Nov., I913
T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING CHEiMISTRY
conservation, drilling methods, production, transportation, storage, refining and specifications for refined products. When i t is considered that each year, within the United States alone, there is produced crude petroleum and natural gases having a value in excess of $zoo,ooo,ooo, i t is reasonable to suppose that the future of this society is assured. There is to-day a tremendous waste of natural gases which, by proper methods of drilling, could be prevented. Also there is a great waste of crude oil itself by improper methods of production, since in the fields producing paraffin oils the paraffin is allowed to congeal around the well, sealing in the oil strata and thus preventing the recovery of the oil. The necessity for a critical study of petroleum and gas production and conservation is evident. At the meeting on September roth a t the Bureau of Mines the constitution and by-laws were adopted, and officers were elected as follows: President, c. D. C~AMBERLAIN,National Petroleum Association, ‘Cleveland, 0. V i c e - p r e s i d e n t , R. GALBREATH, Independent Oil and Gas Producers Association of Oklahoma, Tulsa, Okla. Secretary, IRVING C. ALLEN,U. S. Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, Pa. Treasurer, WARRENC. PLATT. Independent Petroleum Marketers’ Association, Cleveland, 0 . Acting Past President. FRANK B. FRETTER,Western Petroleum Refiners’ Association, Coffeyville, Kan. EXGCUTIVE COMMITTEE RALPH ARKOLD, Los Angeles. Cal. EDMUND O’NEILL, Univ. of Cal., C . F. CLARKSON, SOC.Automobile Berkeley Cal. Eng., N. Y . E. B. RICH, Gasoline Producers’ G . M. SWINDELL, Chamber of Mines .4ssoc., Parkersburg, W. Va. GEO. H. TABER,Gulf Refining Co., and Oil, Los Angeles, Cal. Pittsburgh.
The first annual meeting will probably take place in the spring of 1914, and the second annual meeting will be held a t the Panama Pacific Universal Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. A t the 1915 meeting it is hoped that all the petroleum societies in the country will meet in one great congress where many things of interest and of value will be presented. An official invitation has been sent from the president of the Exposition a t San Francisco to the president of the International Petroleum Commission, which convenes in January, 1914, in Bucharest, Roumania, to hold its annual meeting for 1915 in San Francisco. Plans are already being formulated for this great 1915 meeting, which will be part of the great assembly of the petroleum industries of America, where the foremost petroleurn technologists and scientists of the world will congregate. OBITUARY-JULIUS LEWKOWITSCH Dr. Julius Lewkowitsch, consulting and analytical chemist and chemical engineer, of London, England, died September
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16th a t Chamonix, Switzerland, after only a brief illness. Dr. Lewkowitsch was born a t Ostrovo, Prussian Silesia, in 1857. After a brilliant university career a t Breslau, he graduated as Doctor of Philosophy. He carried out a considerable quantity of original investigation under Professor Victor von Richter a t Breslau. Afterwards he took a position under Professor Hans’Landolt in the Chemical Laboratory of the Berlin Agricultural High School, and later was assistant to Professor Victor von Meyer in the University of Heidelberg. During these early years he published much original experimental work on stereochemistry, which was a t that time a new and undeveloped subject . Dr. Lewkowitsch went to England about z 5 years ago and, becoming naturalized, took up the study of the industrial technology of fats and oils. By assiduous labor he achieved the position of one of the foremost authorities on vegetable and animal fats and oils. A large number of processes which are widely employed in the utilization and valuation of these important raw materials were devised by him, and his writings on these subjects are regarded as standard works of reference. He also won a considerable reputation as a chemical engineer, while his linguistic attainments were truly remarkable, for he could converse fluently on scientific subjects in most current European languages, These gifts were placed unstintingly a t the service of the various scientific societies to which he belonged. Dr. Lewkowitsch was a fellow and a past member of the Council of both the London Chemical Society and the Institute of Chemistry, and a,past member of the Council of the Society of Public Analysts. He was a vice-president and a t the time of his decease honorary foreign secretary of the Society of Chemical Industry, He had acted with conspicuous success as chairman of the London Section of this Society and was one of the most active members of the Society’s Publication Committee. He published numerous papers (over I Z O ) on oils, fats and waxes during the last thirty years. His “Chemical Technology and Analysis of Oils, Fats, and Waxes” has passed through four editions as well as appearing in German and French. The first volume of the fifth edition was published on Sept. 4, 1913, and the remaining volumes are now in the press. He also wrote a “Laboratory Companion to Fats and Oils Industries” (English edition, 1901, German edition, 1902), the article “Oils and Fats” in “British Encyclopaedia,” and articles on various oils, and fats in Thorpe’s “Dictionary of Applied Chemistry.” Dr. Lewkowitsch found his chief recreation in mountaineering, being particularly attached to the Swiss ,41ps among which he died. He was married in 1902, and is survived by his widow, a son and a daughter.
N O T 0 AND CORRJSPONDENCE.
ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE RATIO OF LIME TO MAGNESIA ON PLANTS Editor of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: In THIS JOL~RN-~L, 5,564, a second article by P. L. Gile and C. N. Ageton appeared concerning the lime-factor, but no convincing evidence was brought forward to show that my objections (THIS JOURNAL, 5 , 2 5 7 ) to their first article would not be tenable. In New York, last October, I received full information about the calcareous soils near Ponce from Mr. Ried, former auditor of the Guanica Co. in Porto Rico. He stated that these soils must receive a very heavy dressing of pen manure in order to produce a moderate harvest of cane. Also the proprietor of the Mercedita Cane plantation near Ponce stated to me, on inquiry by letter, that his cane soil receives heavy doses of pen manure. Pen manure, however, is relatively rich in lime and magnesia.
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As regards the pineapple plant, it is a lime-loving plant in Florida, but even if i t would not be so in other countries this plant can precipitate the excess of lime absorbed abundantly as oxalate. I would like to know those gramineae which can accomplish that in the same measure as pineapple or citrus. I have never stated that soils with a very unfavorable ratio of lime t o magnesia should be corrected to the standard ratio, but I have repeatedly pointed out that such soils should be improved by adding one or the other as the case may demand, as far as practicable. See Lendw Jahrbucher, 1910,1008. I have further never stated that the lime-magnesia ratio in the soil would also be found in every part of the plant. It is a well established fact that seeds show a ratio of mineral nutrients quite different from that of leaves. In seeds, the amount of magnesia exceeds that of lime while in leaves just the reverse
