Niagara Falls from Prospect Point on the American side, looking
southwest, across and up the stream. The American Falls may be seen in
the foreground rushing past to make their plunge of 165 feet to the
rocks below.]
The air-nitrogen industry in the United States is said to be
considerably handicapped because the large quantities of electricity
required are not available at a low enough price. There are excellent
water-power sites in the United States sufficient to furnish many times
the required power, but the existing water-power laws are so burdensome
that investors will not put their money into power development except on
such high terms that the power is much dearer than it can be bought for
in other countries. Practically every civilized country in the world,
except the United States, had one or more cyanamid factories in 1916.
These include Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, France, Italy,
Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Japan and Canada. Their combined output is
about 1,000,000 tons per annum. The cyanamid plant at Niagara Falls,
Ontario, which was established in 1909, with a capacity of 10,000 tons,
had a capacity of 64,000 tons per annum in 1916. It utilizes about
30,000 electrical horse-power twenty-four hours a day, and three hundred
and sixty-five days a year. Germany, at the beginning of the war,
produced about 30,000 tons of cyanamid; in 1916 she was making 600,000
tons a year. She is using it both to grow crops and to make explosives
for her guns.
[Illustration: SUGAR BEET CROP FERTILIZED WITH CYANAMID MIXTURES. GROWN
IN CARO, MICHIGAN]
[Illustration: COTTON CROP FERTILIZED WITH CYANAMID MIXTURES. GROWN IN
SUMTER, S. C.]
At the time the war broke out, in August, 1914, Germany was importing
nearly one million tons of nitrate of soda per annum from Chile, South
America. This supply was immediately cut off by enemy fleets. Not only
was her agriculture thereby threatened with a great decrease in crop
production but her supply of military explosives was also threatened.
Professor Dr. Lemmermann, a famous German scientist, advised his
government that unless the nitrogen shortage were made good the
resulting crop shortage would amount to 3,300,000 tons of grain. But if
people require food, guns require powder, and no powder can be made
without nitric acid. It has been reported on good authority that Germany
has consumed one and one-third million pounds of powder a day during the
war. To make one pound of powder requires one and one-half pounds of
nitric acid, so that Germany required for military purposes 2,000,000
pounds of nitric acid per day. From her coke ovens she indeed could
derive some nitrogen, but this actually furnished only about one-fifth
of her total requirements. For the other four-fifths she turned to
atmospheric nitrogen. For it is also true that this remarkable compound,
cyanamid, which is a food for plants, can be decomposed by high-steam
pressure into the purest ammonia gas. The ammonia can in turn be
oxidized to nitric acid, which is the basis of all explosives. Without
the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen on a tremendous scale there is no
doubt that Germany would have become helpless before her enemies within
a year after the war began, for no nation can fight unless it has
sufficient food for its people and powder for its guns.
[Illustration: TURBINE GENERATORS, NIAGARA FALLS POWER HOUSE
Eleven turbine generators in the Niagara Falls Power House, each set
developing 5,000 horse-power.]
The preservation of food is also dependent on ammonia, which produces
the refrigerating effect in the numerous cold storage houses and
artificial ice plants in this country. In the cold storage plants alone
the cold produced by means of ammonia is equal to 750,000 tons of ice
consumed per day, while 25,000,000 tons of artificial ice are produced
and sold as such per annum. Cyanamid ammonia gas is especially valuable
for this purpose on account of its high degree of purity.
Then, too, the ammonia gas can be fixed in any acid desired, for
instance, in phosphoric acid, making ammonium phosphate, a fertilizer of
unusual merit, or ammonium sulphate, another fertilizer, or ammonium
nitrate, an explosive. So, for peace or war, the fixation of atmospheric
nitrogen has become a tremendous factor in the life of nations.
If the United States should be forced into war with a foreign power it
would be a simple matter for an enemy fleet to cut off our large
importations of nitrate of soda from Chile. These amount to about
700,000 tons per annum in normal times and at present about 900,000 tons
per annum. In other words, we would be short just this quantity of
nitrogen in addition to the quantity that would be required by the
government for the manufacture of military explosives. It has been
suggested that our coke-oven industry could be expanded to furnish a
large part of this requirement, but even with the largest expansion
considered practical by the coke-oven people within the next several
years, the coke ovens would not be able to supply even one-third of our
requirements, thus leaving a large balance which could be furnished only
by the establishment of a large nitrogen industry in this country.
* * * * *
The expression “The King can do no wrong” has been widely used since it
first caught people’s fancy at the time of the explanation, made in
England, that the Ministers, and not the King, were responsible for
mistakes of government.
What is a Drawbridge Like Today?
We have all read of the castles in olden days into which the owner could
retire and raise a drawbridge across a ditch, thus putting a barrier in
the way of his enemies.
That old style drawbridge, with, of course, many improvements, has been
adopted in these modern times to use in permitting navigable rivers and
channels to be crossed by railroads and other kinds of transportation,
without preventing the passage of vessels up and down the rivers.
Modern drawbridges across rivers, canals, the entrances of docks, etc.,
are generally made to open vertically, and the movable portion is called
a bascule, balance or lifting bridge; a turning, swivel or swing bridge;
or a rolling bridge, in accordance with the mode in which it is made to
open.
Swing bridges are usually divided into two parts meeting in the middle,
and each moved on pivots on the opposite sides of the channel, or they
may move as a whole on a pivot in the middle of the channel.
Rolling bridges are suspended from a structure high above the water, and
are propelled backwards and forwards by means of rollers.
[Illustration: BASCULE BRIDGE OPEN[53]]
[Illustration: BASCULE BRIDGE CLOSED[53]
The advantages of this type of bridge are that the entire width of the
channel is available for navigation, and the draw may be opened and
closed more readily than the swing type.]