Kov., 1917
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up the time of part of its personnel to attend an exposition of this kind, but if you will look over the exhibit you will find that several railroads have done this. What is the reason? All railroads have a t least two kinds of industries-those that “just grow” and those that are planted. There seems to me to be a middle ground, largely uninhabited, in matters of this kind which is much better for all concerned. I do not believe that there is any business organization that realizes Preparedness more clearly than do we, with all that it connotes of internal readiness. I t is only within the last few years that the old-time industrial departments of railroads, which were great in the same manner as are balloons, have been modernized by the addition of serious-minded scientists equipped with the indispensable industrial research laboratories, as the sciences upon which success must be based are so interdependent that a specialist in one of them is not of much value unless he has a t least enough knowledge of the others to know when he is getting beyond his depth in them. But the immediate and crying need of our chemical industries is research of the business order and they have such limitless possibilities that it is clear beyond any one to venture prophecy as to what they may become. So far in our endeavors we realize that we have but “scratched the surface,” The underlying idea is that particular idea upon which most of our great industries have been based-that of service; and, adapting our views and wishes of what should be done to our abilities to perform it, we have made up our minds and have told a few people who have already come to us for advice and assistance, that if there was anything in America a t which we could get there was no trip too long for us to send a properly qualified man to get the information that might be a t the end of the road to put a t the disposal of our client. There was a time in our history when if you went to a banker for a loan for which you wished to hypothecate securities, he seemed to figure as to how he would get your securities for the least possible percentage of their value, but no legitimate banker does such things as that now. By the same token there may have been times in the past when the railroads did business on some such piratical hypothesis, but that day is over and most of us who represent the younger generation of railroad men are inclined to deny rather vehemently the existence of these old-time r u l e s of the “biggest gun” because we have only a little hearsay but no knowledge of how they were worked. At the first chemical exposition, held within a year after the war began, in 1915, and attended by over 60,000 people, there were no railroads; a t the second, which more than doubled the first in most ways and was attended by nearly 80,000, there was one; this year if you look around you will find five; and while we all have recognized within the last few years the utter futility of prophecy it would not surprise me greatly if the geometrical ratio between these numbers be carried into the progression which will be shown by the number of those you will see in 1918, because few things, if indeed any, have done more toward broadening and quickening the advancement of industrial chemistry or to bring to all of the different industries that go to make up our business life greater realization of the benefits accruing from properly directed chemico-industrial engineering and research. There isn’t a productive industry shown in this great exhibit, of whose unusual value for publicity, education and business acquaintance every live manufacturer should avail himself, that i s not absolutely dependent upon some kind of original raw material coming from the earth and very few of them are of any value until they have been assembled with others-transported in some way to a central point where they went through the various processes we call “manufacturing” to some useful form. New discoveries which industrial chemistry is continually performing are the basis of the increasing tendency to develop low-grade properties. Many places in the country are working over their old dumps and making more money than did the orig-
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inal property. It does not take much of a mathematician to see the effect of this because the freight on a car of 45 per cent ore is about the same as the freight on a car of 75 per cent ore; hence it is inevitable that such plants will go to the source of their raw material and i t is apparent that the railroad which knows the most about the mineral deposits in its territory is going to be the strongest contender when it comes to locating them. After the lesson of the last three years no real American disputes the importance of making ourselves independent of all other countries. I think I am safe in making the assertion that twenty-five years ago the whole railroad industry in America did not have ten chemists in its regular employ: nowadays a railroad that does not have a sufficient number of well-trained chemists to do its work is a “back number,” whether it knows it or not, and the field of thechemists on railroads has just begun to open as railroading is also becoming a science whose operation uses more than half the known elements. The chemist’s first efforts seem to have been destructive although he did not so intend, but in the future, while his critical field will continue t o expand, his greatest use will be in the way of aiding the industries to do better instead of sitting by to tell them how bad their products really are. The South that was practically left for dead something over a generation since is coming into a life of which few of its citizens i n the past even dreamed and we are expecting to be among those present a t the profit-taking. The resurrection of the South is a real thing. The value of our cotton crop this year will just about equal the value of all of the gold that the State of California has produced in the best fifty years of its history. A few years ago there were only a few Southern textile mills; a few years earlier than that there weren’t any. But they took approximately 5 5 per cent of the 1915 crop; they took about 60 per cent of the 1916 crop. The precentage they require of the present crop will be still higher. The number of industrial and developmental projects that were inaugurated in the South during the first half of this year is simply astonishing. The statement in the Manufacturers Record shortly after the close of the first six months lists more than twenty-seven thousand (27,167) and, strange to say, this number does not exceed that of the corresponding period of 1916 but it does represent a great deal more money as these ventures involved sums of money all the way from a few thousand up to, in one case, fifty million, and when I tell you that the projector of the fifty-million-dollar enterprise was the Bethlehem Steel Company you are a t liberty to decide for yourselves as to whether or not it will be put through. These great industries are being established in the South as permanent ones and the communities which are successful in securing chemical industries in the beginning are the ones that are going to become their great centers. BUILDING A COMPLETE CYCLE OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES ON THE CLINCHFIELD E X T R A C T S FROM ADDRESS B Y VICTOR v. KELSEY Chemist-Industrial Agent, Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway
The Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway, frequently spoken of as “The Clinchfield,” traverses a portion of Southeastern Kentucky, Southwestern Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina and South Carolina. The mining, manufacturing and distributing plants located along the Clinchfield enjoy a central and strategic location in reference to the domestic trade of the more populous sections of the United States The Clinchfield territory presents superior features both from the standpoint of assembling raw materials and the distribution of finished products. One of the prime considerations that led to the construction of the Clinchfield was the opportunity it afforded to unlock the immense storehouse of power, other minerals and the virgin timber. The coal fields made available by the Clinchfield are
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,
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among the largest and most important in America- comprising hundreds of thousands of acres of high grade bituminous coal situated in the Cumberfand Mountains of Southeastern Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia. The Clinchfield is a leader in the fostering of certain industrial developments new to the entire South. As an example the first pottery designed for the manufacture of decorated tableware has been built on the line. The fact that the Clinchfield was the first railroad to exhibit a t the Chemical Show is representative of the pioneer character of its entire development. The examinations of our natural resources have been and are now being carried out under the direction of experts, thus reducing to a minimum the element of chance in the establishment of industries. This policy further prevents any mistakes in locating plants that are not likely t o succeed. This has characterized the industrial development in a chemical way, which for completeness and success has but few parallels in America. The economic and successful operation of chemical industries, in fact any industry, is due quite largely to cheap power and raw materials. The superior quality of the coals from the fields of Eastern Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia, served by the Clinchfield, is indicated by calorimetric tests, showing upwards of 14,000B. t. u., with low ash, sulfur and phosphorus. The undeveloped water powers tributary to the Clinchfield are potentialities of much importance to the chemical manufacturer. The magnitudes of these powers vary from a few hundred horse power up to several thousand, and these can be developed a t reasonable costs, well below $100 per horse power. The building of a large Portland cement mill on the line was undertaken only after it had been established beyond reasonable doubt that the necessary raw materials of the proper character as regards quality and quantity were available and that the territory to be served would supply a market for the finished products. This industry has been increased 3 0 0 per cent since 191 I . The construction of a plant for the manufacture of hollow tile, terra cotta and brick was begun only after it was fully proven that the raw materials were suitable in every way. The output has been increased 260 per cent since 1911. The brick plant is typical of the chemical plants on the Clinchfield, forming another link in the cycle, and fitting in nicely with the cement plant, inasmuch as it adds additional materials of construction In addition to the cement and brick and the development of other building materials along the Clinchfield there followed in rapid succession plants for the manufacture of other materials of construction, including quick and hydrated lime, sand, crushed stone, gravel, limestone, sandstone, marble, granite, timber and lumber. Several tannic acid extract plants were located along the Clinchfield, because of the natural advantages offered in the way of cheap fuel, cheap power and an unlimited supply of chestnut . wood and tail bark, all of which can be assembled a t convenient points a t very low rates. The spent chips from the acid plants represented a waste, whose fuel value is low and. therefore, practically worthless, but the chips become of value when used for the production of cardboard and low-grade paper. As a consequence of this a large soda pulp mill was erected. This plant will use in part the spent acid chips, hut will draw its main supply of raw material from the practically inexhaustible supply of pulp woods in the forests of the Clinchfield. Before the pulp mill was completed its capacity was doubled. The pulp plant needs hydrated lime to causticize the soda liquors. To care for its needs a large lime and hydrating plant was built. The lime plant draws its limestone from nearby local deposits, and is now supplying the pulp mill with hydrate, and a tannery with lime to be used as a depilatory. The calcium carbonate resulting after the causticizing of the soda liquors is now finding a market.
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Tannic acid is a commodity that will permit of long shipment, but instead of sending all the material off the line, a large tannery was built to consume a portion, and to provide a market for local hides. This same industry uses lime and sodium sulfide as a depilatory. These chemicals are now being manufactured in large quantities. A factory for the production of shoes is now under consideration, which will utilize the unfinished leather from the tannery in the production of a finished article. The pulp mills need a bleaching agent. A large chemical plant was built, and is now supplying the pulp plant with large quantities of bleach of a very high grade, making the pulp plant a self-contained unit, and adding another link to the cycle. A large dye plant was built on the Clinchfield and it needed sodium sulfide for the manufacture of sulfur black. Another chemical plant on the line in a neighboring town promptly supplied the sulfide of the proper quality and without delay. The same dye plant consumes large quantities of coal-tar byproducts, and to take care of its needs, plans are now under way to provide the requirements locally. The residue from the coaltar by-products will not be used in the usual way, but will find another outlet which will permit of producing power a t a cost that will rival the cost of power a t Niagara Falls. When this is completed, this industry will form a complete cycle, when it is considered that the dyes are used by the textile mills on the line, and, furthermore, the textile mills are *getting their raw cotton from the fields tributary to the Clinchfield. The only possible link lacking in this cycle is that there is not a t present being manufactured a full line of fertilizers necessary for increasing the cotton and other crops. This phase of the chemical industrial development is being seriously considered, and we have hopes that such an industry will soon be founded. The necessary raw materials are either on or nearby the line of the Clinchfield, and when coupled with the cheap power available in connection with a ready market, the proposition becomes most interesting. A large pottery was built to utilize the naturally occurring raw materials on the line, and to further the chemical cycle, a large number of modern homes were built for the employees. To provide the pottery with the necessary raw materials of the proper quality, large kaolin refining plants were built as well as feldspar and silica grinding plants. The vast quantity of hard woods standing in the forests along the Clinchfield represent a potentiality of much importance to the charcoal and wood alcohol producers. The saw mills along the line are wasting a thousand cords of hard woods every day, that are suitable for the production of charcoal, wood alcohol and acetate of lime. If a plant is built on the line to utilize this enormous waste we have assurances that a charcoal iron furnace will be built thus completing the cycle for this particular industry. There is now a limited market locally for the alcohol and acetate of lime, but these commodities will stand long shipments; therefore, there is a t all times a good market for these chemicals, and this is particularly true of the present time. The above sums up briefly but somewhat comprehensively the building and operation of a complete cycle of chemical industries on the Clinchfield. Other chemical plants, for which the Clinchfield is particularly well adapted, and which with the vast amount of natural resources available, would do well to locate along the line are: a plant for the production of artificial abrasives; for the production of nitrogen compounds ; for the production of calcium carbide, carbon electrodes, bleaching agents; caustic soda; pharmaceutical compounds; organic compounds and dyes ; water glass; glass products; ultramarine blue; ferro- and non-ferrous alloys, etc.
