NEWS EDITION
J U N E 10, 1939
381
Hearing on Coal-Tar Colore
O United States Department of Agri culture, Washington, D. C, a public hear N JULY 5,
1939, at 10:00 A. M, at the
ing will be held for receiving evidence upon the basis of which regulations m a y be promulgated amending those appearing in the Federal Register for May 9 by changing certain specifications of some of the listed colors and adding other coal-tar colors to the list. The new coal-tar colors proposed for addition t o t h e list, and t h e changes in specifications, are published in ti&e June 3,1939, issue o f the Federal Register, which can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C , for 10 cents a copy. T h e first m i l l b u i l t t o m a n u f a c t u r e n e w s p r i n t f r o m s o u t h e r n woods, p a r t i c u larly p i n e s , b y a p r o c e s s developed e x p e r i m e n t a l l y b y t h e l a t e Charles H . Herty a t t h e P u l p a n d Paper Laboratory, I n d u s t r i a l C o m m i s s i o n of Savannah
Lufkin Paper Mill Dedicated HE Southland Paper Mills, Inc., near T Lufkin, Texas, is a $6,000,000 news§rint plant which is the first in the United tates t o use the common southern yellow pine as its source of cellulose. On May 27, 1939, a celebration dedicat ing the new mill took place at the little town of Herty, three miles from Lufkin, in East Texas, which 250 southern news paper publishers, paper technicians, finan ciers, and invited guests utended. Dur ing the ceremonies a brome plaque in memory of Charles Holmes Herty, direc tor of the Herty Foundation Laboratory at Savannah, Ga., and Francis P. Garvan, resident of the Chemical Foundation, n c , New York, was unveiled by Ernest L. Kurth, president of the Southland Mills, and principal Texan on the com mittee which raised $2,000,000, and se cured a $3,000,000 loan from the RFC. Mr. Kurth was master of ceremonies at the dedicatory ceremonies, and George B. Dealey, president of The Dallas News, de livered the dedicatory and memorial ad dress honoring Mr. Garvan and Dr. Herty. The bronze plaque is the work of Miss Allie Virginia Tennant of Dallas. Honor guests at the celebration were Mrs. Francis P. Garvan, her son Francis P. Garvan, Jr., and her daughter, Mrs. Francis B. Winslow of New York. Miss Dorothy Herty of Savannah, only daugh ter of Dr. Herty, could not attend, but sent best wishes for the mill's success. The mill is being built under the direc tion of the Perkins-Goodwin Co., New York, Ν . Υ., whose president, Louis Calder, attended the dedicatory services. Merritt, Chapman & Scott, New York contractors, are building the mill, which has an over-all length of 750 feet and a width of 350 feet, the main building being four stories high. The plant covers 5 acres. In addition there are included 110,000 acres of pine forest land contigu ous to the mill, a lumber railroad and ter minal, and a building site of 240 acres ac counting for another $1,000,000. The mill is now half finished and will be in operation, it is stated, by the end of December, employing 700 in the plant and on the grounds, and an equal number in the forest and in transportation of pulpwood. I t will have a capacity of 150 tons of newsprint each 24 hours or 50,000 tons a year. The mill will obtain its chemical sulfate pulp from the Champion Paper & Fiber Co. of Houston. Its operation will be keenly watched by manufacturers all over the United §aper tates and Canada, as it may be the be
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ginning of the migration of newsprint mills to Texas and the Gulf Coast because of cheaper raw materials and lower pro duction cost of paper. Within 100 miles of the mill are 20,000,000 cords of pine and gum wood pulp upon which the mill will draw. Since about 62 per cent of this forest is owned by small farmers, the sale of pulpwood will bring steady revenue into an area which lost its large lumber mills when the virgin longleaf pine was cut out about 25 years ago. The paper mill is expected to put new life into a region which seems destined for an industrial revolution because of its 12,000,000 acres of pine and hardwood forests containing roughly 100,000,000 cords of pulpwood ready for harvest, the world's largest sulfur deposits along the Texas Gulf Coast near the mill, great petroleum and natural gas fields, and proximity to limestone and vast deposits of salt, all raw materials of a paper industry.
Alpha Chi Sigma Grants 53rd Charter ALPHA C H I SIGMA,
professional chemi-
Explanation of Catalytic A c t i o n EW experimental evidence which ex plains t h e action of homogeneous catalysts, substances used in manufactur ing soap, smokeless powder, lacquer, sol vents, and a host of other products, has been announced b y Victor K. LaMer, professor of chemistry at Columbia Uni versity. The explanation of the action o f such catalysts lies theoretically i n the physical law, known by every school boy, t h a t like charges of electricity repel, while opposite charges attract. By adding bromophenol blue t^ various solutions and checking the rate of the chemical reaction, Professor LaMer and his assistants, Edward S. Amis and Haze! M. Tomlinson, found that in every in stance the speed of the reaction depended upon the dielectric constant of t h e liquid in which the d y e was dissolved. T h e di electric constant is the factor which con trols the action of the forces. T h e addi tion of alcohol lowers the dielectric con stant of the solution, increasing ttie elec trically repellent forces between tlie two substances, and practically stopping the reaction. A similar reaction will occur i n every liquid with a low dielectric constant. However, when a third substance contain ing an opposite charge is introduced, the similarly charged molecules are drawn towards its ions, come into contact with one another, and react. This is the mechanism of the catalysis.
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f x cal fraternity, has granted its fiftythird charter (Beta Epsilon) to a petitioning g r o u p in t h e C l e m s o n Agricultural College, Clemson, S. C. V i c t o r K. C e r e m o n i e s w e r e di La Mοr in rected by the national h is labora ritualist, Harold P. Gaw, tory at Colum asssisted by district offi bia University, cer Clyde B. Hutchison. New York. The ritualistic work was demonstrated by the Rho c h a p t e r of t h e fraternity at the Univer sity of North Carolina.
