Sept, 191j
T H E J O C R X A L OF I N D C S T R I A L A N D ENGI,VEERING C H E M I S T R Y
913
INDUSTRIAL NOTES The Barrett Company, Frankford, Philadelphia, have given a contract for the erection of a one-story reinforced concrete building, to cost about S40,000, for the manufacture of coal-tar byproducts.
It is reported from England t h a t the discovery of a new method of nitrogen fisation from the air has been made by a British subject and t h a t a plant for the manufacture of nitrogenous products from this nitrogen is in process of construction at Manchester, England, and should be working within six months. Sational considerations preclude details being given a t present, b u t i t is believed t h a t with this process nitrogen can be “fixed” anywhere in England a t a very loiv cost and with the highest efficiency ever achieved by a n y nitrogen fixation process. The International Nitrogen & Power Co., 8 IVaterloo Place, London, hold the exclusive rights t o work the process in Great Britain. Sarco Company, Inc., of New York, have received orders for temperature regulators for each of the sixteen cantonment camps, as well as for the Selfridge Aviation Field, near Mount Clernens, Mich., and the League Island Navy Yard a t Philadelphia. .kccording t o T h e Chemical Technology the third balance sheet of the S i p p o n Dyestuff Manufacturing Company shows a total loss of about 30,000 yen. The Government subsidy, however, is about 120,000 yen.
A new celluloid-like product called “Satolite” has been invented by Mr. S.Sato, assistant professor in Sendai University, and The Satolite Company has been established with a capitol of 2,000,ooo yen (about Sr,ooo,ooo). Satolite is a galalith made of glucine of soya bean coagulated by formaline. It is said t o be produced much cheaper than ordinary celluloid and to have more merits in its use than the latter. The factory is to be built a t hIukojima and the actual manufacturing will begin this autumn. The Grasselli Chemical Company, Cleveland, O., has entered the manufacture of high esplosives by the incorporation under Ohio laws of the Grasselli Powder Company, a Sj,ooo,oooconcern, which will take over the Akrnerican High Esplosives C o . , the Burton Powder Co., and the Cameron Powder Manufacturing Co. M r . Job Burton, of Pittsburgh, now president of the Burton Powder Co., will be the president of the new organization.
I-ovk Joairtrul of Coiizmerce a n d CotiiI t is Ttateci in the rnercial Bzilleii?? of July 30tl1, that a simple process for manufacturing nitric acid direct from coal gas, or other gases, by compression and subsequent explosion, has been applied in Germany with success. Experiments conducted before the war by Prof. Haeusser on waste gases from coke ovens demonstrated its practicability and the method has since been developed to meet war conditions. Further details are given in the nboi-e reference. The du Pont Company have formally announced their entrance into the dye industry, and i t is expected t h a t the dye plant being h i l t a t Deepwater Point, h’. J., adjoining the Company’s chemical department, will be ready for business in n few months. T h e du Potit Company announce the opening of their dyestuff sales department for S e w England, a t Turk’s Head Building, Providence, R . I., with George AI. Snow, manager, and Charles H. Hudson, assistant manager. The Kitrogen Fixation Corporation has been incorporated in S e w York by Messrs. J. F . A . Comstedt, J . R . Rubin and S. M. Weil, with a capital of SI,OOO,OOO, t o manufacture chemicals and allied specialties. According to the Sezie Freie Presse there have been great developments in the Austrian chemical industry during the war, Calcium nitrate and nitric acid are new industries, founded on the utilization of nitrogen from the air. Sulfuric acid plants have been extended and new factories set up for the manufacture of benzene, toluene, glycerin, acetone and chlorine.
Manufacturing will begin immediately in the new belt factory of the Chas. 8 . Schieren Company, of New York City, built as a n addition t o its tannery at Bristol, Tennessee. The buildings are entirely completed and the equipment of machinery is being installed for the manufacture of the machine belts, the greater portion of which will be shipped to southern plants. A working force sufficient t o produce 24,000 lineal feet of belting daily will be employed a t the start and gradually added to, as skilled help can be secured, until the full capacity of the plant, j0,ooO feet daily, is reached. Charles Engelhard, 30 Church St., S e w York City, is now producing a new Pyrometer tube, corresponding to the Marquardt Mass imported tubes. The Solvay Process Company, Syracuse, N . Y . , have issued a new edition of their Blue Book entitled “Solvay Alkali,” owing t o the popularity of the preceding edition as a ready reference book. The book deals with the various forms and uses of alkali and contains notes on alkalimetry and various chemical and commercial tables useful to the consumer. U3th a view to the development of the British chemical industry after the war, in consequence of the capture of the German trade, the Council of the Liverpool Cniversity Committee has formed an advisory committee consisting of four members of the chemical staff of the Cniversity and sis members representing Brunner-hlond, Gossages, Crosfields, Salt Union, United Alkali, Lever Brothers, and Castner-Kellner. The Research Corporation. organized under the laws of N e w York State and under the auspices of the: Smithsonian Institution, announces the establishment of a n annual fellowship open t o general competition for the purpose of encouraging and assisting scientist.. in the prosecution of their inwstigations. The competition for the first scholarship is to be decided before December 1st by a jury consisting of the presidents of the National Academy of Science?. the American Chemical Society and the Research Corporation, and the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The fellowship runs lor one year, but may lie extended by the Corporation lor two renewals of one year each, in exceptional cases, upon the recommendation of the jury, T o the successful competitor the Corporation ofiers :in honorarium of 5 2 ,j o o and their assistance in securing the privilege of laboratories specially adapted for the particular work. Discoveries or inventions which the fellow may make are to he deemed his personal property. The Research Corporation was organized as cuitodians of the Cottrell patenti on the electrical precipitation of suspended particles, the profits from which must be applied to the advancement of wientific reiearch and investigation. The Senate, on -1ugust Ioth, passed the Pittman Bill authorizing the exploration for a n d the disposition of potash and other chemical resources in Searles Lake, California, and other portions of the public. domain. The liill provides t h a t the Sccrctary of the Interior shall be authorized under regulation5 to i)e prescribed by him to grant to applicants a prospecting permit which shall give the exclusive right to 1)rospect for chlorides. sulfates, carbonates, borates, silicates or nitrates of potassium, or borates, carbonates or nitrates of sodium, or borates of calcium or associated salts in “lands of the Vniteti States not known to contain valuable deposits of the kinds aliove described,” for a period of not exceeding two years, provided t h a t the area shall not exceed 2 , j 6 0 acres. Should such discoveries be made the permitter shall be entitled to a potent of 640 acres. The bill also contains provisions for leasing the properties. Every lease shall reserve t o the President the right to fix the price of minerals extracted and sold from the leased premises and, during- wartime, to secure their distribution and use wholly within L niteti States territory. On August 17th, Senator Husting, a member of the Committee on Public Lands, attacked the bill, saying in part, “The long and short of it is that this amendment simply wipes out the policy of conserving for the people of the United States the known mining fields by giving them out only on lease, and goes back t o the old discredited policy t h a t scandalized the country a few years ago by permitting meti to seize and receive a patent for valuable deposits.” The Senate, houvever, declined to reconsider its vote and the Bill, a t this writing, is before the House where it is espected to pass, probably with some amendments.
