HOW COAL WASTAGE INCREASES TUBERCULOSIS.* By W. H. CASMEY. WE are using nearly 200 million tons of coal per year, 25 per cent of which is wasted by stoking at the wrong time and giving approximately 80 per cent more air than is required for economically burning the coal, and it is the effect of this excess air used which has such a disastrous effect both on human life and vegetation. Consider the earth as forming the base of a sea of air, the composition of which as before stated is 78 per cent nitrogen and 21 per cent oxygen and 1 per cent of other gases including 1 part of carbon dioxide in 2500 of air, and that to maintain health this proportion must be maintained within a margin of 3 parts CO, to 10,000 or air, in excess of normal conditions, say the maximum CO2 in 10,000 must not exceed 7 parts. The area of the British Isles is 121,000 square miles, and to keep our figures small it is proposed to take one square mile as a unit and we find we consume 1612 tons of coal per year for each square mile and when using coal on scientific lines 29,000 tons of air is required per square mile, say 845 million cubic feet. The coal consumption in Wakefield is 22,000 tons per square mile, and in Bradford 37,000 tons. The atmosphere will absorb the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the gases and gradually diffuse it and so maintain the standard 4 parts in 10,000 from which, as already inferred, vegetation is fed, but under general working conditions of 30 pounds of air per pound of coal the gases discharged into the atmosphere is 48,000 tons per square mile as against 29,000 tons, the result being that this overcharge which is accompanied by a large quantity of dust and products of imperfect combustion which fouls the atmosphere and does more in destroying both life and vegetation than any other cause, and in our industrial centres the dust fall during the year ranges from 400 to 600 tons per square mile, whereas in the suburbs the deposit is less than 30 tons. Is there any wonder that under such conditions it is next to impossible to grow either flowers or fruit in such areas. Two hours' sunshine is taken from us per day with such a mass of floating dust and the lungs of plant life are choked. Why? Because we have not followed the Designer's law already given, and for these losses and annoyances we have only our stupid selves to blame. If we could follow in burning coal the same laws of proportion as used in all our works and factories we could make no mistake, but the boiler house, the greenhouse and the house fires seldom receive any sensible consideration. Under normal conditions the whole of the blood in the human body is brought into contact with the air once per minute, and the air we expire may very well be considered as the smoke from the boiler furnace, as the law of combustion as already stated, applies to both. The parallel goes still further, the safety valve of the body is set at 98°, and no matter when in health if surrounded by air at 20° or 200°, the temperature of the blood never varies, in one case deeper breathing is carried on, which supplies *Extract from a Lecture given before the Wakefield Paxton Society, January 1st, 1921. more air to the body and therefore more heat is generated, and in the other case the heat escapes through the sweat glands in the form of moisture. We take in when we breathe oxygen and expire CO,, but if the outside air already holds more CO, than the standard 1 part in 2500, we are not maintaining the health of the body, as no matter how foul the air may be by which we are surrounded, we are compelled to breathe it. Here the senses of smell and taste cannot help us, whereas they enable us to reject impure food and drink. By great care in our drainage schemes and water supplies, typhoid and typhus fevers are now practically unknown, and as the greater number of diseases are air-borne, every care should be taken to maintain a pure atmosphere, but what are we doing in this direction. The appointment of a smoke inspector appears to the authorities as the only thing necessary, but food and water inspection are considered of vital importance, and so they are, but not more so than the air we are compelled to breathe. Let us now consider how an impure atmosphere affects us; take as an example one of our large schools accommodating say 1000 scholars. In the act of breathing, CO, is expelled from the lungs and to dilute the expired air so that it contains not more than 7 parts of CO, in 10,000 of air, it is necessary to supply 3300 cubic feet of air per child per hour, or a total for the school of 3,300,000 cubic feet, so that impurities in the outside air are very much in evidence inside the school. The air supply to this school equals 100 tons of air per hour, and without mechanical means it is not possible to secure it, and the result is, that as a rule, windows are opened and the outer air obeying the laws of gravitation merely falls through the windows, causing what we call draughts, resulting in colds to the youngsters near the windows, and even when the windows are closed, the so-called draughts continue, caused by the quick transmission of heat through the glass which is six times as rapid as through the walls, and every 10° fall in temperature increases the weight of a cubic foot of air 1 grain, the draught therefore is again a case of gravitation due to heat transmission. We cannot burn coal to the best advantage without a proper air supply, nor maintain health either, and we have but few schools or public buildings in Yorkshire where anything like scientific ventilation is in use, coal is wasted due to havng too great a supply of air, life is wasted by not having a sufficient supply. There is no wonder that schools are often closed for weeks together due to the outbreak of infectious diseases directly caused through lack of fresh air. There, no doubt, tuberculosis often originates. Every buildng should be so fitted up with heating and ventilating plant that the correct temperature and purity of air is maintained under all conditions and the ventilation such that the build. ing breathes in unison with the number of people occupying it, and it is only by adopting the lines thus indicated that tuberculosis can be stamped NEWS 14, To save coal we must burn it, the outside air will then be kept pure; to prevent consumption every building where people are gathered together must be made equal to a fresh air hospital by heat ing and ventilation. Our trams and railway carriages must carry the number of people they are constructed to carry, and no more, and when we give the same attention to the air we are compelled to breathe as to our water and food supplies we shall have attained what has been attempted in a half-hearted way for many years; a kingdom free from coal wastage and tuberculosis. In conclusion, let us draw the tangled cords together and we find a very simple problem. The law of combustion applies both to the human frame and the boiler furnace in one, oxygen is breathed in and CO, breathed out. Plant life takes in CO2, but breathes out oxygen; CO, may therefore be considered as the link between the animate and inanimate kingdoms. By careless burning of our coal we discharge other gases than CO, into the atmosphere and practically suffocate the weaker members of plant life, thus interfering both directly and indirectly with the Creator's design. For months every newspaper has been giving columns on national economy, whatever that means, but little has been said of the foundation on which true economy is built. Dear coal means dear metal, the machines made from these are proportionately dear, and so is the products they assist in producing. The reason is, because the demand for coal has exceeded the supplies, and our coal exports have fallen. If we all unite in using coal as it should be used, we should save 50 million tons per year; this would bring the supplies in excess of demands, with the natural results, easier prices; this would also enable us to again export more coals, thus bringing into our country cheaper produce, therefore, cheaper living, and the stability of the country would be in the direction of pre-war conditions. The economy we require is not one made and practised in the House of Commons only, but made and practised daily in each one of our 8,000,000 houses and 40,000 works, and the result of such economy would be "reduction in coal consumption," "reduction of our death rate," and further, a big reduction in the cost of living. Remeber the three "R's" during 1921. PRESENT POSITION OF THE FINE THE British fine chemical industry is to-day in a critical position-a conditon resulting from a combination of circumstances. According as the Government redeems its pledge or not, the industry can either stabilise itself and become second to no other fine chemical industry in the world, or, alternatively, will sink back into its pre-war condition, or something very nearly like it. The chemical industry consists of two parts :(1) heavy chemicals; (2) fine chemicals. The former has several main branches, such as the acid, the alkali, and the soap industries; all of these were well-developed and well-organised British industries before the war. The latter has very many branches, but none was well-developed before the war, nor was the industry organised. Dyes constitute a group of fine chemicals, so large and important that they are generally considered as a separate branch of chemical industry; actually, however, they cannot be thus divorced from the rest of the fine chemical industry. Parliament is legislating for the dye industry; it must also legislate for the remainder, and no shortsighted policy should be allowed to interfere in this important national question. Comparatively few people outside the profession of chemistry know what the fine chemical industry is; still less do they know of its many and far reaching ramifications, by reason of which it is essentially and truly a "key" industry, and therefore of vital importance to the national welfare. Before the war even chemists, generally, had rather vague notions as to what precisely fine chemicals are. How often has one heard such loose expressions as "medicinal and fine chemicals' or "fine chemicals and analytical reagents," and the like Indeed, a notorious Board of Trade memorandum, born a little more than a year ago and now decently interred, made use of the expresSion analytical reagents and the following fine chemicals." "Fine chemicals" is the term comprehensive of all fine chemicals, and includes the various groups :-(1) laboratory chemicals (i.e., analytical reagents and research chemicals); (2) medicinal (or pharmaceutical) chemicals; (3) photographic chemicals; together with other groups according to taste. It is now well-known that whereas before the war the manufacture of certain fine chemicals was satisfactorily established in this country, in the large sense, the fine chemical industry was essentially German. There was no organised industry and no organisation of manufacturers. To-day the Fine Chemical Group of the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers is numerically the strongest and possibly the most active in the Association. The outbreak of war rudely awakened the country to the fact that fine chemicals are products of national importance, and, incidentally, that war cannot be waged without them, so that many and many a substance which we had until then contentedly bought from Germany had to be manufactured hurriedly with inappropriate plant and almost regardless of cost. Some of these were wanted for the immediate purposes of war, others for the manufacture of munitions, yet others for their medicinal properties. Arrangements prompted by the action of the Institute of Chemistry and the Society of Public Analysts were made for the supply of analytical reagents of requisite and known purity. More recently the manufacture of research chemicals has been systematically undertaken, and is now approaching a satisfactory condition. Good headway has been made by the makers of photographic chemicals, and also by those of synthetic perfumes and essences. The manufacture of medicinal organic synthetic products has made very considerable progress; those begun early have been improved, perfected, and stabilised; and many others have been added or were in course of being added when the present impasse arose. It is much to be able to say that we have never gone short of essentials. British manufacturers have proved that they can turn out products of first-rate quality. Economy of manufacture, maximum yields, with corresponding reduction of costs, were following in due Course, slowly, it is true, but nevertheless surely. Rome was not built in a day. To train up an army of skilled organic chemical workers requisite to the fine chemical industry is a matter of years. The British fine chemical industry-as we now understand it had to be initiated under war-time .e., the worst possible conditons. The early postwar period afforded manufacturers the first opportunity to stabilise their immature efforts, but it was then that they experienced to the full the difficulties of obtaining plant and erecting buildings, long delays and high prices being the promi nent features. The efforts of the industry-a new one to expand were hindered by the dead weight of the excess profits duty. Yet, despite all the enormous difficulties, progress on the whole was really good until the Sankey judgment, like a bombshell, completely changed the situation. This, helped by the anomalous position of foreign exchanges, has led to the swamping of the market with German goods, a combination of circumstances which threatens defeat unless the Government steps in promptly and redeems its pledge to protect "key" industries. Fine chemical manufacturers after very full consideration, have unanimously pronounced in favour of prohibiting imports of hne chemicals except under a system of licences, which should readily be granted when British manufacturers are unable to meet genuine demands for essential products. This, it will be seen, is precisely similar to the course it is proposed to adopt in the case of dyes: a natural coincidence when it is borne in mind that the fine chemical industry and the dye industry are indissolubly linked together and must inevitably go hand-in-hand. Indeed, one of the less obvious, but by no means negligible, features of the fine chemical industry is that it elaborates the otherwise useless by-products of the dye industry, thereby giving employment to thousands of men. Incidentally, it affords a training ground for chemists, technical and industrial, which no other school can rival. An amendment to the Dyestuffs (Import Regulation) Bill was designed to exclude from the provisions of the Act "synthetic organic products imported_mainly for medicinal or surgical purposes." This attitude on the part of some of our legislators does not augur well for the safeguarding of the organic chemical industry, nor for the future of the Empire. It is, indeed, a very short-sighted policy which seeks to gain a small, problematical, and temporary reduction in the cost of a certain number of medicinal substances at the expense of losing an industry already half-established, and which if fully develloped would make the nation permanently selfsupporting in the production of curative agents. Moreover, the Bill provides for the importation under licence of substances which cannot be produced at home. It is this kind of opposition, born in ignorance and nourished in apathy, which confronts those who have the national welfare at heart. It is to be feared that there are others remaining in the background and doing their work covertly, who are directly concerned that England shall not have a fine chemical industry, and who are doing all in their power to let her sink back to her pre-war dependence upon Germany. The many uses of fine chemicals in peace time, which justify so fully the claim of the industry to be regarded as a "key" industry, do not need to be Research chemicals for our laboured here. universities and teaching institutions, together with analytcal reagents for the same purposes and for works' laboratories, have already been mentioned. The importance of the industry to medicine and national health is not confined to the supply of synthetic drugs, but rests also upon the fact that the expansion of an organic chemical industry is intimately associated with developments in biochemistry and in the most modern methods of treating and preventing disease. It cannot be too frequently nor too cogently insisted upon that the nation which possesses fine chemical and dye industries possesses potential arsenals for waging war, so that the nation which does not possess them is ever at the mercy of nations which do. The present critical position of the fine chemical industry is largely due to the lack of confidence which manufacturers have in the Government. To-day it is not too late to save the situation; soon it will be.-Journal of Society of Chemical Industry, December 31, 1920. PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. FARADAY SOCIETY. SIR ROBERT HADFIELD, Bart., F.R.S., President, was in the Chair. DR. A. E. OXLEY communicated and initiated discussion on a paper presented by Prof. E. D. CAMPBELL (University of Michigan), entitled, "A Force Field Dissociation Theory of Solution Applied to Some Properties of Steel." The author considers that understanding of the properties of alloys has been obscured by the use of the term "solid solution" and by expressing constitution in terms of percentage weights. There is no essential difference between a iiquid and a solid solution, and the constitution of both should be expressed as molecular or atomic concentrations per unit volume. The electrolytic dissociation theory in its usual form is inapplicable to alloys. The force field force field theory, however, put forward simultaneously by Baly and the author is a modified form of it which is applicable to liquid and solid solutions alike. The assumption is made that in a molecule the electromagnetic force field associated with the constituent atoms is closed in the combination but in solution this force field is more or less opened out by the solvent, to an extent depending on concentration and composition. The reactivity of ions is due to the open force fields and not to the presence of electric charges. In the presence of an impressed e.m.f. the resultant of the reactivity is electrical resistance in the case of metallic solutions, electrical conductance in aqueous solutions. Dr. A. E. OXLEY considered that the field force theory alone was insufficient to account for the atom properties of solutions, the conceptions of Arrhenius were also required, otherwise Bragg's lattice structure did not apply. The union of two like atoms to form a molecule required that the electrons should be in ring or vortex motion or otherwise act as a magnetic unit or magneton. The Rutherford-Bohr, or "solar-system," did not explain the diamagnetic or paramagnetic properties of matter. Dr. Oxley went on to explain Langmuir's cube theory of atomic structure. His own theory might be supplementary to that if Langmuir's stationary electrons were made to describe a small orbit or be vortical in character. The CHAIRMAN hoped Dr. Oxley's theory would prove to explain the remarkable magnetic properties of alloy steels and the phenomena of hardening. Dr. OXLEY, in reply to a question, thought his conception could be made to fit in with spectral phenomena. "The Electrical Resistivity of Dilute Metallic Solutions." By A. L. NORBURY, M.Sc. It is well known that the small quantities of imprities in solid solution cause a large increase in the electrical resistvity of a pure metal. Data are collected showing the relative atomic effects of such impurities and certain relationship appears to be brought out by doing so. The paper is divided into three sections. a Section 1. The general theoretic interpretation of data obtained by measuring the electrical resistivity of alloys is discussed. (a) In the case of duplex alloys in which the componet metals are mutually insoluble and crystallise sde by side each crystal grain may be considered as a separate conductor. In so far as the arrangement of the grans tend to be in the nature of conductors arranged in parallel the conductivity will be a linear function of the composition. In so far as they tend to be arranged in series the resistivity will tend to be a linear function of the composition. (b) In the case of alloys which form a continuous series of solid solutions the atomic effects of the metals on one another are approximately represented by the initial slopes of the observed curves on either side. (c) Reasons are given for thinking that the initial additions of solute normally cause a linear increase in the resistivity of the metallic solvent. (d) Temperature seems to affect the resistivity of solid solutions as if it were made up of two independent quantities of which the increased resistivity-consequent on solid solution formation is very little influenced. (e) Cold-work and variations in grain size have relatively small influences on the resistivity in the case of pure metals. In the case of duplex alloys the grain size has an increasingly large influence as the number of atoms forming the crystal boundaries becomes comparable with the total number of atoms present. The fall in resistivity consequent on tempering martensitic steel is discussed. It is suggested that in martensite the carbon is present in a highly dispersed condition, but is not in true solid solution in the a-iron. Section II. Data are collected showing the effects of various elements on the electrical resistivities of iron, nickel, palladium, platinum, copper, silver, gold, magnesium, cadmium, sodium, and potassium. The atomic effects of the solutes are plotted against the positions in the Periodic Table-the results bring out the general relationship that the atomic effect of a solute on the resistivity of a metallic solvent is large or small according as the solute is far from or near to the solvent in the Periodic Table. Section III. In this section the results are discussed. (a) A comparison with the atomic volumes, intrinsic pressures, electrical resistivities, thermoelectric properties and decomposition potentials of the elements concerned shows that none of these atomic properties can be directly applied to explain the results. It is suggested that the atomic effects are small when there is little electrical attraction between the atoms of solute and solvent and large according as the electrical atraction between the two is greater. (b) It seems probable that in the dilute solutions quoted the atoms of solute are not associated. (c) Assuming, for example, the face-centred cube lattice in a dilute solid solution, a natom of solute will be surrounded by twelve equidistant atoms of solvent and will not be attached to any one of these atoms in particular. It will, therefore, exert attractive forces on the electrons of the surrounding atoms. (d) It is generally assumed that metals conduct the electric current by means of their "free" electrons, the presence, therefore, of forces restraining the "free" electrons in solid solutions will account for their diminished conductivity. Annual General Meeting, December 13, 1920. The following Officers and Council were elected to serve for the coming year : President-Prof. Alfred W. Porter, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents-W. R. Cooper, Prof. C. H. In proposing a vote of thanks to the retiring President, Sir Robert Hadfield, who had guided the Society during the whole critical period of the war, Prof. Porter referred to the growth that had taken place in the Society's work and in its prestige during that period. He remarked that of the twenty-six General Discussions that had been organised by the Society, many of them in cooperation with other societies whose collaboration was greatly appreciated, no less than nineteen had been held during Sir Robert Hadfield's presidency. |