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of a thing does not in any manner represent its final utility, but merely serves to measure the present ratio between its demand and supply. Galvanispent years in patient study and research in observing the twitchings of the hind-legs of a frog; he did it purely for the interests of the science to which he had devoted his life, and no one paid him a cent for his trouble. But his seemingly trivial and ridiculous studies into the causes of the tm-itchings of the frog’s legs proved to he the fount of inspiration from which flowed in a direct stream the discovery and knowledge of the electric current, and all the possibilities t o which modern ingenuity has applied it. There is not a fact, however humble, but which by its understanding adds a dignity to human knowledge; there is not a theory, however abstruse, but which by its confirmation and comprehension adds a new purpose to and widens the possibilities of human life. Our lives, in reality, are not made up so much of “things” as of “thoughts,” and whenever science broadens the field of thought, she not only enlarges, but elevates the sphere of life. I n estimating the utility of things we are inclined more to regard their individual practicability than their universal significance; a specific invention which earns its originator a material fortune is considered of more value in the opinion of most people than the broad law of nature to which that very invention owes its possibility and its conception. Men of science seldom patent the result of their research; they bend their energies towards the general expression of the t.ruth of which they are in search; they care little, and in fact, know little, of the practical applications of that truth to the various needs of life. They find their greatest satisfaction and recompense in the consciousness of having advanced the general type of knowledge. Perhaps we of the present time are inclined to depreciate the value of pure culture below that of mercantile utility, and give more attention to the transactions of commerce than to the speculations of science, literature, and art. The cry is often heard that we are rapidly going away from a civilization of pure culture to one of specialized utility; nor is this movement one peculiar to science alone, for we find it as an active factor in the fields of literature and art. Even the most conservative mind must admit the apparent fact that there is a strong force continually active in the direction of specialization, with the ultimate object in view of practical utility. The cause of its existence is found in the fact that human life is no longer commensurate with the infinite possibilities afforded for its activity; the ramifications of science have become so extended and numerous that should the individual desire to develop further, he must take up the burden of some specialized line and carry i t forward in the rapid march of progress. This is a period in which we are becoming steeped in education, flooded with knowledge. Our motto is becoming “It pays to know,” and the particular knowledge which most pays to know appears to be of the scientific type. This is no doubt necessitated by the predominating influence science is exerting upon the numerous branches of industry and commerce. And our scientific education must be of a technical character in order to fulfil the exactions placed upon it. The development of technical sciences so closely allied t o the arts is the direct result of the specializing of higher education so needful in the forming of acutely and minutely trained minds. This infltience is becoming a potent factor in the educational problem of the times, giving knowledge a practical tendency and a body more in keeping with the flesh and blood of human needs. In making science assume a technical character there is an attempt t o infuse the facts and energies of living industries into the rather inert and spiritual mass of general principles and theorems. What we know of as “pure science’‘ has little to do with the real problems of human life; these must be met and anmered by the technical sciences, dealing as they do with practical applications of human knowledge.
VOI. 8 , SO.1 2
You will pardon, I trugt, these rather generalized reflections on the two aspects of chemical science, but I cannot help but feel that we are realizing a higher dignity for our science as a profession in contra.st with its dignity as a purely academic form of scholarship and culture. Perhaps it was not, so long ago that the Chemical Engineer was regarded somewhat as a. pipe fitter and plumber, rather than as a real scientist. The chemist in England is still a drug clerk, and even to the layman in this country the chemist has been considered as a compounder of pills and hair tonics. The past two years I think, however, has seen a better appreciation by the layman and the press as to just what the chemist is and what his profession coiisists of and can accomplish. There is still that idea, however, prevailing that chemistry is a hodge-podge of mysterious secrets, the discovery of which is made by accidental and haphazard methods. The popular mind has evidently not yet progressed beyond the age of the alchemist.. In things chemical the public has still the innocently receptive mind of a child; it will accept as gospel truth the most absurd and illogical statemen ts of supposed discoveries. Some so-called chemist announces the remarkable discovery that by the addition of a few drops of a mysterious green liquid to water he creates a perfect substitute for gasoline for use in automobiles. The daily press devotes column after column to this truly remarkable process, and the public evidences the keenest and most serious interest. The thing could not be more absurd than if a physician announced that he had discovered that he could make new legs grow where those niembers had been amputated, by rubbing a decoction of hen’s teeth on the parts affected. I hardly believe either the press or the public would take this latter announcement seriously and any editor would consider it too foolish to be printed. And yet how often have we been regaled a t breakfast table with glaring head-lines announcing with all seriousness that Dr. So- and So, a celebrated chemist (whom none of us had ever heard of before), has just discovered the secret of the German dyes. Fortunately, however, I think the public and the press are becoming perceptibly educated to a saner idea of chemistry. We have all appreciated more or less the %ride publicity given by the press to the recent meeting of our Society and we surely have not failed to notice the remarkably sensible and rational reports that were printed in our daily papers. We also could not but be impressed with the fact that the great throng of visitors to the Chemical Exposition was made up quite largely of laymen and the unscientific public, and they seemed interested and appreciative. It is apparent, therefore, that chemistry is coming into closer contact with human life; it is becoming more and more a part of the every-day life of the world, and as such is acquiring a breadth and a dignity which only a wide understanding can give it. And not only is the world a t large being benefited by this wider understanding, but Chemistry itself, as a profession, is acquiring new forces and inspiration from this wider contact with human life. 50 EAST4 1 s STRBET NEW YORE: CITY
THE DAY OF THE CHEMIST’ By FRAKK S. WASI~BURN President American Cyanamid Company
“Si monurnentum quaeris, circumspice!” (If you seek his monument look around you.) As we look around us, we see hardly a single object that has not required in its preparatioil the service of a chemist. The tungsten lights illuminating this room are the product of many years of patient toil. The glassware on the table and the eye-glasses that many of you are wearing are representative of two thousand different grades of glass 1 Address delivered a t the banquet of the American Chemical Society. Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, September 29, 19 16.
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that can be produced by the skilled glass maker who works under chemical control. The cutlery on the table represents several immense branches of chemical industry-the iron and the steel industry and the mining industries. The making of iron and steel is in its every step controlled by chemical analyses, and recently many forms of steel have been produced as a result of systematic chemical experimentation. The extraction of silver and gold from their ores by means of cyanide solutions, and their purification, are chemical operations of great importance. The clothing we wear would be a far different commodity if it were not for the chemist. The dye industry is attracting a great deal of attention since the war cut us off from German sources of supply. The American chemist and American capital are making good headway in their efforts to place this country on a basis, which if it is not independent, will a t least not be entirely a t the mercy of foreign sources of supply. Cotton, which supplies such a large portion of the clothing of mankind, has a host of other uses. Fahrikoid, an artificial leather, is produced by nitrating cotton in a particular way and applying it to cotton cloth. For many purposes it is superior to ordinary grades of leather, and is much cheaper. Celluloid and similar compounds are made from cotton and have the widest variety of applications. Photographic films familiar to all of us are also made from nitrated cotton. Perhaps the largest use of nitrated cotton to-day is in explosives, and this product of the chemist’s art is playing a considerable part in determining the future of Europe. Then, coming to the food, even the butter may not be above suspicion of having been tampered with by the chemist, and it is not unlikely that a great part of what we have partaken tonight was grown with the aid of chemical plant foods. Nitrogen drawn from the air, from coal, from distant Chile, and from various seeds, phosphoruq from phosphate rock and potash separated by careful crystallization from the mother ores in Germany, have all helped to sustain the life of the plant and made it grow abundantly and well. Over $~oo,ooo,oooare invested in fertilizer manufacturing plants in this industry, and for its products the farmers of this country pay $r~g,ooo,oooper annum. The scientific preparation of new food products, the principles underlying the canning of fruits, all require the chemist. The preservation of foods by artificial refrigeration is made possible with ammonia produced from the air or in the coke ovens. Cottonseed oil, in its raw state unfit for human consumption, is purified by chemical means and becomes a substitute for olive oil, or it is treated with hydrogen in the presence of a nickel catalyzer and becomes a semi-solid. Fruit oils, flavoring extracts, perfumes are made to-day synthetically, in a great variety and of high purity-some of these products surpassing the natural substances. And when you ride home in your automobile to-night, the motive force in the engine will be gasoline, which with some two hundred other products, represents the petroleum chemists’ contribution to mankind. The present is to be valued as a day of opportunity for the chemist rather than the high noon of accomplishment. Agriculture requires the help of the chemist more than any other human activity, but the benefit of his work has been tremendously handicapped by the ignorance, isolation and restricted horizon of the farmer which makes extremely slow the adoption of new methods and materials. and right here we see wherein the thing called government fails us, for it is hopeless to rely on the individual initiative of the farmer to seek out improvements. Society must place them in his hands for its o w n benefit, and where government is so ordered that it neither uses to a legislative appreciation of this fact nor could efficiently
perform even if it had the appreciation, then it may be justly called a n ineffective form of government. There is a n almost untouched field in new agricultural products, the commercialization of weeds, if you please, such as the sunflower. There is only partial utilization of potatoes, of cotton and of wood fiber. We are a t the very threshold of the possibilities in the development of new fibers and fabrics. Synthetic rubber still challenges the chemical world. The secret of electrical conductivity is still hidden from man although some progress is reported in the treatment of steel conductors which make them slightly, if a t all, inferior to copper. The economic conversion of natural insoluble potash-bearing rocks into soluble potash salts is not yet demonstrated. There is a world of undiscovered country in the conversion of the initial products of +he fixation of atmospheric nitrogen, to the myriad nitrogenous substances. Photo-chemistry as yet counts comparatively little in the way of practical accomplishment. And so far in the distance does the production of synthetic foods from inorganic substances appear to be that one does not mention it seriously for fear of being counted irredeemably impractical. Chemistry will have admirable running-mates along the course stretching on into the future. Even the purely mechanical discoveries and developments do not all belong to the past. There is still place in this field, which ordinarily does not challenge the highest scientific attainments, for marvelous performances based on a profound knowledge of physical laws and mathematics. The evidence of this we see, for example, in the Sperry gyroscope; originally an interesting mysterious toy which with twelve years of devoted study and experimentation displaces in a night the magnetic compass, stabilizes the ponderous battleship and the feathery aeroplane, and promises to be the agency by which ice-bound ports may be unlocked and kept open to commerce the year round. And far removed from mechanics in the long list of subjects of human interest is the psychopathic laboratory and the Binet-Simon system of analyzing-not a physical substance, but the mind of the defective human being, determining the degree of his responsibility to society, and constituting what has been designated as a mental finger-print method of identification of the specific type of mental trouble. The defective and feeble-minded are not only detected a t an early age but by prescribing thyroid or other treatment, carefully and persistently given, these cretin children may be grown to normal stature, mentally and physically, That the genius, devotion and labors of the chemist may be expressed in valuable accomplishment demands the existence of certain favorable conditions which do not exist a t present in this country, and therefore must be brought about. The laborer is worthy of his hire and, furthermore, unless he receives it, he cannot, even if he would, give his labor. One of the greatest discouragements to chemical research work is the absence of any adequate provisions under American law for safeguarding the individual’s title to the product of his brain and energy. The patent laws are inadequate to this end. Their first requisite is publicity and such protection as they do afford is seriously threatened with dissolution by each succeeding session of the National Congress. The average constituent does not distinguish between an odious monopoly which takes from society a right and bestows it upon an individual without recompense to society, and the recognition of a property right in the product of one’s brain to be guaranteed for a limited period in return for its assignment to mankind thereafter. The average legislator cannot hold to views nor act upon them beyond the prejudice or insistence of his constituents or he would cease to be a legislator, average or otherwise. Let us not fail to give adequate consideration to the personal factor. The carrying out of involved chemical processes demands a “feeling,” on the part of the workmen, that, while it
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falls short ol the fine sentiment of the artist, lifts artisanship almost to the level ol a r t itself. After all, the chemical plant is only a chemical laboratory on a large scale and we all appreciate, in the lahoratory a t least, the technique and touch, in other words, a feeling for the work is a necessary characteristic of the operator who expects t o gain accurate and successful results. In countries of modern income a life-long pride and satisfaction on the part of the highly trained chemist in a simple subordinate calling is universal. The mono-technic schools of Germany are in the belief of many, the chief factor in that nation’s unexampled advance in the arts, particularly in the chemical industries. One cannot travel far in chemistry without coming to Germany. Few branches of the suhject can be properly dealt with except we draw examples from Germany. I trust no one here will read into my references to Germany any expression of opinion as to Germany’s place in this horrible world tragedy being enacted abroad. We can all meet on the common ground of mourner over the sufferings of the admirable individuals who compose the greater part of every nation. T o return to the mono-technic school: i t is more than a great ecpnomic factor; it represents and examples that unique social principle that sets the Gcrman people politically apart from every other nation of the world, the placing of the Fatherland above the individual, the sacrifice of individual opportunity to the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number. There are, as I recall it, over 400 mono-technic schools, and taking the dye schools as an example, the curriculum is of a higher standard than in any save one or two universities in the United States-four years ol laboratory practice in neighboring dye establishments and specialization in the most involved chemical theory, on the intricate differentiations of the myriad color compounds and byproducts, and on the psychology of color. What American parent would be satisfied t o have his son give four pears of highclass intellectual effort as a college student and have nothing ahead of him in a long life beyond a foremanship in a dye establishment? And yet this subjugation of the individual has made Germany, in a broad sense, the only producers of dyes in the world and the greatest of dyers. So wc say the Day of the Chemist is not t o be measured by the personal gain of the chemist so much as by the opportunity for service, and applying to the modest thing the trained analytical mind. So we come back to our original statement that without devoted personal service many scientific undertakings otherwise possible will prove failures with us. The German estimate of our limitations in this regard is well expressed by the dry comment on the merits of the Diesel Engine-“It works well--.except where English is spoken.” Therc is little appreciation among American financiers, bankers, or the investing public of the value of an idea, and therelore we are without a recognized basis for seeking capital with which to exploit the result of research work, either in the initial stages of the development or for later expansions. The average banker is more impressed with an asset item of buildings, plant and equipment even without knowledge as to whether they can be converted to any practical use, than he is with an idea the potential value of which may be substantially unlimited. He will not give value to an idea. There is another obstacle to establishing the value of chemical developments, namely, the absence of any body of recognized consultants whose reports are universally accepted as reliable. The failure to use such men as there are of this type is a handicap to the good project and an imposition always upon the persons whose assistance, financial or otherwise, is sought in the development of a project. No enterprise, regardless of the ability and standing of its sponsors, should be presented in an effort t o secure financial cooperation, without being accompanied by a report on the project with conclusions as to its technical and commercial merits from some highly regarded man of scientific attainments.
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1 would point in passing to another difficulty for which I think the chemist himself is chiefly responsible, and that is that no distinction as t o commercial value is made between the bare thought or invention and the developed process or material. Too many chemists view as synonymous the theory which applies to an idea and the processing by which the theory may be converted t o practical accomplishment. Chemical theories are innumerable and of those who present them in the aspect of practical accomplishments there are a vast multitude. I was interested in looking over the report of one of our great mining companies, which maintains a department for the investigation of projects presented for investment. Last year out of 780 projects so presented only 13 were worthy of extended investigation: substantially 2 per cent. I am quite positive that the experience of those engaged in the chemical industries as to new projects which are brought to them by chemists, will confirm in this branch of human endeavor as low a percentage of worthy projects as in metal mining. American problems have been primarily the problems of a pioneer community in a sparsely settled country, where virgin national a-ealth is to be had by stretching out the hand, wherc simple direct means backed by energy, daring and courage accomplish results by main strength and awkwardness. We are going out of that phase of existence into a period where to compete in accontplishment with other nations scientific methods must be employed. The day of the typical “practical man” is passing and there is dawning the day of thc efficient scientific man. The latter is not yet appreciated, he is not generally understood nor honored. 4 s he grows in public esteem and receives social recognition there will be attached t o his ranks more of ability, ambition and the stronger personalities by whom honor and the consciousness of serving society is more prized than the money wage. This nation’s greatest asset is its thinking men. Our country faces its greatest peril as well as its greatest opportunity. The Day of the Chemist is a day of opportunity for service. It is the blessed privilege of the man of science that his value is measured in proportion to the service he renders society. I t lifts him to a plane of nobility unattainable by those who amass even the greatest fortunes without contributing to mankind a comparable return. Rut the chemist’s most valuable contribution to the world will not lie in the economic value of his process or product. It will come from his moral example and influence. We ol this country are not yet awake to the value of truth. I mean the truth that is fact. So little of our national life is ordered on a basis of fact. Contemplate our National legislators, in whose hands are the destinies of this great nation and the waste or the useful fulfillment of our individual lives. One of the most depressing experiences in the life of any observing, thinking American must be the contemplation of the most important and complicated of human activities, government, conducted in an age of scientific approach to every other subject and striving for efficiency in every other activity, without any realization that such a basis might exist for it. Government with us, like the study of contemporaneous European geography, is largely a matter of personal opinion. Were some fearful scourge running an unchecked course through the greater part O F the civilized world, killing, crippling and blinding the vigorous youth and middle aged of sixteen nations of Europe would not the mind and soul of every lover of mankind be enlisted in the service of stamping out the scourge and establishing a quarantine thereafter that would for all time prevent its recurrence? This horrible, unexampled war has been called the Chemist’s war-and it is t o the honor of any man that he shall do great service for his nation a t war. and yet how immeasurably greater would be the accomplishment of any class of men who had contributed something effective to
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the prevention of war. What will the Day of the Chemist bring forward as his contribution to war’s prevention? And yet despite the possession by the German nation of a highly honored body of the world’s greatest scientists the scourge came and none could stay it. Something more then is required than simple devotion to scientific truth. Is it “reasonableness?” In other words, that spirit of mind which is not allied to partisanship-the balanced, considerate and open mind. When that shall be the recognized mental equipment of every scientific man, then shall dawn the True Day of the Chemist. 200 FIRTH AVSNUE, NEW YORECITY
NITROGEN AND NITRATES
FROM BITUMINOUS COAL’
By C. G. ATWATER Received September 23, 1916
Every few years a wave of nitrogenous famine seems to sweep over the daily press, arousing more or less interest and apprehension on the part of the public. Coincident with these waves, discoveries which remove the danger of famine and therefore deliver posterity from the prospect of perishing of starvation, are brought to public view. Some eight or nine years ago Sir William Crookes sounded a “note of alarm” and our deliverance by the recovery of atmospheric nitrogen through the electric arc was predicted. A few years later commercial cultures of nitrogen-fixing bacteria were discovered and their beneficial activities were greeted with more or less journalistic and public enthusiasm. The New York Tribune, commenting editorially on the appearance of electrolytic fixation and of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria a t that time, proclaimed its entire willingness to credit the inventors of either process with the preservation of our descendants from death by hunger, but admitted its inability to give both credit for the same beneficent work. I have not seen in the public prints any wide-spread announcement of the €act that the recovery of nitrogen from bituminous coal is destined to save future generations from starvation, but in view of the fact that this process has always had and still has as great a promise as either of the others and is much closer to our ordinary manufacturing operations and industrial organization, I feel that such a proclamation may be expected a t any moment. While there is an attractive touch of romance in the idea of converting the atmosphere into food, even though somewhat overworked of late, it must be remembered that even in the legend, the rai?bow was in the air, while the pot of gold had to be dug out of the ground a t its foot. These circumstances furnish me with some shadow of excuse, at least, for this paper. Additional color is given to this excuse by the fact that the immediate demand of nitrogen for producing food for the preservation of life is supplemented by a dire need for it in the production of explosives to be used in quite the opposite direction. It might be interesting, but would probably be quite useless, to speculate as to whether these two needs could not be so manipulated as ultimately to neutralize each other in the outcome. AMMONIA FROM BITUMINOUS COAL
In speaking of the potential amounts of ammonia recoverable from bituminous coal, as has been done for years past in the p u b h prints, it has been the habit t o limit such speculation to the amount of coal actually made into coke. There were a t least two good reasons for this, one being that this coal was already being subjected t o the process of destructive distillation and hence was commercially eligible for treatment by the byproduct recovery process A second was that the amount of ammonia recoverable from the coking operation was until recently so far in advance of the amount actually being recovered, the ratio being about 4 to I , that any argument for 1 Paper read before the American Chemical Society, New York City, September 25-30, 1916
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conservation or contrast with European practice could be sufficiently enforced with this simple illustration without going further afield. Such statements, so far as I have been guilty of them, erred only on the conservative side. They limited themselves to the replacement of beehive coke, used almost exclusively in iron smelting, with by-product coke. They took no account of the extremely probable increase in the iron industry and they passed by, in rather a cursory fashion, the immense production that would ensue if even a moiety of our ordinary fuel consumption were conducted with by-product recovery. A little closer examination of the actual conditions will show how important these omissions were. In order t o get the data in proper sequence, I will first state the present figures. The ammonium sulfate production in the United States for the year 1915 is estimated a t 2 2 0 , 0 0 0 net tons, figuring all forms of ammonia as sulfate. The largest amount of coal made into coke in any one year, as reported to date, including beehive, by-product and gas-house coke, was in 1913, and amounted to over 73 million tons. This should have yielded over 700,000 tons of ammonium sulfate. In other words, the maximum recovery is a little less than one-third of the maximum amount possible. It is highly probable, however, that the year 1916 will increase the total figures, though it may not change their ratio. The beehive coke production for the past half year, if maintained, will give the largest year on record, and the same is true of the by-product coke output. An increase of 25,000 t o j0,ooo tons of ammonium sulfate for the year is considered probable. There are estimated to be 2,600 new by-product coke-ovens actually under construction, and 1,100 more that have been definitely decided upon. These will add about 15,000,000 tons of by-product coke to the annual capacity when completed, so that within two years an output of 37j,OOO to 400,000 tons of ammonium sulfate per year is quite possible if business conditions favor complete operations. The output of bituminous coal for the year 191j was 438,j50,ooo tons and the Geological Survey’s estimate for 1916 is 500 million tons. If we figure a recovery of L per cent in ammonium sulfate this would amount to j million tons per annum. All of this ammonia is recoverable, and all but the modicum recovered is now wasted. The first objection to this statement that will occur is, of course, the difficulty of recovering byproducts from the simple furnaces in which most of this coal is consumed. These difficulties are by no means so great as has been popularly accepted and a notable amount of progress has recently been made along the line of substituting methods of fuel treatment that permit of ammonia recovery. In the first place a great deal of coke is now being used in place of anthracite coal. The latter has constantly risen in price and its production is decreasing. In many districts of the Middle West, coke has taken its place as a smokeless fuel. There are a number of coke-oven plants which regularly turn a respectable portion of their output into domestic coke and this business is steadily increasing. Domestic coke is regularly distributed from the coke plants a t Chicago, Ill., Milwaukee, Wis., Duluth, Minn., St. Louis, Mo., Muncie and Indianapolis, Ind., Hamilton, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., Glassport, P a , Geneva, N. Y . , Everett, Mass., Camden, N. J., and is obtainable in many other cities. Some domestic coke will also be supplied to the local market from the new plant now building near Newark, N. J. These conditions are emphasized by the fact that there is no prospect of any diminution in the price of anthracite, nor is it to be expected that the present burners of smokeless fuel will ever return to the former smoky and undesirable conditions. An additional impulse in this direction is the increasing domestic and industrial consumption of gas. Large areas of the Middle West have been accustomed to natural gas a t a low price. The supply seems to be finally on the wane and it is only
