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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 Vol.
Downloaded by 134.243.211.163 on September 14, 2009 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: November 1, 1918 | doi: 10.1021/ie50107a605
I n connection with the last named, the following persons are required to make report to this office: All persons who are in any manner interested in the use or operation of any enemy-owned patent, trade-mark, copyright, print, label, or design, including joint inventors, where one of the inventors is an enemy within the provisions of the “Trading with the Enemy Act.” Assignees of an undivided part or share of an invention, or right to carry on a process or operate under a trade-mark, copyright, print, label, or design, within and throughout a specified portion of the United States, when such patent or process is enemy-owned. Mortgagees and licensees of enemy-owned patents, trademarks, copyrights, prints, labels, or licenses. The above includes guardians, executors, and administrators. Any information regarding the enemy interests in any patents trade-marks, copyrights, prints, labels, or designs, should be forwarded immediately to Francis P. Garvan, Director of the Bureau of Investigation, Alien Property Custodian’s Office, Washington, D. C., even if the information is only gossip or rumor. Oftentimes a clue to important enemy interests is obtained in this way. I feel sure than I can count upon your cooperation in the work of uncovering money and property of enemy charac-
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ter. The money thus obtained is invested in Liberty Bonds, and is made to fight for our country, instead of against it. A. MITCHELLPALMER SIXTEENTH AND P STRBBTS, N. W. D. C. WASHINGTON, Alien Property Custodian October 1, 1918
AN ALINEMENT CHART FOR THE EVALUATION OF COAL-CORRECTION I n the article of the above title, THIS JOURNAL, IO (1918), 627, the 4th line in “Directions for Use” under the cut should read “Price per dry ton” instead of “Cost per million B. t. u.” A. F. BLAKE September 12, 1918 PERSONNEL, RESEARCH DIVISION, CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE-CORRECTION It is regrettable that in the rush of assembling the names of the men engaged in work for the Research Division of the Chemical Warfare Service, for publication in the September issue of THISJOURNAL, the name of Professor Treat B. Johnson, of Yale University, was omitted from the list.
WASHINGTON LETTER By PAULWOOTON, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C.
No hedging against the end of the war is being done by the Government. Contracts are being let, plants are being built, and all plans are being made as if it were sure that the war will last two years more. While this is no more true of chemical activities of the Government than of any of its other war activities, it can be stated on the best of authority that the apparent collapse of the Teutonic fighting machine has in no way been reflected in the activities of the agencies conducting the chemical work being done by the Government. Incidentally, the ban on publicity, which has been clamped over this work since the beginning of the war, remains in place. Matter, which would be 90 per cent useful to the chemists of the United States and IO per cent useful to Germany, is withheld with all rigorousness, along with much information which apparently would not be of value to the enemy. The War Minerals Bill became a law a t z P.M., Oct. 5. This Act, which affects importantly nearly every chemical industry, must await the issuance of regulations before its effects are felt generally. At this writing (Oct. 16) the President’s proclamation, which will designate the agencies to administer the Act, is being expected daily. It is regarded as probable that power will be divided between the Bureau of Mines and the War Industries Board. Certainly price fixing and allocation of materials will go the the War Industries Board as i t already is handling all such matters for the Government. Prices for sulfuric and nitric acids have been agreed upon by the War Industries Board and the Committee on Acids of the Chemical Alliance, effective until the first of the year, as follows:
... .. . , .. . . . . .. .... .. . . . . . .. . . . ~.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sulfuric Acid, 6 0 ’ . , .,, ,, Sulfuric Acid, 6 6 ’ . . . . . . . . Oleum, 20 per c e n t . , . . . . . Nitric Acid, 4 2 O . .
$16.00 per ton (2000 lbs.) 25.00 per ton (2000 Ibs.) 28 .OO per ton (2000 Ibs.) 81,’s
cents per lb.
The same provisions for shipment in drums, carboys, in carload and less than carload lots as were made effective for the quarter ending September 30 are to continue for the last quarter of the year, but with these new prices fixed for bulk shipment used as a base for package prices. Senter, Mich., has been selected for the site of a new Government tetryl plant. The value is to be $zso,ooo, which is to be divided between the cost of buildings and equipment. A $I,OOO,OOO addition to the Frankford Arsenal has been authorized.
The Federal Trade Commission continues to insist on the discontinuance of what it terms unfair methods of competition when prices are offered which are “unwarranted by trade conditions and so high as to be prohibitive to small competitors.” The American Agricultural Chemical Co., of Connecticut, and the Brown Co., Inc., of Trenton, N. J., manufacturers of fertilizers, are among the latest concerns to be accosted by the Commission. The Commission states that it found that the American Agricultural Chemical Company is the owner of all the capital stock of the Brown Company and that prices were being offered a t Philadelphia and a t Atlantic City for raw materials which were “calculated and designed to, and did, tend to destroy certain small competitors.” Licensing of the platinum industry is proceeding more rapidly than had been expected. The fact that the same plan has been applied to other materials, as well as the wide publicity given the regulations, is responsible for most of those concerned being conversant with the steps they are required to take. It is estimated that rso,ooo licenses will be issued. That gas masks being used by the American Army give twenty times the protection afforded by German gas masks is a fact attested to in a formal statement issued by the War Department. It is stated further that there is not a single case on record of an American soldier falling victim to a gas attack when protected by the mask that is now being manufactured in the United States on a vast quantity basis. This fact has been so thoroughly established by repeated experiences that military authorities place the blame for gas poisoning on the carelessness of the victim. A great many officers in the United States Army insist that in most cases the men who get gassed should be court-martialed, not decorated. It is an interesting fact that American gas masks stand up under tests that German masks cannot meet. German masks will not give protection against a high concentration of gas. This was demonstrated recently when the British assembled a sufficiently large battery of projectors to put seventy tons of phosgene into the air a t once, with consequences quite well known to the German General Staff. There is no concentration of gas that American masks will not defy. This has been proved, not only on the battlefield, but in the experimental stations in this country, where determined attempts to break down the resistance of United States Army masks by heavy gas concentrations were absolutely unsuccessful. Importation of French optical glass is to be controlled by-the War Industries Board. Orders for the French product must
