such subjects as bond, payments, deliveries, docking, towing and demurrage, and method of sampling, testing and arbitrating test results are all explicitly covered. The amount of coal consumed by this company, over 350,000 tons per annum, valued at about a million dollars, undoubtedly fully justifies such elaborate contract conditions.

For the average consumer, however, a much simpler form involving corrections for variation in heat units and ash only, may afford adequate protection. As a result of experience gained in the purchase and testing of coal for the government buildings located in all parts of the country combined with the broad technical knowledge of the subject gained by the Fuel-Testing Division of the United States Geological Survey, which, under the direction of Mr. J. A. Holmes, has actively and most effectively cooperated in the matter, a broad contract form has been developed, as shown by the accompanying specification. After its preliminary preparation it was carefully reviewed by prominent coal dealers, engineers, private corporations, and others interested in the subject, who, as a rule, adjudged it to be fair and just to both parties. A meeting of the National Advisory Board for Fuels and Structural Materials appointed by the president was then called to consider the subject, and after certain modifications in form and arrangement its adoption was recommended. The specification is drawn up so as to enable users to describe the class of coal desired, which may be anthracite or bituminous, and in the latter case with such proportion of volatile matter as will include either eastern or western varieties as may be demanded. Unlike some of the specifications which have been drawn with special reference to a particular kind of coal, this form has been made sufficiently flexible to meet the varying requirements due to different locations throughout the United States and also the special needs of the local equipment.

Under this plan also, bids may be secured for a number of classes of coal procurable in a given market, and then compared with a view to selecting the one showing the highest economic value. What is actually desired is not necessarily the cheapest or the highest grade of coal per se, but the coal which will insure the greatest net economy in plant operation, and to attain this object it appears undesirable to establish an absolute standard for the fuel which would tend to limit the sources of supply.

It is intended to establish limits which are wide enough in any case to permit the use of the output of any mine or group of mines, provided proper care is exercised in mining and picking out slate, bone, etc. With these points in mind, it is only necessary for the bidder to select coal for his proposal which will meet the description given and permit deliveries within the limits. The bidder is also required to state the heating value of the coal as delivered in British thermal units and the percentage of ash in dry coal, with a view to the use of such statements as a basis for payment in connection with the stated price per ton. It is expected that the standard thus

established by the contractors will be such as to require the least correction applying to deliveries for variations in heat units and ash, but it is not expected that all deliveries will be absolutely uniform or agree exactly with the standard. It is necessary, however, that all deliveries shall be within fixed maximum limits.

The heating value, expressed in British thermal units, of coal containing approximately the same percentage of ash, is essentially a direct measure of the actual value to the purchaser, and for this reason the specifications provide for an adjustment of payment in direct proportion to the variation in heat units in the coal as received. As the coal is weighed when delivered and the payments are based also upon the price per ton, it is necessary to determine the heating value of the coal in the condition in which it is received containing whatever moisture may be present at the time.

A further correction in payment will be made for variation of the ash in dry coal in order to take account of the cost of handling additional fuel and ash and its effect on the capacity of the boiler and furnace.

(To be continued.)

Paper from Peat.

An English syndicate is reported to have lately bought large peat-bog areas near the Boras-Alfvesta railroad in Sweden. Preliminary arrangements have already been made for the manufacture of peat pasteboard and wrapping paper on a large scale.

The report says further that the new company, in which prominent Swedish business men in London are interested, will start with a capital of £225,000 ($1,094,962), and has bought an American patent for the manufacture of paper and pasteboard from peat. The invention is rather new, but has been practically tried in New York, where the cost of manufacture was $15 a ton, while the price is $30 a ton. It is supposed, however, that the manufacture in Sweden will be cheaper, because it is considered that the Swedish peat is more suitable for this purpose than American peat. It is claimed that it takes only two hours to convert the peat into paper, and it is expected that the mill will start operations some time next year.

In France the electro-metallurgical processes of P. Girod have been applied to the production of ferro-alloys of chromium, tungsten, molybdenum, vanadium, silicon, titanium, boron, tantalum and uranium, as well as cupro and nickel vanadium, silico-chrome and silico-manganese. The total sales are reported to be $2,000,000 per year.

Most of the bismuth produced is used in pharmaceutical preparations, such as the subnitrate, the combinations with the haloids, the tannate, and others. It is also used in low-fusing alloys or cliche metal, and to a small extent in glass.

CHEMICAL INDUSTRY IN GERMANY.

Germany's varied chemical manufactures still continue to form one of the leading phases in the industrial life of the empire, states Consul T. H. Norton, of Chemnitz. Over 4,000 factories employ more than 100,000workmen, and the value of their exported wares exceeds $100,000,000. Norton continues:

Mr.

Doctor Wenzel, the secretary of the Society for the Protection of Germany's Chemical Industry, presented at the recent session of the organization. in Lübeck a valuable review of the conditions prevailing during the year 1906 and of the general advance made in that period. As in most other branches, it was necessary to face very marked increases in the cost of crude materials and in rates of wages. The increase in the value of raw material was met by raising the prices for finished wares, but it was possible to maintain the new rates only with the aid of trade agreements between competing manufacturers. Operators employed in chemical works increased 5.13 per cent in number, as compared with the statistics for 1905, while the growth of the total wage bill reached 10.13 per cent. These figures may be compared with those for German manufacturing industry in general, which recorded in 1906 an increase over the preceding year of 350,000 employees, or 4.89 per cent, while the wage fund advanced 9.89 per cent. The increase of laborers was most marked in the automobile, electrotechnic, and metal manufacturing branches, amounting to 7.58 per cent.

PROFITABLE RESULTS.

Despite obstacles arising from the operation of new tariffs in several leading countries the exportation of chemicals during 1906 reached 1,320,000 metric tons (1,455,050 short tons), as compared with 1,160,000 tons in 1905, an increase of 13.8 per cent. The general rise in the prices of finished products was not sufficient to counterbalance the increased cost of labor, material, and bank advances. Profits for the year would have been unsatisfactory had it not been for the largely augmented sales at home and abroad, coupled with notable improvements in both processes and factory equipment. As it was, dividends compared as favorably with the results. for 1905 as the latter did with the profits of the year preceding.

An instructive exhibit of the recent steady development in the profitable character of German chemical works is afforded by the following table, in which the average profit in this branch during 1899, the last "boom year," is indicated by 100, for the purpose of comparison:

Absolute increase in the percentage of dividends paid varied consider

ably in the different lines of chemical manufacture. The increased dividend rate in 1906 amounted in tar manufacture to 3.18 per cent; paints and pigments, 1.52; coal-tar products, 0.73; explosives, 0.69; pharmaceutical, photographic, and scientific preparations, 0.63; artificial fertilizers, 0.60; acids and alkalies, 0.33. Thus far in 1907 there has been no retrograde movement in the production and prospects of this important branch.

In sharp contrast with the favorable conditions in Germany for chemical manufacture is the outlook offered there to the average young chemist. Doctor Wenzel was recently requested to give his frank opinion on the prospects for the average young man devoting himself nowadays to applied chemistry. He replied that under existing conditions he could advise no young man, entirely dependent upon his efforts, to enter upon such a career. He regards modern chemistry, in its last analysis, as the effort to replace natural products by artificial products. Thus to-day the man who can furnish a satisfactory substitute for caoutchouc or for shellac has assured himself an independent fortune. Endless possibilities and perspectives are opened in every field of applied chemistry-fertilizers, explosives, artificial food stuffs, colors, pharmaceutical preparations, and the production of the many acids, alkalies, and salts, but in each department success depends upon individual accomplishment, and this in turn depends in but subordinate degree on industry.

Personally I can indorse, from actual observation and inquiry, the opinion of Doctor Wenzel. Germany's numerous and finely equipped departments of chemistry in both universities and polytechnics are sending forth annually a troop of young chemists far in excess of the actual needs of chemical manufacture or of the various industries requiring more or less of chemical analytical supervision. This "scientific proletariat" is numerically so large that current salary rates are forced down to figures absurdly out of proportion to the time and expense involved in securing an adequate training. Many emigrate, and the German chemist is now found in every land, but the surplus at home is far too large. The electrician, the various categories of engineers, as well as the members of the older professions, and the business man can look forward in Germany to a far greater probability of satisfaction and reward for the possession of the homely virtues of perseverance and industry than is the case with the chemist.

Interesting in this connection is the fact that but a very limited number of American students of chemistry now seek training in Germany in preference to that offered in our home institutions. Thirty and forty years ago the reverse was the rule. The leading professors of the science in this empire often welcome to their laboratories the advanced student or teacher from the United States seeking a short period of stimulating contact with the creators of modern synthetic chemistry, but the rank and file enter upon their life work in America without crossing the ocean.

INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC WEIGHTS FOR 1908.

The January issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society contains the report of the international committee on atomic weights. This committee now consists of Professors F. W. Clark, W. Ostwald, T. E. Thorpe and G. Urban. The latter gentleman takes Moissan's place. The committee finds that "the entire table of atomic weights is in need of revision. The values assigned to K and Na are too high; those given to Cl and S are too low; and these constants affect the determinations of many others. They depend, however, upon the atomic weight of silver, which is probably, but not certainly, as low as 107.88. It is well known that work upon these fundamental constants is now nearing completion in several laboratories, notably under T. W. Richards, W. A. Noyes, and probably other investigators also. Within a few months it should be possible to enter upon a satisfactory revision of the table a task which would be unsatisfactory if undertaken now." In their next report, the committee hopes to recompute the entire table, but in the meantime, awaiting the completion of the researches referred to above, they prefer to leave the table practically unchanged with one exception, Dysprosium, with the atomic weight 162.5 is added to the list of chemical elements. The table follows: INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC WEIGHTS. 1908.