Hallowell High School - Venture Yearbook (Hallowell, ME)

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14 The VENTURE this cotton seed he could extract from it an oil that was almost the equal of olive oils for household pur- poses. He invented a way for re- moving by machinery the fuzz of cotton fiber adhering to the cotton, and of employing it in the manufac- ture of explosives and celluloid. The hull of the cotton seed, which is left after the oil has been extracted, is ground up and sold as dairy feed. Last year this utilizing of formerly worthless material added to the value of the cotton produced the sum of S150,000,000. From coal tar, a by-product of the manufacture of illuminating gas, a dozen primary products can be ex- tracted. With these, the chemist can build up hundreds of thousands of new substances, many of which can- not be duplicated by nature. This list of products includes 3000 differ- ent shades of artificial dyes, syn- thetic perfumes and flavors, which equal in every way but cost, the nat- ural productsg various kinds of modern concentrated antisepticsg medicines, and material for the manufacture of explosives. These two groups of material developed by the chemists are typical of what is being done with hundreds of other by-products. From corn, our largest agricultural product, chemists have recently found ways of obtaining over 100 different materials. The most im- portant of these are the corn oils. which. under the trade name of Mazola, come into competition with cotton seed and olive oils as a sub- stitute for butter and lard, parogal, a material used to adulterate rubber: corn syrurs that are so widely used in place of molasses: and, finally al- cohol. This last product offers great possibilities, for, at the rate at which we are now exhausting our oil fields, we shall soon be obliged to get some- thing to take the place of gasoline. One of the most promising of the suggested substitutes is alcohol pre- pared from corn, since it can be easily adapted for use in the internal combustion engine. With the many factory-prepared foods, that are in use to-day, it would be possible for the unscrupulous manufacturer to adulterate his prod- ucts with harmful ingredients, were it not for the pure food laws. These laws require every manufacturer to have an analysis of his products made by a government chemist, and this analysis placed on a label that marks his goods. For this protec- tion of our health we owe a great deal to the chemist. Chemistry is a most effective agent for democracy, since it actually ac- complishes, in regard to many ma- terial things, that equality which has always been the fundamental prin- ciple of the American Government. luxuries, formerly the monopoly of the privileged classes, become, through applied science, the common property of the masses. The royal purple of the ancients, and dyes far more beautiful, are now to be had at every bargain counter. Even Solo- mon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like the modern American maiden. Even though her purse be scanty, she need not lack jewels and bright- colored clothes, such as once cost a fortune. Fruits, exotic and out of' season, are upon our dinner table at relatively small cost. Even the china from which we eat these luxuries was not brought from China, at all, but made from a clay bank at home. In early ages the man who owned a piece of iron shaped it into a sword, and proceeded to use it against his enemy. The Feudal Age vanished at the first whiff of gunpowder, for that device of dangerous unseen pow- er levelled the natural and artificial inequalities of humanity in warfare. With a gun in his hand, the peasant was a match for the strongest knight in his heavy armor. '

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The VENTURE 13 to build hospitals for the insane. The year 1853 found her in Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the world-wide reputation which Miss Dix had attained along the lines of philanthropic endeavor, made her the one person in the country that President Lincoln and his administration at Washington, turned to, for assistance in the mat- ter of organizing nurses for the armies of the North. They had no Red Cross at that time, but an or- ganization called the Christian Commission was soon formed. Thousands of women nurses volun- teered for the service, and Miss Dix was called by the government to take charge of this department. She con- tinued to perform this arduous work until peace was declared. After the close of the Civil War, she took up again her labors for the insane and unfortunate ones of life, and con- tinued them until within a short time of her death. She died July 17, 1887, and her burial took place in Mt. Au- burn Cemetery, near Boston, Massa- chusetts. About a quarter of a century ago, after the fact that Miss Dix was born in Hampden had been fully estab- lished, certain patriotic men and wo- men of Hampden, Bangor, and other cities of Maine began a movement for a public park in her memory. A tract of land which embraced her birthplace was purchased and on July 4, 1889, it was properly dedicated with impressive ceremonies and an oration by the late Colonel Augustus C. Hamlen of Bangor. The following invocation was given in her memory: Father of Mercies, Sovereign Lord, We take thee at thy gracious word, Tho' thine the power to loose and bind, The merciful shall mercy find. To thee we raise our song of praise, xln thee we live and move, our ways By thee are guided, and thy love Fills earth below and heaven above, The heart that bleeds for others' woe, The generous hand, the words that glow With pitying love, the gifts that shine, Are but a pale reflex of thine. Reta Pettee, '27. CHEMISTRY IN EVERYDAY LIFE It was the great war that first brought to the public a realization of the vital place that the science of chemistry holds in the development of the resources of a nation. At that time, the chemists of the various nations were competing against each other in producing high-powered ex- plosives and dangerous gases. To- day, these' same chemists are en- gaged in the more congenial occupa- tion of making discoveries which will contribute to our national health and prosperity. We cannot get away from chemis- try and its bearing upon the whole life of any nation. The fundamental laws of chemistry make possible the scientific control of our great indus- tries, ranging from agriculture to the manufacture of steel. For in the transformation of the salts, miner- als, and humus of the earth and the elements of the air into corn, wheat, cotton and other products there is a complicated chemical change, requir- ing careful chemical control if a suc- cessful crop is to be obtained. Simi- larly, the making of iron and steel is a chemical problem, since first the iron must be separated from the ore, then free carbon driven out of it, and Vet just the right amount of carbon induced to combine with the other elements to give the steel the desired hardness. By discovering new uses for by-products previously considered worthless, the chemist has saved the country millions of dollars annually. Not so many years ago, the seed of cotton was thrown away or burned as fuel, for there was no profitable use to which it could be put. But the chemist, who is always an economist, found that by applying pressure to

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The VENTURE 15 Medicines, such as a prince could not have procured, though his physi- cians searched the earth from China to Peru, are now at hand to cure the pauper. The new chemical motive powers have given man a very fair substi- tute for the seven-league boots of the fairy tale, they enable him to go down under the sea in search of hid- den treasures, and they have en- dowed him with the wings that he has always longed for, but hardly hoped to have. Books are no longer sold at exorbi- tant prices, but because of the magic of ink, are within the reach of every- one. The famous works of art from the large exclusive galleries are mul- tiplied in much the same Way and scattered throughout the land. No one need lack copies of the iinest pic- tures. Even Woolworth supplies them. i g H2 We do not have to pay ten dollars to ,hear a song by Galli-Gurci, since we can hear her at home many times for the price of a single record. Caruso's voice still lives to thrill us with its wonderful harmonies. Events that few could witness other- wise are brought to all of us on the celluloid film. The reception of music thousands of miles away has become so commonplace that we cease to marvel at the radio. So, whether it be the satisfaction of our material wants, or the grati- fication of our aspirations for art, literature or science, the chemist acts as the agent of applied democracy. Nor has the chemist exhausted the possibilities of his science, he has touched the outer edge only, there are greater marvels even now in sight. In the radio-active elements. such as radium, we have come upon sources of energy that were never dreamed of before by man. The most striking peculiarity of radium is that it is always a little warmer than its surroundings, no matter how warm these may be. It decomposes and we know no way of hastening or check- ing this decomposition. An ounce of radium salt will give out enough heat in one hour to melt an ounce of ice, and, in the next hour, will raise this water to the boiling point, and so on, again and again for years, it is a fire without fuel. From the heavy white salt there is continually oozing a faint fire-mist. This gas' is known as niton. A pound of niton would give off energy at the rate of 23,000 horse power. Fine stuff to run an engine, one would think, but it does not last. When the sixth day came, the power would have fallen off by half. Besides, no one would dare act as engineer, for the radiation will rot away the flesh of a living man. It will not only break down the complex and delicate molecules of organic matter, but will also attack the atom itself, changing, it is believed, one atom into another, the dream of the ancient alchemists. ' The chemists have thus given us a glimpse of the incalculable wealth that is in some of the simplest sub- stances. True wealth is measured by the usefulness of any substance. So when a chemist develops a new product, he enriches the world that much. Our hope of continuing as the richest nation of the world re- mains in the hands of our chemists, who must, of necessity. develop our resources. If they fail, we will be surpassed by other nations whose scientists are awake to the needs of the times. As things appear at pres- ent, we Americans have little to fear. but let us not weary in the good work and let us continue to send to the chemical schools the thousands who are eager to go. Thus we may train new workers for the nation and for humanity. Francis Wingate.