Feb., 1915
THE’ J O I ‘ R N A L O F I N D C S T R I A L A N D E NGI 1VE.ERI N G C H E M I S T R Y
every chemical product that we now import, but we must not be hampered or prevented by adverse legislative acts. Cheap labor is only a minor factor. The $90,000,000 of import-d strictly chemical products represent a t the highest not over $ 1 o,ooo,ooo for actual labor, not over 4 per cent of the actual final selling price of these commoditie.s (Sz~o,ooo,ooo). As soon as all legislative hindrance is done away with and we thereby have a fair opening for manufacture, our schools will do their share and our scientific ,students will receive the quantity and quality of research instruction to make good in these chemical lines. Many of them are getting it today, although i t is valueless as far as its practical application is concerned. I t is the Bread and Bzitter consideration that takes many of our students to the scientific: schools. I consider it the height of folly, not to designate it as criminal, for our teacher. to waste and steal the time of the students, with research instruction, that may be applied oil the Moon or Mars or in Foreign Countries, and allow these students to starve, professionally, on that part of the Earth which we designate as the United States. I believe in finding out what the student needs and wants in the United States and giving that to him or her. Teachers of Chemistry and the Students of Chemistry “Made in the United States” are fully up to and the equals of those who prefix to themselves the legends “ N a d e in Austria, or France, or Germany, or Great Britain, or Italy or Russia, or Turkey” as the case may be. This is the way the coal-.tar color industry has been developed in Germany and the medicinal preparations made in these factories, I designate as by-products of the coal-tar color industry. They are doing the same thing with the nitrogen industry. Artificial rubber, rubber made in the chemical laboratory, is a n established fact in Germany. You do not find it in the market today simply because the German government does not want it in the market and is willing to pay a big sum, so I have been told on good authority, t o keep it out of the market. If, on account of the present war, Germany should have to give up its African possessions, laboratory rubber will perhaps replace natural rubber, just as laboratory indigo replaced natural indigo. Germany has planted its African possessions with rubber trees, and it is not going to let laboratory rubber interfere with its prospective rubber agricultural interests in its African possessions. “ I t is a n ill wind that blows no good,” and some have read and deciphered the handwriting on the wall. It is gratifying to be able to say t h a t the State of Illinois is going to help along, as the foundation-stone for the new chemical industrial technical and commercial department was laid only the other day. I
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hope that everyone, whether of Illinois or not, will back President James, so that his plans can be quickly realized. As t o the immediate future, you have it in your hands, t o at least apply a relief remedy, as without it future progress will continue to be checked and lay dormant. Modify or change some of our legislative acts that protect the foreign product or process or trade-mark or copyright of every manufacturer or owner, who will not manufacture in the United States nor allow the protected product or protected rights to be used in the United States, and who thereby compels everyone of us to rely on his good-will or his ability or the conditions existing in his country for what may be a necessity to us; or that, through the protection afforded him, allow him to make a convenient dzimpiizg ground of our country for his surplus or by-product or even for products which he is not allowed to sell in his own country. The chemists of the United States have the brains and the ability and the gumption to make i t not “Made in America” but “Made in the U. S.” for everyone of the chemical products we now import. All t h a t the chemists of the United States need and all they ask for, is opportunity, fair play, an open field, not fenced in with adverse legislation. The chemist of the United States will then come t o the scratch, toe the mark and cross the finishing line ahead, every time. Their records in the other o p e n chemical events prove this. The chemists of the United States have slept long enough under these heavy legislative blankets. For 50 years they have been compulsory “Rip Van Winkles.” Pull off this narcotic legislative cover, and see them jump up, Wide-Aweke. The chemists of the United States are mot impotent,-far from it. They are very productive, they are willing and ready and can and will do their full share, if you will only prepare the way for them. Having tried to answer the opening question, let me ask another in concluding: Why should the United States be made the dumping ground for many chemical products, originating and coming t o us from foreign countries, fully protected by product or process patents, trade-marks or copyrights, without a single requirement, under these rights and protection granted, to the foreign or home owners, by the United States, t o allow anyone in the United States to manufacture or use these protected products, and without a single requirement of the owners to manufacture themselves in the United States or even a requirement of exporting to us, any of their so-called protected products? SUITE903-4, POSTALTELEGRAPH BUILDING CHICAGO
OBITUARIES CHARLES MARTIN HALL It is with sincere regret that we record the death of Charles Martin Hall, after a long illness, a t Daytona, Florida, on Sunday, December 27, 1914. Dr. Hall mas one of our most successful chemical engineers and inventors. He was born a t Thompson, Ohio, December 6, 1863, and graduated in the classical course a t Oberlin College, 1885, a t the age of twenty-one years and six months. While in college he took special interest in the study of Chemistry, in general, and in the metal aluminum in particular. Aluminum was known to be the most abundant metal in nature (but it is never found uncombined). It was first isolated b y Woehler in 1827, in very small quantities, just sufficient t o establish its identity as the metal of alum, clay and other familiar minerals and rocks.
I n 1854 Henri St. Clair Deville, of Paris, attempted, with the financial support of Louis Napoleon, to establish the commercial extraction of aluminum. I n a certain sense he succeeded, his maximum output reaching 5,000 pounds per annum. But the cost was almost prohibitory. The first price in 1855 was $90 per pound; this was gradually reduced to $12 per pound, the lowest price reached by Deville, whose process consisted in reducing aluminum chloride by sodium. In 1886 Hamilton Y. Castner, a student in the School of Mines of Columbia University, invented a new and much cheaper process for making sodium, and also improved the process for employing this metal for reducing aluminum chloride. H e established works a t Oldbury near Birmingham, England, and by 1889 was making 500 pounds per day, and supplying i t for $4.00 per pound. Dr. Hall became interested in the aluminum problem while
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in college and made many experiments in the hope of finding a 3-As an improvement in the art of manufacturing aluminum, more economical process for its production. Finally his thoughts the herein-described process, which consists in dissolving alumina in a fused bath composed of the fluorides of aluminum, sodium turned t o electrolysis, and about October I, 1885, he began to and lithium, and then passing an electric current, by means of seek a suitable anhydrous solvent for alumina, operative a t a practicable temperature, which would bring the alumina into a carbonaceous anode, through the fused mass, substantially as a fluid condition in which it would yield to the electric current. set forth. Fluorspar and the fluorides of magnesium, sodium, potassium Dr. Hall also received four additional patents for modifications and aluminum were successively tried, but were found to be of his original process. But he did not escape the usual experitoo infusible and to dissolve little, if any, alumina. ence of the successful inventor. H e was obliged to defend in On February IO, 1886,he tried cryolite, the double fluoride of court the originality of his invention. The suit was brought sodium and aluminum. This fused readily a t a very moderate in the United States Circuit Court of the Northern District of Ohio and after an exhaustive discussion of the prior a r t the temperature and when he dropped in the white powdered alumina it dissolved and disappeared as does powdered sugar patent was sustained. The opinion was written by Judge or salt in boiling water. It dissolved to thehextent of more William Howard Taft, later President of the United States. than twenty-five per cent He wrote: “Hall was a and the solution was clear pioneer and is entitled to and limpid. the advantages which that He thus made his first fact gives him in the great discovery. He propatent laws.” The court declared the ceeded a t once to apply patent valid and issued a the electric current t o this solution. His first perpetual injunction experiments using clay against the defendants. crucibles were not successFor various reasons there ful; but on February was considerable delay in 2 3 , 1886,he employed a devising suitable means carbon-lined crucible and for applying the invention was successful in obtainon a manufacturing scale ing aluminum. He had and securing the necesachieved success in insary capital. But a t last, venting a process for in November, 1888, he making aluminum directly began work in his factory a t New Kensington, near from alumina by electrolysis under conditions Pittsburgh, producing 50 pounds of metal per day. which promised to revoAfter that date his proglutionize the industry and furnish the metal a t so ress was wonderful. H e soon erected larger works low a price as to enable at Siagara Falls as the it t o replace co’pper, tin, first consumer of the eleclead, zinc and other metals tricity supplied by the for a n endless variety of Niagara Falls Power Compurposes. Dr. Hall’s age a t this pany. At the present time was two months over time the company has three establishments at 2 2 years and he had disNiagara Falls, one a t covered and invented Massena in S e w York what had escaped on the St. Lawrence and Woehler, Rose, Deville one at Shawinigan Falls and many of the other in Canada. The total world-renowned chemists consumption of electricity who had busied themis 140,000 horse power, selves with aluminum probably a larger amount over a period of half a century. CHARLES MARTINHALL than is consumed by any On July g, 1886, Dr. other e l e c t r o c h e m i c a l Hall applied for his broad basic patent which was granted April works in the world. The annual output of aluminum is now more than 50,000,000 pounds. The first metal produced a t 2 , 1889,S o . 400,766,with the following claims: S e w Kensington was sold a t $2 per pound; the price now is about I--4s an improvement in the a r t of manufacturing aluminum, 2 2 cents per pound. The early dreams of the young underthe herein-described process, which consists in dissolving alumina graduate were certainly realized in a fused bath composed of the fluorides of aluminum and a metal more electro-positive than aluminum, and then passing a n Dr. Hall made many other inventions, several of which have electric current through the fused mass substantially as set forth. been patented. Six of these are for improved methods for pre2-As a n improvement in the art of manufacturing aluminum paring pure alumina, one of which is still employed for preparing the herein-described process, which consists in dissolving alumina this material for use in the works. H e also patented improved in a fused bath composed of the fluorides of aluminum and methods for making improved carbon anodes for use in the sodium and then passing a n electric current, by means of a process. I n 1910 Hall received the degree of Doctor of Laws from carbonaceous anode, through the fused mass, substantially as Oberlin College, his Alma Mater, and in 1911 he was awarded set forth.
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the Perkin Gold Medal for distinguished services in Industrial Chemistry, by the Medal Committee representing the ,Society of Chemical Industry, the American Chemical Society, the American Electrochemical Society and other associated societies. A full account of Dr. Hall’s achievements was published in JOURNAL, on the occasion of the the March, 1911, issue of THIS award of the Perkin Medal. There was also published in World’s W o r k for August, 1914, a very interesting illustrated article on “The -4merican Creator of the Aluminum rlge.” It was a remarkable coincidence that while young Hall was making his great discovery and invention in Ohio, another young chemist, of the same age, Paul L. V. HGroult, should have made the same discovery and invention in France. Dr. HProult was present a t The Chemists’ Club on the occasion of the presentation of the Perkin Medal to Dr. Hall; and gave some interesting information with regard to the early history of aluminum. Dr. Heroult was born in Thury-Harcourt, Normandy, on April IO, 1863, and died May 9, 1914. A short account of his life is given in the June, 1914, issue of THISJOURNAL. Dr. Hall was a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the Franklin Institute, the American Electrochemical Society, and the New York Chamber of Commerce; he was also a trustee of Oberlin College and ex-President of the Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital. A bequest of $3,000,000 was left by Dr. Hall t o Oberlin College. The bequest is in the form of $ z , o o o , m endowment to be used for any purpose; $500,000 for building a n auditorium and $IOO,OOO for its maintenance; $zoo,ooo for campus improvements; all property in Oberlin owned by Dr. Hall; and a valuable art collection. Dr. Hall was extremely modest, was very youthful in appearance and endeared himself to all who knew him well by his extremely lovable character. His career was remarkable and offers an example to our young college students, who rarely realize what young men may accomplish by serious interest in their opportunities. C. F. QHANDLER SAMUEL BENEDICT CHRISTY Samuel Renedict Christy, Dean of the College of Mining of the University of California and a pioneer in the development of the cyanide process for the treatment of refractory ores, died on Piovember 3 0 , 1914, a t his home in Oakland, California.
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Professor Christy was born in San Francisco on August 8, 1853, and received the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy a t the University of California in 1874. After his graduation, he studied mining and metallurgy in the same institution, serving as instructor in analytical Chemistry from 1874 to 1879, and as instructor in mining and metallurgy from 1879 to 1885 when he became Professor of Mining and Rletallurgy and proceeded to organize and develop one of the leading Schools of Mining in the world. Engineers whom he has trained hold positions of great importance all over the world. At one time there were more of his graduates in important positions in South Africa than from all the other American universities put together. The Hearst Memorial Mining Building, built by Mrs Phoebe A. Hearst some years ago as a mining laboratory for the University of California a t a cost of $640,000, embodies Professor Christy’s ideas as to equipment for mining and metallurgical instruction. Possessed of a powerful personality and great charm of manner, he was able to gain the confidence of the public a t large as well as to impart to his students something of his own enthusiasm and diligence. I n addition to his university duties, he carried on numerous laboratory researches of great interest and value to his profession. These included studies of the Monte Diablo Coals, the quicksilver deposits of California, the mines and works a t Almaden, Spain, Idria, Austria, and New Almaden, California-all of which are described in his publications. I n 1900 he patented a n improved and valuable process for the recovery of gold and silver from dilute cyanide solutions. Other publications include a discussion of the practice of chlorination a t the Alaska Treadwell mine; a series of very important papers on the metallurgy of gold, silver and mercury; discussions of the training of mining engineers and the relation of American mining schools to the mining industry; and a noteworthy biographical notice of his friend and colleague, Joseph N. LeConte. I n 1902, Professor Christy was the recipient of the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Columbia University. Professor Christy was actively connected with the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the California Academy of Sciences, the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, the London Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and was an honorary member of the Chemical, hlining and hletallurgical Society of South Africa.
CURRENT INDUSTRIAL NEWS By h f .
L. HAhlLI?:
METALS I N I914 Among a vast amount of data on the metal market in this country during the last year published in detail in the hTewYork Eaening Post’s Annual Financial Review (December 31, 1914, p. 1 3 ) , much was of sufficiently permanent interest to warrant being repeated here. To some extent it amplifies C. H. White’s article in the last number of THISJOURXAL, 7 (rgrg), 6 2 , but it also covers ground that mas not touched on there. COPPER-In January, 1914, following a year of generally declining tendency, copper stood a t about 1 4 ~ cents, ~ 4 and a little rally dating from the beginning of the holiday season was in evidence. h-o new copper supplies of any magnitude were immediately in sight, and after Inspiration and Chuquicamata should begin t o swell the output about the middle of 1915, nothing more of any consequence was foreseen for ii long time. When the war began, a complete closing of foreign outlets except to England, France, and Russia, with din: results t o American copper producers, was prophesied. Yet, as things turned out this was an excellent test of the soundness of the readjustment of the previous three months. The producers did not budge from their position t h a t in offer-
ing copper a t 11 c. they were taking less than the cost of production and rather than make any further sacrifice they themselves would finance their accumulation indefinitely. The buying movement that began with copper a t I I . I c. a t the first of November continued right through that month, the sales aggregating ~oo,ooo,ooopounds or more, and a t the end of the month the price was IZ’/Z c., or just where it closed at the end of July. LEAD-The price for lead, January I , 1914, was 4.15 c , S e w York, which had been named a t the end of December, but this was found t o check buying, and on January 9th the price was reduced to 4.10 c. This improved things, and the leading interest named 4.15 c. again a t the beginning of February, but for the second time there was a chill, and the independent producers, quick to discern that things were out of joint, began to take a t cut prices all the business offering, whereupon the American Smelting and Refining Company reduced to 4 c., the bedrock price in former estimation, but what was subsequently to be regarded as something luscious, and indeed was not t o be realized again in 1914. The United States has for many years been a large exporter of Mexican lead refined here in bond, but the novelty of 1914 was the exportation of a very large tonnage of domestic lead.
