The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-12-14
-Dietz on Science
REVIEW SHOWS
GREAT ADVANCE
BY CHEMISTRY
Last Quarter of Century
Brought Under Use
Commercially.
BY DAVID DIETZ
scripps Howard Science Editor

With its December issue, IN
dustrial and Engineering Chemistry,
official publication Of the American
Chemical society. completes twenty
five years Of life It has been
quarter Of century, says that
journal, distinguished as no other
in the worlds history by great in
dustrial developments based upon
science and research"
Arthur D. Little, past president of
the American Chemical Society, Sc
lects few Of the new products and
processes which have distinguished
those twenty-five years.
The list is imposing 1t includes
nitrogen fxation, the production of
dyes and potash in America, bake
lite and other synthetic resins, gas
oline manufactured by the crack
ing process, rayon, celIophane, rub
Der accelerators which triple the
output Of tire factories, new metals
and alloys, the INCORPORATION of
coal and oil, and the impending
great development of aliphatic COM
pounds from natural gas and waste
refinery gases.
Ended Foreign Control
This quarter century has COW
Grad a period remarkable alike for
an extraordinary activity and de-
yelopment in Chemistry as a science
and for the rapidity with which
these developments have found in
dustrial APPLICATIONS on the grand
scale DR.. Little says.
1T is, moreover, a period during
which the chemical industry in the
United States made such phenom-
email growth that it freed the coun-
try permanently from its long de-
pendence upon Europe, and espe-
cially upon Germany, for essential
products"
Plans for journal devoted to
the special interests of industrial
chemists were made in 1907 by a
committee appointed by Professor
MarstOn T. BOgart of Columbia uni
versity. At the time, he was the
president of the American Chemical
Society. The first number APP
peared in January. 1909, with w. D.
Richardson as editor-in -chief.
An editorial in the first issue
showed that the chemists of 1909
had vision of the future. 1t con-
Guided:
EnvisiOned Future
considering, therefore, this in
eXhaustible supply, and considering
what it means to agriculture and the
arts if it can be utilized, the solu-
ton of the problem of conserving
the nitrogen of the air in COM
mercial way will be recorded as one
of the important inventions of mod
ern times"
AS already pointed out, the fiXa-
ton of atmospheric nitrogen, that is
the manufacture of nitrogen COM
pounds from it which can be used |
for fertilizers and wherever nitrateS |
are needed, is now an established |
fact.
Another article, in the April, 1909
issue, written by DR.. w. r. Whit
ney, for many years the research
director of the General Electric |
Company, foretold that changes in
the atomic theory were coming.
Atomic Advance FOretOId
"a theory is a suit of clothes COW
ering a nakednesS," Dr. Whitney |
wrote. 1T is criminal to appear to
be without it. 1t is foolish to change |
it too frequently, and it is slovenly |
to neglect it. We have used the |
atomic theory because it covered for
a time the nakedness we recognized,
but it apparently must be changed"
The July, 1909, issue, DR.. Little re-
calls, devoted two and half pages
to a judgment of the board of food |
and drug inspection in a case con-
corning the misbranding of whisky
DR.. Richardson was succeeded as
editor by NJ. G. Whitaker in 1911
In 1917 the editorShip passed to DR..
Charles H Herty, whose achieve
ment in making possible the manu-
facture of paper from second growth
pine recently was praised by Presi-
dent Roosevelt.