INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
540
available on Industrial Fellowships that will benefit thereby and whose donors approve. According to the usual arrangement, properly qualified engineering students of the university are placed in salaried assistantships during the periods when regular cooperative work is required. It carries the proviso that the student’s thesis work is to be done under the direct supervision of the Industrial Fellow under whom the student has temporary employment. This system of temporary assistantships furnishes
Vol. 15, No. 5
opportunities for the well-trained student to carry out technically important research and thus come under the observation of the executive staff. During the Institute year the following students in the Department of Chemical Engineering held assistantships in the Institute: D . E. Ackerman..
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Nickel . . . . . . . . . . .Nickel . . , , . . . . , . . . .Cleaning . . . . . . . . , . . , .Refractories
C . D. Butterworth.. W. C. Mellott . . W. M . Walker. . .
.
PARIS LETTER By CHARLESLORMAND, 4 Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris, France
ADMISSION O F GERMANY TO
INTERNATIONAL
UNION
The International Conference of Chemistry, which is to be held in June a t Cambridge, will probably take up again, under a more or less disguised form, the question of admitting Germany to the International Union. It is not without interest to reflect a little on this question in order not to be taken unawares if an opinion is asked. Prof. W. A. Noyes published in THISJOURNAL, in December, 1922, a n article which is very interesting and which has been much commented upon in France. No one in France denies the place which Germany should be given in the International Union. She has many eminent chemists and we all know the world supremacy which her chemical industry formerly possessed. The necessities of war forced America, England, Italy, and France to create arid develop their chemical industry. These nations showed that they too had the knowledge and ability t o hold a place of the first rank in chemical research and its applications to industry. It is not, then, because they would need Germany’s cooperation that they would admit her to the Union. As has been very well said by Professor Noyes, it is for the men of science to take the lead in bringing about a genuine and complete peace among the nations; it is certainly for the intellectual leaders to precede the politicians in the road to peace. Before agreement can be made as to the principles, a means of practical realization must be found. The policy of the French government in matters of reparations obliged us to occupy the Ruhr. Whatever may have been the opinion as to the value of this policy and its consequences, it should be recognized that i t receives general assent in France. Industrial leaders, and particularly those belonging to the chemical industry, favor this policy and in consequence sustain the government. The great majority of French chemists belong to various departments of the government; the universities professors are not independent as in the United States-the are all government officials, and they would not openly oppose the official policy. I know that there is objection to the opinion that the old university spirit has always maintained a stiff independence, and I do not forget that under the second empire the professors and republican thinkers (Quinet and Michelet) would not bother to oppose the imperial authority. But then it was a matter of national government, whereas we are now concerned with an international question where it is not asked that employees of the state take an attitude which would be interpreted as a repudiation of the acts of the government. All these obstacles, however, would be easily raised if the matter were placed on the sole ground of iritellectual leaders establishing a true society of nations. An organization filial to the Society of Nations has been functioning for more than three years with general satisfaction. This is the International Organization of Labor, whose bureau is located a t Geneva, and which assembles a t its conferences delegates of nations which were formerly allied or enemies. English, Belgians, Italians, French meet there with the Germans and the Austrians. The United States does not figure in this organization, although the questions of organization of labor are being studied there more than anywhere else. However, since January, it has consented to take part in the deliberations of a commission to consider the coal situation. This will perhaps lead to the United States taking a greater part in the International Organization of Labor. Here is, then, an organization, which, in France, meets an adhesion to principle, the practicality of which is not contested.
The International Union of Chemistry, even with the Germans, would meet the same unanimity, if the German intellectual leaders would previously admit their error. All the civilized nations have not forgotten the famous manifesto of the ninetythree German intellectual leaders, among which figured, unfortunately, several chemists and physicians. I do not remember the terms of that abominable factum, which dishonored the German intellectual leaders, but if those who signed it, and their successors, would consent to make a public disavowal of it, the question of the admission to Germany in the various international unions would make a great step toward being answered. USE
OF
HOT SPRINGS
A S SOURCE O F
HEAT
It is well known that France possesses a certain number of hot springs, of which many have a temperature of more than 50” C. M. Dybowski has studied a spring a t Prechacq, in the Pyrenees. This spring, which has a temperature of 60” C., delivers 50 cu. m. per hr., or a number of calories of heat equivalent to a ton of coal. M. Dybowski conceived the idea of using these calories and has had constructed heating chambers or “forceries,” where on a large scale are cultivated certain fruits which can gathered before their natural time, which are called in France primeurs.” These “forceries,” much less cumbersome than those using coal, may be interesting to the United States in the Rocky Mountain region, a t a sufficient distance from California and rich in hot springs. DENATURANT FOR ALCOHOL The alcohols from the beet, grain, and molasses used by industry are denatured by methylene, but the entire market for methylene is now in the hands of England. I n order to obtain the methylene which we need to denature our alcohol, we have to pay annually 22 million francs. I n order to get rid of this expense, MM. Bordas and Touplain, of the Ministry of Finance, have undertaken the manufacture of a denaturant, called “denaturant national,” with which the denaturing of our stock of alcohol will save us more than 125,000 francs. This denaturant is extracted from the oil from the distillation of resin, tars, and pitch, and the terebinth from pine. I n it is incorporated an ester of boric acid which permits the easy detection of this denaturant.
PROFESSOR URBAINVISITS AMERICA Georges Urbain, member of the Institute, professor of general chemistry a t the FacultC des Sciences de L’lJniversit6 de Paris, has just departed for America. M. Urbain is a member of the International Committee on Atomic Weights, and it is well known that he is one of the leaders in mineral chemistry, particularly in the field of rare earths. To him we owe the discovery of the new elements europium and celtium. March 29, 1923
Skinner, Sherman & Esselen, Inc., Boston, Mass., have moved their offices and laboratories to new and enlarged quarters at 276 Stuart St., Arlington, Mass. The change gives them a n opportunity to lay out numerous laboratories for specific purposes, and their research, analytical, and biological departments now have quarters particularly designed for them and equipped in the most complete manner.
