The Daily News MONDAY, JULY 19. SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 147, 19 July 1909, Page 2

The Daily News MONDAY, JULY 19. SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

A scientific congress of special interest to practical * men of business, and in particular to farmers and manufacturers, met in London at the end of May. It was an international conference of workers, academic and industrial, in the Held of applied chemistry. To it came not only distinguished scientists like Sir William Ramsay, Sir James Dewar, Professor Witt, of Berlin, and Professor 11. E. Armstrong, and busy manufacturers like Sir Andrew Noble, Sir Hugh Bell, and Dr. Bcrntlisen, director of a great , German chemical company, together with | experts from public offices, such as the United States Department of Agriculture. The papers and discussions, which covered a wide range of subjects, showed how true it is that science is the handmaid oi industry. , The researches of men of science in the laboratory have more than an intellectual value. They touch upon all the activities of life, and are the chief agents in our progress in material well-being, /The proceedings of the conference brought out forcibly the incalculable importance to each and all of us of the work done by chemical investigators. A striking example, which will appeal to agriculturists, is the attempt now being made to utilise the boundless store of nitrogen in the atmosphere for the production of and other nitrates. The supply of natural nitrates available is limited, and is being exhausted. Yet nitrates we must have if we are to grow enough food, above all,', wheat, for the world's needs. Dr. Uernthsen told the conference that of the 2,000,000 tons of Chili or sodium nitrate, exported yearly for agricultural purposes, Germany took about one-third. If that country cuuui only double the amount of nitrogeuous manure applied to its soil, it would not only be able to raise all the. corn ;uid potatoes it required for its own consumption, but would have a balance loft over for export. It is the same with all countries. A large supply of cheap nitrates would enormously increase their productivity. So serious is the problem for the future of our race that a number of chemists have been seeking in their laboratories to discover a method of combining the free nitrogen of the air to form nitrates. About 300,000 tons of nitrogen are now being used up annually in- the form of saltpetre, but the atmosphere contains 4,000 billion tons, or enough for 14,000,000,000 years' supply of saltpetre. By means of the electric furnace it lias been found possible to " fix" atmospheric nitrogen. Factories for the l purpose are getting to work in I Sweden and iu Germany, and within a few years they are expected to reach an annual output of 100,000 tons of air-

saltpetre. Another illustration of the beneficial | results of recent chemical research is j the use of various waste products m road construction in order to get rid of that dust nuisance which is at times bo troublesome in every town. Officers of thy Public Hoods Department in the United States gave ai: i. count of successful experiments with such by-pro-ducts of industry as furnace slags, waste molasses from cane and beetroot *ngar niili?-', and the sulphite liquors from tin* ptilp-ipaper industry. J.ty laboratory tests the solubility, and hence the (pini'iiling value, of the slags and other by-products are determined, and .the '■liniiisi thus aids the work of the ro.idengineer. In tlie Mississippi delta a eeiiouj local difficulty in road-making has been overcome by burning day .soils in order to reduce their plasticity and ! sticky natures. This .process also is a iesult of work originally done in a chemical laboratory. It is, perhaps, in the utilisation of refuse and waste substances that chemistry lias done i'sost foj- industry. The economy in "production and the saving of energy effected by this means are among the ffieate;;t industrial gains of the immediate past. Processes wasteful in tlie i-se of material and in the consumption of energy are continually being replaced, through laboratory research, by more economical processes. "The history of applied chemistry," said Professor Witt, of Berlin, "is teaming with instances in which the survival of the i fittest means neither more nor leas' than a victory of economy." He cited the development of "a conscience for fuel" as an example of the economies now practiced at the instigation of the chemist. Smoke was once regarded as a neces-f-aiily evil. Jfow it is known that smoke is waste. A .smoking chimney dissipates into the atmosphere not only un- ; uurned carbon, tout also invisible car- • bonie oxide and methane, with all the 1 latent energy they contain. This lat- i

ent energy can now he saved and used by regenerative gas heating, which not only prevents tile smoke nuisance, Jbut is a powerful means of economising heat, and therefore, as Prof««or Witt remarked, one of the greatest acquisitions |of modern industry. (These are but some of the jmiTiy ways in which the scientific chemist has helped the world's worker.-:. HU results benefit us in almost every conceivable tiling that min-i-ters to our needs or our comfort, in the clothes we wear, the food wo feat, the roads we pass along, the power we 'wo. the light we bum, and the warmth I wo need. ]