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Economic Aspects of Chemical Distribution’ Williams Haynes2 CHl3MICAL
MARKETS. 25
SPRUCE
ITHIIi the half century from 1875 to 1925 the number of persons in the United States engaged in the sale and delivery of goods increased by 50 per cent. Along with this great increase in personnel other items of marketing costs-packing, transporting, storing, and financing-have all risen to a point where the expense of distribution is actually greater than the cost of manufacture. So unbalanced an economic situation is sure eventually to be righted; and it is quite logical, therefore, to find that marketing methods and policies are radically changing. As a result distributing problems are today a chief concern of industry. No group of econoinic goods is more diversified than chemicals. Comprising such extremes as veratine sulfate sold by the ounce and copper sulfate delivered in carload lots, chemicals reach a wide range of consumers of most diverse types through a great variety of trade channels. Even a single chemical has commonly many different uses and is often marketed by different men and methods. Copper sulfate is a t once an agricultural insecticide and a raw material of the electrical, tanning, printing, textile, paint, paper, and chemical industries, while it is used also as a laboratory reagent, a medicine, a hair dye, a wood preservative, and a water purifier. Methylene blue is a dye and a medicine; carbon tetrachloride is a solvent and a fire extinguisher; calcium chloride is used in refrigerating machines and on the roads to lay dust; ethylene glycol is sold to the manufacturers of dynamite and of fruit flavors; sulfuric acid proverbially plays a part in every modern industry. This multiplicity of chemical consuming fields makes the chemical marketing problem extremely complex. Naturally enough, commercial practice divides and subdivides the chemical group of products; but before considering these various systems of distribution upon the workaday basis of trade custom, it will be useful t o lay down the broader economic aspects of marketing. In the chemical industry the problem of sales has loomed so large that it overshadows almost completely the other distributing functions. The volume of sales so immediately affects profits and the measure of sales is so directly upon the dollars and cents scale that quite naturally they rivet the executive’s attention. Moreover, competition is focused a t the point of sale in a way that insistently emphasizes the sales function so that it is apt to assume an undue importance. In this way “marketing” has come to mean “selling,” although the function of sale is but a single part of the distributing operations of the industry. For as the economic purpose of manufacturing is to increase the form utility of goods, so the service of marketing is to give to goods greater utilities of time and place. Sulfur a t the mine in Texas and aniline oil a t the plant in Xew Jersey must be brought to the factory in Ohio before they can be compounded in rubber to be used in fabricating automobile tires. Plainly this involves more, much more, than the actual act of selling these industrial raw materials to the rubber company’s purchasing agent; and just because this single act of sale is likely to usurp our attention it is especially important, during a period when the entire distributing system of the industry is under critical examination, to keep in mind all of the acts and services involved. Received March 28, 1928. Markets.
a Publisher of Chemical
ST.,N E W
YORK,
N. Y.
Functions of Marketing
Because marketing practice varies greatly among groups of industries there is considerable difference of opinion among economists as to the definition and classification of these marketing functions. Although the authorities do not always use these same terms, there is, however, pretty general agreement upon the following: (1) assemblying, (2) storing, (3) grading, (4) dividing, (5) transporting, (6) packing, (7) selling, (8) financing, and (9) risking. Assemblying is the “seeking out of sources,” the “making of business connections whereby commodities may be bought,” the “study of market conditions so that goods may be bought a t the lowest price and upon the best terms.” Assemblying is plainly connected with industrial buying-i. e., the purchase of chemicals, or other raw materials, or equipment at the plant for further manufacture. The purchase of chemicals by the jobber or chemical merchant for resale is also assemblying. The purchase of chemicals in bulk to be repacked in smaller containers for retail resale is assemblying, but the purchase of bicarbonate of soda or oxalic acid a t the drug store by the ultimate consumer is not assemblying. In other words, all assemblying is buying; but not all buying is assemblying. Although buying is the broader term, its common usage does not quite convey the idea of assemblying, and we get a more concrete conception of the functions both of the industrial purchasing agent (buying for remanufacture) and of the jobber (buying for resale) if we distinguish their work as assemblying. Obviously, the buying done by the chemical industry itself is wholly of an assemblying character, while its selling is almost exclusively the converse since few chemicals reach the ultimate consumer direct. Storing, as a marketing function, is “the depositing and holding of products in some place where they may be obtained a t a future time.” Through its operation chemicals acquire time utility, and in the industry this may enhance value in two distinct ways. Supplies of chemicals stored a t the point of consumption are a great convenience to consumers, especially consumers who cannot buy in carlots. These spot stocks, as they are called in the trade, insure prompt delivery, and it is common to find them assembled a t all considerable industrial centers. Naturally the character of the local industries determines the chemicals to be stored, and we find dyestuffs, mordants, bleaches, etc., a t such textile centers as Fall River and Charlotte, while at Gloversville the stock will consist largely of tanning extracts, bate, leather dyes, etc. These local stocks may be carried in public warehouses for the account of either manufacturer or jobber, though a t the larger, more established centers, for economy’s sake the distributors usuaIly maintain their own storerooms. At New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, where large, fluctuating stocks of imported chemicals are brought in for nation-wide distribution, owing not only to the high rentals of storage space, but also t o greater convenience and economy in clearing imports, public bonded warehouses are more used. Chemical manufacturers also employ storing to extend the marketing time. During periods of curtailed chemical demand, since it is costly t o suspend chemical operations, many manufacturers elect to keep their plant running and to store the surplus production. Moreover, some chemicals
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have a highly seasonal sale, for which the manufacturer must prepare by storing adequate stocks to meet the heavy, short-time demand. The entire agricultural chemical group falls in this class, and this seasonal marketing is one of the most serious problems of the makers of fertilizers and insecticides. Calcium arsenate, stored a t various points throughout the cotton states to be available for prompt delivery should the boll weevil appear in the fields, is an extreme example of this highly uncertain, neck-of-the-bottle type of demand that can only be served through storage. I n conclusion, it should be noted that the prime requisite of proper storage is safety, including proper protection from water, cold, heat, fire, vermin, theft-factors which vary according to the chemical to be stored-and finally, that storage always involves cost, a cost properly allocated to the expensesof marketing. Grading has been termed “standardizing” by some marketing authorities, although it is perhaps more accurate to distinguish standardization as the drawing up of rules as to physical condition, size, chemical content, etc., while grading is the sorting of products according to these rules. I n the chemical industry much of the function of grading belongs rightly to production, since the quality of the finished product depends either upon the process employed or upon refining processes such as washing, recrystallization, filtration, fractional distillation, etc. Thus, while the standardization of chemicals is properly a marketing function-often a function directed or, in the case of medicinals, poisons, agricultural chemicals, closely controlled by law-the actual grading is more usually an integral part of production. This is in sharp contradistinction to the grading of many products, notably such agricultural commodities as eggs, oranges, or asparagus, where sorting and packing in the standardized units of the particular trade blend with the work of assemblying. Selling is the most studied, the most discussed, the most expensive, and to many executives the most important function of marketing chemicals. It involves (1)the creation of a demand; (2) informing the buyer of the kind, quality, and quantity of goods and the source of their supply; (3) the determination of price; and (4)agreement upon terms. Each step of this important operation must be considered in detail, but in passing it should be noted that, while technical aid or advice used to further sales is a part of informing the buyers, the services of credit and delivery belong properly, not to sales, but to the functions of financing-risking and of transportation. Dividing in certain specialized branches of the chemical industry is closely allied with assemblying. When a pharmaceutical house buys borax by the barrel to repack in halfpound tins or bottles a drum of carbon tetrachloride in twoounce containers, it is performing a series of purely marketing services (assemblying, dividing, packaging), which are, however, fundamentally different in purpose from those of the jobber or merchant who takes in a carlot shipment of these chemicals in barrels and drums as resells in these original containers to industrial consumers. Yet both of these operations are dividing. Transporting,as a part of marketing, is the physical moving of goods from the producer to the consumer, and like selling is so complicated and important a part of our system of distributing chemicals that it can only be treated in detail. Packing is one of the debatable functions of marketing. Goods are produced for sale, and some economists maintain that most commodities must be packed to be salable, and also that in numerous instances an appropriate or popular package actually increases the value of the goods packed in them. I n such cases they consider that packing is a part of produc-
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tion. Virtually all chemicals are only salable when in some sort of container. The sole notable exception is the shipment of bulk goods in tank or freight cars. However, but few chemicals are so packed that the container enhances their sales value. Both quantity and style of packing are naturally based on the requirements and convenience of the consumer; but such an extreme case as the perfume in a cut-crystal bottle that costs more than the liquid it encloses finds not even an approximate parallel. Although the cylinder for compressed gas, the steel barrel, even the crated carboy may actually be worth more than the materials they hold, nevertheless these comparatively costly containers are actually no part of the sale. The mere fact that they are charged to the purchaser, who is credited for their return, marks them sharply as being considered by both parties merely a means of transport. Our present marketing system is under critical fire. The growth of the big department stores, the mail order houses, the chain stores, and the effortsto eliminate all sorts of middlemen-jobbers, sales agents, commission men, brokers-are but different phases of the effort to cut marketing costs by simplifying the marketing process. Although in the sale of industrial raw materials opportunities to eliminate successive steps are of necessity somewhat limited, nevertheless similar simplification is being attempted in chemical fields. I n analyzing the present chemical marketing methods and studying suggestions for their improvement, it is essential to keep all the different marketing functions clearly in mind, for it is an economicfact that each of these functions represents a necessary operation or valuable service. Every one must be performed. Some of them must be performed several times. Different middlemen may perform the same function, but the elimination of any middleman will not ipsofacto eliminate his functions. It will merely transfer them to others. Peculiar Problems in Distribution of Chemicals
About 93 per cent of our total production of chemicals is consumed in industry and agriculture;, but this broad, almost exclusively indirect consumption of chemicals is not, from the marketing point of view, their most distinctive feature. Coal, iron and steel, copper, zinc and lead, wood, rubber-all enjoy widespread industrial markets; but none of them, as do chemicals, find their chief consuming field right within their own industry. It has been estimated that 70 per cent of all chemicals are consumed in the operations of the chemical industry itself. This figure includes chemicals sold for use in further chemical processes and chemicals consumed in operations within the plant of their origin. Obviously, such estimates are at best only approximations of the familiar fact that “the chemical industry is its own best customer.” Quite contrary to the usual classification of commodities upon the basis of use, the channels of chemical distributing have been from the producer to the consumer. Silk, wool, and cotton, for example, are all caught up and flow together to the consumer through textile industry and dry-goods trade. Dyes, bleaches, mordants, soaps, on the other hand, will reach the textile mill each from different sources of supply, while the chemical plant producing caustic soda, liquid chlorine, and soda ash distributes each of these products through different channels to scores of consuming fields. These intricacies of chemical distribution arise from two causes: first, most chemicals have many uses in many widely different industrial fields; second, practically all chemical plants produce a number of different products. The producer of trisodium phosphate finds important outlets at tanneries and sugar refineries, launderies, makers of water softeners and boiler compounds, photographic developers,
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and pharmaceutical manufacturers-a fairly cosmopolitan group of industrial customers. If he also makes disodium phosphate, which is probable, he will also seU to the potteries, to the dyestuff makers, to the textile printing trade, to makers of baking powder and self-rising flour, to the paint mixers. Complexities such as these are inevitable. Obviously, they do not simplify the marketing problems of the chemical industry, although this extreme diversity of uses does have a favorable effect in spreading demand evenly throughout all seasons of the year and steadying the market during periods of fluctuating business activity. As in other fields, the marketing system of the chemical industry has expanded and diversified with the growth of our population and the development of American industries. I n the past it has been successively modi6ed to meet changing conditions in consuming fields. Today chemical distribution is plainly in a transition and exhibits a variety of selling organizations operating under different plans and policies. Development of Selling Agencies
The original distributive organization was commonly based upon the selling agent, who was taken over, often bodily, by the youthful American chemical industry from the foreign manufacturers, These sales agents were our first chemical firms. At Atlantic seaports-chiefly, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston-they carried stocks of imported chemicals, trading sometimes as merchants on their own account, but more often acting as representatives of foreign producers. They acquired expert understanding of market conditions, a good practical working knowledge of the industrial uses of chemicals and close personal contact with chemical consumers. They were admirably equipped to serve a chemical manufacturer, and as soon as an American producer was in a position to compete effectively with imported materials, they struck this familiar bargain. The young manufacturer was glad to choose the easiest way, especially since it relieved him of most of his selling problems and left him free to perfect his plant operations; the distributor is always forced to get his supplies as cheaply and quickly as possible. As the country expanded industrially, there sprang up similar selling agencies a t the different centers of manufacturing activity. They served the local demand by maintaining a stock of all industrial chemicals for which there was a market in their territory; and while a t the beginning they bought their supplies from the general sales agents at the seaports, the more aggressive of them soon began to import direct and to buy in carload quantities from domestic manufacturers or through the general sales agents when they had contracts that gave them complete selling control over their manufacturers’ output. I n this manner the business of the general agents, who by this time were pretty well concentrated in Iiew York, would have shrunk to a local business in the metropolitan area, had not the tremendous industrial expansion following the Civil War brought the carload industrial buyer into the market. These big consumers demanded to buy from the general agent or manufacturer in carload quantities as cheaply as the local agent. The general agents welcomed such an arrangement, and throughout the heavy chemical group it came to be recognized that the manufacturer, or his direct sales agent, handled the carlot business, while the local distributors, either as agents or merchants, served the needs of the less-than-carload buyers in their own territory. To make up for the loss of this tonnage business the local distributor maintained his position by adding new lines of chemicals and by developing new outlets. Continually the chemical jobber has played the part of commercial missionary in the chemical development of the
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country. He has been forced constantly to introduce new chemicals and to instruct new chemical users. Always he has faced strong economic forces working against him as middleman and for the more direct distribution of chemicals from producer to consumer. Such quicker, cheaper methods have always been robbing him of his biggest and best customers. The great stimulation of all branches of chemical activity by the demands created by the World War has given further impetus to the more direct sale of chemicals, and not only has the general sales agent almost disappeared from the marketing organization, but manufacturers have invaded local markets with their own salesmen, establishing branch offices with warehouses to store spot stocks, so as to be able to handle direct even the less-than-carload business. Two important items in the cost of marketing have supported the local distributor in the face of this tendency. Industrial buyers, since the deflation of 1920-21, have kept inventories low by “hand-to-mouth purchasing.” Competition has forced store-door delivery and extra sales services upon sellers, Both these buying habits create costs which make it more difficult for a manufacturer to sell direct locally. The alkali group of chemicals is one with few products, sold in great tonnages, at a close margin or profit, to a wide variety of consumers. The possibility of direct sales through the manufacturer’s own marketing organization has been almost wholly dependent upon the volume of consumption and number of customers. Manufacturers of a varied line of industrial chemicals, however, have not been SO entirely limited by the natural growth of demand. They have been able at once to increase their volume and multiply the possible customers by adding new products to their line. When a chemical manufacturer has reached a volume of sales in a given territory that in his opinion justifies the costs of carrying stocks, of maintaining a branch office,of traveling and paying his own salesmen, of establishing local delivery service, of assuming local credit risks, he is then prone to shoulder for himself these functions which the local distributor assumes for his principals, He will take over these costs and obligate himself to perform these services in order to win the greater volume of business that comes from concentrated selling effort and the obvious benefits of direct contact with customers. Passing of the Broker
A collateral result of the tendency to simplify marketing has been the almost complete elimination of that old distributing servant, the broker. Even before the war he had slipped into a comparatively insignificant position. Market conditions during the war period created temporarily a very real need for the broker’s function of professional, public buying. Demand for chemicals so far outran supply that successful purchasing was mainly a scramble to locate available stocks of materials. Prices fluctuated quickly and violently, usually upward; and for spot supplies the seller’s price quotation on scores of important materials was “What will you pay?” Government requisitions, allotments to industries, and shipping regulations changed overnight. Transportation was demoralized and deliveries accordingly uncertain. Amid this market turmoil the broker flourished. His constant contacts with both buyers and sellers gave him an expert knowledge of available supplies and current prices, a knowledge which at that time was undoubtedly a practical economic necessity. But these fantastic war-time markets fairly bristled with temptations for the broker. Double commissions, collected from both buyer and seller; orders diverted to later, higher bidders; misrepresentations as to quality by sellers which the broker had neither the time nor the knowledge, nor possibly even the inclination, to
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verify, led to easy adulterations and eventually to substitutions; always the seductive chance to speculate by buying, not for a client, but for the broker’s own account-all these undermined the honest broker’s legitimate economic service. Such a sticky jampot drew a swarm of flies. Young men with just sufficient capital to rent office space and engage a typist reaped a golden harvest. Their heaviest expense was the telephone. Often they worked with two or three instruments on their desk, and their toll bills for long-distance calls were enormous. A few of them had had some chemical experience; but many of them had never even seen the caustic soda which they sold and resold in ton lots. Such an irresponsible and ignorant crew drove the brokerage business on the rocks. Their disgraceful dealings abroad brought disrepute upon the entire American chemical industry. Their sharp dealings a t home convinced both chemical makers and chemical consumers that just as soon as they might be dispensed with, the broker’s services were not needed in our chemical markets. They vanished during the deflation period of 1920 in an evil-smelling cloud of repudiated contracts and bad debts. In fact, they gave further impetus to the tendency toward direct dealing between producers and consumers. Despite this war-time abuse of the broker’s function, and in the face of the economic trend toward simplification, in some chemical fields the broker’s services are legitimate and useful. Accordingly, many chemical raw materials, usually the products of extractive industries or agriculture, often from foreign sources of supply, are largely purchased through brokers. The markets for such products as arsenic, phosphate rock, pyrites, mercury, chrome and other ores, vegetable oils, gums, resins, etc., fluctuate sharply. Stocks on hand, or afloat, or at primary markets; quotations on the spot or for future shipment; the current production or local crop conditions-a score of factors have so direct a bearing upon price and enter so largely into wise and skilful purchasing that consumers find it to their advantage to rely upon the expert advice of brokers who are in daily contact with the market. Moreover, shippers of these goods far from the consuming markets find the services of these brokers in bringing their goods to the buyers a true economic convenience. Finally, with the rising tide of our chemical exports, a growing brokerage business is being done for the account of foreign clients. Most of this trade is quite naturally gravitating to the old, well-established chemical houses, firms which as merchants and sales agents have detailed knowledge of American sources of chemical supply backed by a reputation for reliability. Specialized Local Markets Certain industries which consume large quantities of chemicals and which have concentrated their plants within a restricted area furnish a highly specialized local market. The paint and varnish industries of Cleveland and Detroit; the rubber industries of Akron; the leather industries of Gloversville, N. Y., are all served by dealers who specialize in filling their chemical requirements. The ideal conditions for such a specialized market combine demand for a wide variety of chemical products and consumption from a considerable number of small, prosperous factories. If the consuming units are very large, or if the industry takes in but a few chemicals, direct buying in carload shipments will predominate. Thus the paper, soap, and glass industries, although each has several well-marked centers of manufacturing activity, do not offer so great opportunities for local distributing, while an outstanding example of the specialized local market is furnished by the textile groups. In Boston, Providence, Fall River, Passaic, Philadelphia, Charlotte, and Greenville, and even at the smaller textile centers, there are chemical dealers who depend wholly upon this trade.
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They carry bleaches, mordants, soaps, sizes, dyes for silk, wool or cotton goods-whatever the local mills require. When the German dye manufacturers controlled the American situation, before the war, although several of them maintained branch offices in the United States with large staffs of expert salesmen and dye technicians, nevertheless their actual sales to the local mills were made largely through these local dye dealers. The boss dyer a t the mill was the dye buyer, and the Germans shrewdly sold this man through a local distributor who talked his own language, belonged to his own lodge, played with him, gave him Christmas presents, holding his business on a basis of personal friendship, and who, if need be, was an ideal paymaster for those more direct forms of commercial bribery which the Germans did not hesitate to employ. But these local dyestuff dealers still render a real service. For the smaller mills they do the work of testing colors, mixing dyes, matching shades. Thus they relieve the management of the direct expense and responsibility of maintaining their own laboratory in charge of their own chemist. They take most of the technical work and a great deal of the responsibility off the shoulders of the dyer, For these services and because of their great practical experience they continue to serve the textile industry. At the same time their close trade contacts enable them efficiently and economically to act as salesmen for the smaller dyestuff manufacturers. The larger dye makers, however, prefer to sell direct to the consumers, calling on them with their own sales force, rendering technical service through their own laboratories and their own chemical staffs. Some of them have made rather determined efforts to confine their dealings exclusively and directly to consumers, and so assure themselves that the user receives their dyes unblended and undiluted. At the same time this sales policy hampers the activities of the local dealers whose interests, as sellers for their smaller competitors, or foreign manufacturers, they feel to be antithetical to their own. This feeling on the part of the big dye manufacturers with fairly complete lines of colors for all purposes is correct enough in so far as it is to their advantage to sell dyes of known strength and tested shade under their own brand. For it is naturally to the advantage of the local dealer to sell a special, unbranded dye, with particular instructions and specific formulas for its use, to produce the given shade which he had been asked to match. He alone can immediately duplicate such an order, and by selling a given color effect, rather than a given dye, he is able to command premium prices. I n this manner the interests of the local dealer are cemented more firmly to the smaller dye maker and the dye importers who do not have a full line of colors enabling them to sell a mill its full requirements or at least to sell something to every dyehouse. These specialized dyestuff dealers are further encouraged by the many, various chemicals this industry consumes in great quantities. These soaps, bleaches, sizes, mordants, fillers, acids, finishing materials, all serve to round out his line and give him not only additional income, but also a competitive advantage over the dye manufacturer’s salesman who sells colors only. Nevertheless, even in this specialized field the trend toward more direct dealing between maker and user is notable, and it is significant that the General Dyestuffs Corporation-American representative of the German dye trust-expends much more direct sales effort than the individual German companies did before the war, a perfectly natural outcome of their consolidation into the I. G. cartel. Direct Buying us. t h e Local Distributor Such combinations of chemical production are equally as potent as the expansions of chemical consuming in widening the market for the individual chemical manufacturer. Both
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make it easier and more profitable for him to establish branch offices with warehouses and to call on the trade with his own salesmen. Both make it more practicable for him to control his own sales and accordingly they put increasing emphasis upon the importance of establishing his own trademarked brands. From the chemical manufacturer’s selfish point of view this is obviously the most satisfactory method of marketing. For the chemical consumer it gives an assurance of direct and final responsibility for both service and quality. Many buyers also get a psychological satisfaction in buying from the maker first hand. Against this form of business vanity, the local distributor pits the force of his own personality, his local financial and social connections.
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He stresses “service”-personal service-and the mounting costs of these services, including technical help, packing, truck delivery, and storage, with the close buying habits of many of the biggest consumers, give him his economic place in chemical marketing. Although the more direct type of chemical distributing cannot completely eliminate a single one of these necessary marketing functions, nevertheless it will prevail only if it can assuredly effect economies which will, in the long run, be shared to the greater profit of both producers and consumers. NOTE-The next article of this series will discuss chemical prices, giving a practical study in supply and demand with the basic considerations of price policies.
Effect of Alkali-Metal Compounds on Combustion’ Charles Allen Thomas and Carroll A. Hochwaltz THOMAS AND HOCHWALT LABORATORIES, 127 NORTH LUDLOW, DAYTON, OHIO
H E N a rather concentrated solution of sodium potassium carbonate and water is sprayed on burning gasoline, the flame momentarily turns a violet color and is then suddenly extinguished. This discorery by the authors prompted an exhaustive study of the effect upon combustion of various compounds in water solution. The results have been so startling that they are presented a t this time, even though no satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon has been found. For example, a 20per cent solution of potassium nitrate in water will extinguish an oil fire with greater ease than the same volume of carbon tetrachloride. To classify this phenomenon, the following facts should be borne in mind. Combustion is a chemical reaction, and obeys the general laws governing such reactions. The three essentials for maintaining combustion are fuel, oxygen, and a temDerature above some minimum, termed the “kindling Doint.” which is deDendent unon the nature and concentration of the fuel and the’ concentration of the oxygen. It is evid e n t t h a t removing one of these essentials will stop the r e a e t i o n . Combustion, like any other chemical reaction, is useful just as long as it is under control, and usually it is controllable as long as it is possible to stop the reaction by r e g u l a t i n g the fuel supply. M’hen conditions arise which render it impossible to stop the reaction by this means, combustion may then be considered to be out of control, and it becomes necessary to remove one of the other essentials in order to stop the reaction. The foregoing discussion develops the classical axiom of fire prevention-namely, that there are only two methods of Received April 2, 1928. General address presented at the 75th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, St. Louis, Mo., April 16 t o 19, 1928. Consulting chemists to the FyrFyter Company, Dayton, 0 hio 1
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extinguishing a fire out of control-first, to cool the burning material below its kindling point, or second, to exclude oxygen. Water is a representative medium for accomplishing the first of these results, and carbon tetrachloride the second. Water is effective on general fires, but will not cool on oil fire sufficiently to extinguish it. Carbon tetrachloride will blanket an oil fire, but is ineffective as a cooling agent for general fires. The discovery that a solution of sodium potassium carbonateextinguished a fire, apparentlyin some other way than either of the two classical methods, suggested the existence of a third method of inhibiting combustion, which for lack of a better understanding may be called “catalytic.” To continue the investigation of this property of extinguishing flames by “catalytic action,” it was necessary to develop an apparatus for measuring comparative values in a quantitative manner. The atmaratus finally devised is briefly de-. scribed below. Apparatus for Test Fire
I
B Figure 1--Apparatus for Standard Fire T e s t
I n the accompanying diagram, A is a metal hood which excludes drafts, and which is of a convenient size not so large as to defeat its purpose. The floor of the hood is equipped with a drain so that it may be cleaned by flushing with water. This also makes it convenient to reclaim expensive materials. The top of the hood is covered, except for the space (1) running the length of the hood which furnishes an up-draft for the test fire; (2) is an overhanging strip serving t o protect the front of the hood from drafts; (3) is an adjustable platform; (4) is the fire pan, which is made of light gage metal. A strip is cut from the front of the pan to allow the stream from the extinguisher to impinge upon the rear. A thermocouple is placed in the back of the pan and above the
