slag and project i t upward into the air. Simultaneously with the separation of the portions of slag from the main stream by the feeders, i t is subjected to the action of a small stream of water, which combines with the feeders to produce the granulating action. During its flight through the air, it cools and dries, so that it is deposited in a nearly dry granulated state. As may be seen from the accompanying illustration, the lower portion of the feeder wheel runs in a suitable trough or runner, the sides of which rise nearly t o the hub of the wheel. A guard bar, or shield, is arranged above the wheel. The trough, or runner, is approximately V-shaped in crosssection before it reaches the disintegrator, but broadens out t o a flat-bottom trough in t h a t portion which underlies the feeder blade. At a point approximately central t o the lowermost part of the trough, a wide, relatively thin water inlet communicates with the trough. The feeder wheel comprises a number of plates supporting rods, or bars, separated by a number of face blocks. ~ _ _ ~~
SOME INNOVATIONS IN T H E PAPER INDUSTRY Philip B. Sadtler, of the Swenson Evaporator Company, of Chicago, Ill., has pointed out that by employing a battery of blow tanks t o systematically wash the liquor out of the pulp, this may be accomplished with the least expenditure of water and the highest cleansing effect. This is, moreover, said t o be one of the best methods for eliminating the objectionable odor of the sulfate pulp mill. Pulp is blown under pressure from the digesters directly into the blow tanks, the battery being used in countercurrent system for washing. The small expenditure of water leaves a minimum of water to be evaporated. An idea which Mr. Sadtler has included in the design of the apparatus in the Chesapeake Pulp & Paper Company, a t West Point, Va., is the use of waste heat gases from the rotary black ash furnaces to produce the generation of steam in the boiler; this steam is then used to carry out the evaporation of the black liquor in the evaporator. This idea of employing waste heat from special furnaces to generate steam in boilers is a novelty, it is said, in the pulp field.
I
THE GAS AND ELECTRIC CONSUMPTION I N GREATER NEW YORK
The Coal and Coke Operator, 21, No. 11, 231, reports that there were 1,101,174 consumers of gas in Greater New York in 1912. The 13 different gas companies which make and sell this product made and bought during the year 55,542,488 cubic feet of gas, of which 47,775,188 cubic feet were sold to consumers. The Consolidated Gas Company had a total of 483,727 consumers, while the Brooklyn Union Gas Company had 361,845. , The electric companies generated and bought 702,174,871 kilowatt hours of electricity and sold j 18,294,646 kilowatt hours. The reports of the six electric companies serving Greater New York show that there were 229,758 active meters in operation; of these, the Xew York Edison Company had 168,814 active meters and the Edison Illuminating Company of Brooklyn 41,684. THE CONSUMPTION O F THORIUM IN THE UNITED STATES It is noted in the Chemiker-Zeitung, 37, KO. 77, 776, that the only company in the United States which produces thorium compounds from monazite sand is the Welsbach Company, of Gloucester City, N. J., although there are two or three other concerns which obtain thoria from waste Welsbach mantles. The mining of the monazite deposits in the Carolinas, which supplied 1 ~ / 1million pounds in 1912, has been discontinued, owing to the decrease in the import tax from 6 cents to 4 cents per pound. The number of gas mantle factories has diminished from 89, in 1909, t o 50, the most of which are found in the States of Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. I n alr, 65 million mantles are manufactured per year, of which 40 per cent are made by the Welsbach Company. The consumption of thorium compounds for this purpose amounts to about 220,ooo pounds, more than half of which is imported from Germany. The duty on thorium salts, gas mantles and spent mantles is 40 per cent of their’value. According to a report made by the General Gas Mantle Company, of Camden, N. J., the cost of 1,000incandescent gas mantles is $42 07 in New York, and the German manufacturers can sell the same for $42 jo, including the import tax.
SCIENTIFIC SOCI€TIC
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION O F ENGINEERING EDUCATION The twenty-first annual meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education was held a t the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, June 24 t o 26. Among the conspicuous features of the program as reported by Engineering Record, July 12, 1913, were a series of papers on the design and construction of buildings for technical schools, papers on hydraulic engineering education presented a t a joint session with the American Water Works Association, a symposium on highway engineering education, a paper by a representative of the Pennsylvania Railroad on cooperation between technical schools and the industries, and a paper by a prominent manufacturer advocating a movement in the direction of standardization of technical terms. Last year at the Boston meeting of the society a number of experts on scientific management showed that there was a connection between this subject and education. This year Director H . S.Person, of the Tuck School of Administration and Finance, Dartmouth College, was requested to apply the principles of scientific management t o college administration. I n doing so he showed that by functionalizing college work greater efficiency can be obtained than by present methods. The functions involved in education are teaching, administration, advising, and guiding non-classroom educative influences. -4s teachers
I
are not equally fitted for all functions, it is advisable to assign to each only those for which he is best adapted. At a session held jointly with the American Waterworks Association, Prof. D. W. Mead, of the University of Wisconsin, and 0. L . Waller, of the State College of Washington, read papers covering the preparation of young men as hydraulic engineers. The authors showed that the best preparation for a hydraulic engineer is that which will teach him to think. As Professor Mead stated, the value of any education is not so much in the acquirement of knowledge as in the ability to acquire it. He pointed out that the tendency of educational methods is to discourage the development of judgment, for the students are apt t o accept the dictum of their teacher as infallible and hence not subject to their critical inspection. Professors Sherman and Schlafly, of the Ohio State University, explained how their students are encouraged to get into commercial work in the summer time. If this is impracticable, the instructors take commercial contracts and employ the students as assistants. These “practical” summer surveying camps take the places of “practice” camps and are giving excellent results. Under this plan the students feel and.act more 1:ke engineers than under the old plan. Prof. F. P. McKibben, of Lehigh University. gave details of the experience of his students
