The San Francisco call., 1903-12-14
Riches Ont of Waste.
BY MALCOLM MCDOWELL

many men. The industrial chemist is
the wealth producer Of the Industrial
world BY Transforming waste prod
ucts into by-products he not only has
added millions to the revenues of man
ufacturers and miners, but has brought
down luxuries to the hard pan of daily
necessities.
There was a time when every slaugh-
ter house and packing establishment
was public nuisance and breeder of
disease and foul odors. This was be-
cause the grease, offals and all the
cast-outs (which went under the gen
eral head OF waste" products were ac-
tually wasted To-day the word
waste" is practically wiped off the
slate Of packing house vocabulary. The
old joke that a Chicago packing house
uses every part of pig except its
squeal and'is canning squeals for grand
juries is a concise statement of the real
conditions in such establishments.
There is a great sewer which carries
the water from the Chicago stock yards
to the Chicago River. Not many
years ago this water was bubbling
with the gases Of decomposition;
thick with floating grease and rot
ten refuse. . Now the water is about
the color Of very weak beef tea, and
as harmless. That is because the IN
dustrial chemist has discovered and de-
veloped methods which have made the
waste by-products. and what was once
cast INTO the sewer is now carefully col
lected TO later become finished prod
ucts of great value and large import
snce.
Take the one item of blood Thou
sands of tens OF fertilizers are made
every year from the red gore. which
gives local color TO up-to- date packing
houses. The produced fertilizers are
chiefly valuable for the large amount
Of nitrogen which they contain, and
nitrogen is one of the most necessary
parts Of plant food. Fertilizers made
at a big packing house from blood and
ground bone are shipped to all parts
Of the world.
No part OF an animal killed on a
slaughter floor Of a modern packing
house is lost or wasted. Formerly the
caul fats went into the cheap tallow
products. Now they are utilized for
the manufacture Of oleomargarine oil.
the chief component part of butterine
or oleomargarine. The intestines are
made into sausage covers. PeDsin is
a modern product which the Industrial
chemist gets from the stomach and gall
is. used by printers. painters and dyers.
The blood goes into fertilizers, much of
it is used in sugar refineries to clarity
the syrup, and imitation tortoise shell.
buttons and other articles are made
from a preparation which has hydraulic
pressed blood as its principal constitu-
ent. The common fats, unfit for max
ing oleomargarine oil. are rendered into
tallow: the hide is sent to the tanner;
the bladders and weasands are used for
packing snuff and putty in and for
scores of other things; horns. blade
bones and shin bones are made into
buttons. combs, knife handles, etc
hoofs, hide trimmings, sinews, knuckles
and other scraps are made into glue
and ali offal not otherwise used is con-
verted into fertilizers.
For years glycerin. now used in inn
mense quantities. was a wasted pro-
duct Soap makers and, in fact. every
manufacturer who uses fatty oils. for
merly sent the waste adrift in conyen-
lent streams. But now the waste from
fatty oils is treated with alkaiis the
glycerin is collected by evaporation
and distillation and great quantities
Of it are used in making useful explo-
sives
Industrial chemistry applied to the
petroleum industry fairly revolution
ized the manufacture of oils. The
Standard Oil Company may be the
mother of trusts. but ii has done more
to develop and encourage Industrial
chemistry probably than any other cen
cern or institution on the face of the
earth. Originally crude oil was refined
to obtain kerosene for illuminating pur-
poses. The waste was enormous. To-
day the by-products in the manufac-
ture Of kerosene are more valuable than
the principal product. BY various
processes OF distillatfon and the addi-
ton of acids and alkalis, crude oil is
split up into gasoline, naphtha of va
rious grades, kerosene, lubricating oil,
paraffin, vaseline. cosmoline and scores
of other preparations and carbons for
arc lights. 1t is when one remembers
that but few short years ago every
one Of these products except kerosene
was wasted. that one appreciates the
Importance of the expert chemist in the
industrial field.
Time was, and not so very long ago.
when coal tar was regarded pretty
much as a waste product. But the in
quisitive industrial chemist began pick
ing it to pieces, and now the most beau
tifui analine dyes are produced from the
once despised coal tar, and numerous
valuable drugs result from its distil-
lation and chemical treatment. Anti
pyrine, antifebrin, acetanalid, phenace-
tine and saccharin, which is 2S0 times
sweeter than sugar: sulphonal. which
puts nervous people TO sleep, are some
coal tar drugs, and benzine, benzoI.
creosote oil, naphthalene, lampblack
and innumerable colors and dyes are
produced from the residuum called coal
tar
In the manufacture of glucose chem
lists found a large source Of revenue 60
ing 10 waste. so they trapped it, and
now corn oil, the oil from the
germ in a grain Of corn, is extracted
and millions of dollars worth are used
in the arts every year. Coke ovens,