Kremel, to other metals (Chem. Zeit., 1886, Rep., 14), and also Meyke (Fischers, Jahresber., 1883, 513). Yvon assumes it to be Rosalic acid (Pharm. J., Trans., 1881, 1051). Ebell, to other oxidised compounds (Rupert anal. Chem., 1884, 17), also Richardson (J. S. C. I., XII, 415), Bach (Monit. Scient., 4, VIII, 508), Gordon, Boes and Reuter. Kramer & Spilker (Berl. Ber., 1890, 648) claim the coloration is due to Indene. ESTIMATION OF PHENOL (BIBLIOGRAPHY). Messinger & Vortmann (Ber., 1890, XXIII, 2753). Schryver (J. S. C. I., 1899, XVIII, 553). Weinreb (Monatsh., 1885, 506). Beckurts (Arch. d Pharm., 1886, XXIV, 561). Koppeschaar (Z. anal. Chem., 1876, 233). Waller (Chem. News, XLIII, 152). Allen (Com. Org. Analysis, 1879, I, 307). Diacosa (Rep. analyt. Chem., II, 137; J. S. C. I., 1802, 203). Chandelon (Bull. Soc. Chim., XXXVIII, 69). Moerk (Chem. Centr., 1904, II, 1764). Lloyd (Chem. Centr., 1905, I, 599). Storch (Berl. Ber., XXVII, 90). Tocher (Pharm. Jour., LXVI, 360). Reuter (Chem. Centr., 1905, I, 1012). Raschig (Z. angew. Chem., 1907, 2065). Hantzsch and Desch (Annalen, CCCXXIII, 1902, p. 1). Orlow (Chem. Zeit., Rep., 1902, 164). Fiora (Chem. Centr., 1901, I, 843). Herzog (Pharm. Zeit., 1907, 578). Raschig (Pharm. Zeit., 1908). Characteristic reactions of Phenol are given by Peters (Z. angew. Chem., 1898, 1078). A PROFITABLE ENTERPRISE. There is probably no other chemical today, that is used in liberal quantities, that has offered the splendid opportunities for investment that Phenol has. This situation has now existed for one year. Twelve months ago Carbolic Acid was 50c. per pound, and it now sells for $1.50. The price has fluctuated between $1.50 and $1.75 for some time. At 50c. it was a splendid business opportunity, and then meant a profit of over 30c. per pound. Today this profit is nearly $1.25 per pound, and the demand for it is without limit. In normal times we import over 3,000 tons annually for technical purposes alone, and these wants have now increased probably 50% without the war requirements. All stocks of Phenol were long ago exhausted, and what little is now made goes into Picric Acid or into the Salicylates, either of which pays handsomely no matter what the Phenol costs. It would take 15 plants, each producing one ton of Phenol per day, to take care of the peaceful requirements for Carbolic Acid, not counting the requirements for replenishing the exhausted stocks long since disposed of. Then an equal number of plants could produce Phenol for Picric Acid purposes and make no impression whatever on the Picric Acid demands. Single requisitions of 1,000 tons of Picric Acid have come to this country without finding a single taker, and one order of this kind would run two Phenol plants, each producing one ton of Phenol per day for 12 months each, and as many more similar orders could be had as wanted just for the asking. Is there then any other Chemical, in the whole list of needed articles, in which such opportunities have been offered as in Phenol, and the American public today is about as hesitant in taking it up as they were twelve months ago. Any plant that would have been running for the past six months, and producing one ton per day of Phenol, could have made a clean profit of nearly one-half million dollars, and on a plant costing less than $35,000 for land, buildings, power, machinery, apparatus and everything included. Why then has there been this reluctance to engage in so lucrative an enterprise? The answer is "ignorance" and the acceptance of the supposition that we really are not able to make the chemicals that we have been importing. This is equally true in the Aniline industry and probably will continue so, until Chemists and Engineers specialize on separate products, until they out-German the Germans and produce these products better than they have ever been made before, and as cheaply, and which the American people can easily do if they would only think so. Twelve months ago there was but one Synthetic Phenol plant operating in the United States. After this plant had been running some time successfully and producing Phenol in large commercial quantities, and as late as the early part of February, 1915, it was still called by most outsiders as a farce and failure. Many weeks elapsed before the public at large would believe that Synthetic Phenol could be made in a commercial way, and not until the National Exhibition of Chemical Industries in New York in September, 1915, when five separate manufacturers exhibited samples of Synthetic Phenol that they were making, was the proof made positive. The public then were finally disposed to accept the process as a fact. The display served its purpose, and all doubts were at last removed. Our other needed Coal-Tar derivatives, Aniline, etc., are just as easily made, many of them far easier than Phenol, but Chemists and Engineers must specialize on some one or two of them, practicalize the chemistry, and devise the necessary apparatus, and make it so that it will be superior to anything the Germans ever dreamed of. The Germans have "buffaloed" the people of the world on their chemical industries, until every one is ready to believe their superiority as an unchangeable fact. How long is it that American ingenuity has been second to German mechanical conceptions, and how long is it that American inventive genius has been second to any anywhere in the entire world? Are the German formulas and reactions in the Benzene derivatives any different from the American formulas for the same reactions? Are not the text books and literature on the chemistry of these compounds readily accessible to every American, and does not every chemical and color manufacturer have the opportunity of taking the literature on these products and commercializing their production, through a little ingenuity and mechanical application? All honor is due the German people for their application and achievements, but we can readily outdo them on these very industries if we make up our minds to really try to do so. SHEET STEEL TANKS, LEAD LINED, WITH AGITATORS, AND SUPPLIED WITH TANK-BENCH HAVING ADJUSTABLE PIPE LEGS. 10 sheets of drawings of steel and wood tanks, all 8 ft. in diameter and various depths, with details of several agitators, tank connections, wood and iron tank-benches, and names of the various manufacturers who are makers, and who have submitted figures. Price $50.00. VOLUME OF BUSINESS AND PROFITS. The volume of business done even in a one-ton synthetic Phenol plant is stupendous and the profits are enormous. At the present prices of Phenol of $1.50 per pound, a oneton plant would produce over $3,000 worth of Phenol daily, or over $1,000,000 worth per year. The profits would be over $2,500 daily, or three-quarters of a million dollars annually. If such a plant could operate only for two to three weeks it would pay for the entire investment of apparatus, buildings, power and everything else in that time. It would require about $700 worth of raw materials daily to supply such a plant, and its operating expenses and labor, while amounting to about $50 per day, makes so small a per cent. on the volume of business done, that it is scarcely worth considering. From 15 to 20 men will operate a one-ton plant, and two tons of coal daily would easily furnish the power. No matter what price the raw materials may be costing, it would vary the cost of the Phenol not over 3 to 5 cents per pound, and 25 to 30 cents per pound is now about its average cost, leaving a profit of about $1.25 per pound. If the Phenol sold as low as 50 cents per pound the profits would be about $1,000 per day on a one-ton output, and before the selling price can go as low as that the price of the raw materials must correspondingly fall. It would seem from this that the inducement was sufficient to encourage the starting of enough Synthetic Phenol plants in the United States within six months to supply the world with all the Phenol and Picric Acid that it could consume. Ignorance of the chemistry of this subject, however, and an inclination to still believe America cannot do what Europe has been doing for years in chemicals, is probably responsible for this dilatory work. On other lines of industry the United States is not so lacking in initiative as we seem to be in chemistry. The publicity regarding some of the principal essentials of Carbolic Acid manufacture, that it is hoped this pamphlet will be responsible for, should direct attention to a new industry that can be made permanent, for the product can be profitably made in ordinary times, and drive out of the market every trace of |