Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 by Various

V >> Various >> Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886

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The full process followed consisted in determining the moisture by
drying 100 grains at 212 deg. F. till constant, and taking this dried
portion for estimation of the resin in the way just stated. The
alcoholic extract was evaporated to dryness over a water-bath, the
residue dissolved in solution of sodium carbonate, and the resin
precipitated by dilute sulphuric acid (these reagents being chosen as
the best after numerous trials with others), added in the slightest
possible excess. The resin was collected on a tared double filter paper,
washed with distilled water until the washings were entirely colorless,
dried and weighed.

The ash was found in the usual way, and the extractive by the
difference. In the ash the amount soluble was determined, and
qualitatively examined, as was the insoluble portion in most of them.

The results are as follows:

| 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | 8. | 9. | 10.
Moisture | 21.75| 21.60| 20.39| 69.73| 18.00| 18.28| 15.71| 38.18| 19.33| 22.50
Resin | 3.00| 2.90| 1.00| 8.80| 3.00| 1.80| 5.40| 12.00| 5.90| 9.20
Extrac-
tive | 57.29| 59.33| 65.00| 19.47| 58.40| 65.67| 26.89| 20.82| 23.77| 28.50
Ash | 17.96| 16.17| 13.61| 2.00| 20.60| 14.25| 52.00| 29.00| 51.00| 39.80
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|100.00|100.00|100.00|100.00|100.00|100.00|100.00|100.00|100.00|100.00
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ashes: | | | |Almost| | | | | |
Soluble | 13.20| 12.57| 7.50|wholly| 10.0| 11.75| 18.5 | 20.0 | 15.0 | 13.8
Insoluble| 4.76| 3.60| 6.11| NaCl.| 10.6| 2.50| 33.5 | 9.0 | 36.0 | 26.0

The first six are the ordinary red rolls, with the exception of No. 4,
which is a red mass, the only one of this class direct from the
manufacturers. The remainder are brown cakes, all except No. 7 being
from the manufacturers direct. The ash of the first two was largely
common salt; that of No. 3 contained, besides this, iron in some
quantity. No. 4 is unique in many respects. It was of a bright red
color, and possessed a not disagreeable odor. It contained the largest
percentage of moisture and the lowest of ash; had, comparatively, a
large amount of coloring matter; was one of the cheapest, and in the
course of some dairy trials, carried out by an intelligent farmer, was
pronounced to be the best suited for coloring butter. So far as my
experience goes, it was a sample of the best commercial excellence,
though I fear the mass of water present and the absence of preserving
substances will assist in its speedy decay. Were such an article easily
procured in the usual way of business, there would not be much to
complain of, but it must not be forgotten that it was got direct from
the manufacturers--a somewhat suggestive fact when the composition of
some other samples is taken into account. No. 5 emitted a disagreeable
odor during ignition. The soluble portion of the ash was mostly common
salt, and the insoluble contained three of sand--the highest amount
found, although most of the reds contained some. No. 6 was a
vile-looking thing, and when associated in one's mind with butter gave
rise to disagreeable reflections. It was wrapped in a paper saturated
with a strongly smelling linseed oil. When it was boiled in water and
broken up, hairs, among other things, were observed floating about. It
contained some iron. The first cake, No. 7, gave off during ignition an
agreeable odor resembling some of the finer tobaccos, and this is
characteristic more or less of all the cakes. The ash weighed 52 per
cent., the soluble part of which, 18.5, was mostly potassium carbonate,
with some chlorides and sulphates; the insoluble, mostly chalk with iron
and alumina. No. 8--highest priced of all--had in the mass an odor which
I can compare to nothing else than a well rotted farmyard manure. Twenty
parts of the ash were soluble and largely potassium carbonate, the
insoluble being iron for the most part. The mineral portions of Nos. 9
and 10 closely resemble No. 7.

On looking over the results, it is found that the red rolls contained
starchy matters in abundance (in No. 4 the starch was to a large extent
replaced by water), and an ash, mostly sodium chloride, introduced no
doubt to assist in its preservation as well as to increase the color of
the resin--a well known action of salt on vegetable reds. The cakes,
which are mostly used for cheese coloring, I believe, all appeared to
contain turmeric, for they gave a more or less distinct reaction with
the boric acid test, and all except No. 8 contained large quantities of
chalk. These results in reference to extractive, etc., reveal nothing
that has not been known before. Wynter Blyth, who gives the only
analyses of annatto I have been able to find, states that the
composition of a fair commercial sample (which I take to mean the raw
article) examined by him was as follows: water, 24.2; resin, 28.8; ash,
22.5; and extractive, 24.5; and that of an adulterated (which I take to
mean a manufactured) article, water, 13.4; resin, 11.0; ash (iron,
silica, chalk, alumina, and common salt), 48.3; and extractive. 27.3. If
this be correct, it appears that the articles at present in the market,
or at least those which have come in my way, have been wretched
imitations of the genuine thing, and should, instead of being called
adulterated annatto, be called something else adulterated, but not
seriously, with annatto. I have it on the authority of the farmer
previously referred to, that 1/4 of an ounce of No. 4 is amply sufficient
to impart the desired cowslip tint to no less than 60 lb. of butter.
When so little is actually required, it does not seem of very serious
importance whether the adulterant or preservative be flour, chalk, or
water, but it is exasperating in a very high degree to have such
compounds as Nos. 3 and 6 palmed off as decent things when even Nos. 1,
2, and 5 have been rejected by dairymen as useless for the purpose. In
conclusion, I may be permitted to express the hope that others may be
induced to examine the annatto taken into stock more closely than I was
taught to do, and had been in the habit of doing, namely, to see if it
had a good consistence and an odor resembling black sugar, for if so,
the quality was above suspicion.

* * * * *

JAPANESE RICE WINE AND SOJA SAUCE.

Professor P. Cohn has recently described the mode in which he has
manufactured the Japanese sake or rice wine in the laboratory. The
material used was "Tane Kosi," i.e., grains of rice coated with the
mycelium, conidiophores, and greenish yellow chains of conidia of
_Aspergillus Oryzoe_. The fermentation is caused by the mycelium of this
fungus before the development of the fructification. The rice is first
exposed to moist air so as to change the starch into paste, and then
mixed with grains of the "Tane Kosi." The whole mass of rice becomes in
a short time permeated by the soft white shining mycelium, which imparts
to it the odor of apple or pine-apple. To prevent the production of the
fructification, freshly moistened rice is constantly added for two or
three days, and then subjected to alcoholic fermentation from the
_Saccharomyces_, which is always present in the rice, but which has
nothing to do with the _Aspergillus_. The fermentation is completed in
two or three weeks, and the golden yellow, sherry-like sake is poured
off. The sample manufactured contained 13.9 per cent. of alcohol.
Chemical investigation showed that the _Aspergillus_ mycelium transforms
the starch into glucose, and thus plays the part of a diastase.

Another substance produced from the _Aspergillus_ rice is the soja
sauce. The soja leaves, which contain little starch, but a great deal of
oil and casein, are boiled, mixed with roasted barley, and then with the
greenish yellow conidia powder of the _Aspergillus_. After the mycelium
has fructified, the mass is treated with a solution of sodium chloride,
which kills the _Aspergillus_, another fungus, of the nature of a
_Chalaza_, and similar to that produced in the fermentation of
"sauerkraut," appearing in its place. The dark-brown soja sauce then
separates.

* * * * *

ALUMINUM.

[Footnote: Annual address delivered by President J.A. Price before the
meeting of the Scranton Board of Trade, Monday, January 18, 1886.]

By J.A. PRICE.

Iron is the basis of our civilization. Its supremacy and power it is
impossible to overestimate; it enters every avenue of development, and
it may be set down as the prime factor in the world's progress. Its
utility and its universality are hand in hand, whether in the
magnificent iron steamship of the ocean, the network of iron rail upon
land, the electric gossamer of the air, or in the most insignificant
articles of building, of clothing, and of convenience. Without it, we
should have miserably failed to reach our present exalted station, and
the earth would scarcely maintain its present population; it is indeed
the substance of substances. It is the Archimedean lever by which the
great human world has been raised. Should it for a moment forget its
cunning and lose its power, earthquake shocks or the wreck of matter
could not be more disastrous. However axiomatic may be everything that
can be said of this wonderful metal, it is undoubtedly certain that it
must give way to a metal that has still greater proportions and vaster
possibilities. Strange and startling as may seem the assertion, yet I
believe it nevertheless to be true that we are approaching the period,
if not already standing upon the threshold of the day, when this magical
element will be radically supplanted, and when this valuable mineral
will be as completely superseded as the stone of the aborigines. With
all its apparent potency, it has its evident weaknesses; moisture is
everywhere at war with it, gases and temperature destroy its fiber and
its life, continued blows or motion crystallize and rob it of its
strength, and acids will devour it in a night. If it be possible to
eliminate all, or even one or more, of these qualities of weakness in
any metal, still preserving both quantity and quality, that metal will
be the metal of the future.

The coming metal, then, to which our reference is made is aluminum, the
most abundant metal in the earth's crust. Of all substances, oxygen is
the most abundant, constituting about one-half; after oxygen comes
silicon, constituting about one-fourth, with aluminum third in all the
list of substances of the composition. Leaving out of consideration the
constituents of the earth's center, whether they be molten or gaseous,
more or less dense as the case may be, as we approach it, and confining
ourselves to the only practical phase of the subject, the crust, we find
that aluminum is beyond question the most abundant and the most useful
of all metallic substances.

It is the metallic base of mica, feldspar, slate, and clay. Professor
Dana says: "Nearly all the rocks except limestones and many sandstones
are literally ore-beds of the metal aluminum." It appears in the gem,
assuming a blue in the sapphire, green in the emerald, yellow in the
topaz, red in the ruby, brown in the emery, and so on to the white,
gray, blue, and black of the slates and clays. It has been dubbed "clay
metal" and "silver made from clay;" also when mixed with any
considerable quantity of carbon becoming a grayish or bluish black "alum
slate."

This metal in color is white and next in luster to silver. It has never
been found in a pure state, but is known to exist in combination with
nearly two hundred different minerals. Corundum and pure emery are ores
that are very rich in aluminum, containing about fifty-four per cent.
The specific gravity is but two and one-half times that of water; it is
lighter than glass or as light as chalk, being only one-third the weight
of iron and one-fourth the weight of silver; it is as malleable as gold,
tenacious as iron, and harder than steel, being next the diamond. Thus
it is capable of the widest variety of uses, being soft when ductility,
fibrous when tenacity, and crystalline when hardness is required. Its
variety of transformations is something wonderful. Meeting iron, or even
iron at its best in the form of steel, in the same field, it easily
vanquishes it at every point. It melts at 1,300 degrees F., or at least
600 degrees below the melting point of iron, and it neither oxidizes in
the atmosphere nor tarnishes in contact with gases. The enumeration of
the properties of aluminum is as enchanting as the scenes of a fairy
tale.

Before proceeding further with this new wonder of science, which is
already knocking at our doors, a brief sketch of its birth and
development may be fittingly introduced. The celebrated French chemist
Lavoisier, a very magician in the science, groping in the dark of the
last century, evolved the chemical theory of combustion--the existence
of a "highly respirable gas," oxygen, and the presence of metallic bases
in earths and alkalies. With the latter subject we have only to do at
the present moment. The metallic base was predicted, yet not identified.
The French Revolution swept this genius from the earth in 1794, and
darkness closed in upon the scene, until the light of Sir Humphry Davy's
lamp in the early years of the present century again struck upon the
metallic base of certain earths, but the reflection was so feeble that
the great secret was never revealed. Then a little later the Swedish
Berzelius and the Danish Oersted, confident in the prediction of
Lavoisier and of Davy, went in search of the mysterious stranger with
the aggressive electric current, but as yet to no purpose. It was
reserved to the distinguished German Wohler, in 1827, to complete the
work of the past fifty years of struggle and finally produce the minute
white globule of the pure metal from a mixture of the chloride of
aluminum and sodium, and at last the secret is revealed--the first step
was taken. It took twenty years of labor to revolve the mere discovery
into the production of the aluminum bead in 1846, and yet with this
first step, this new wonder remained a foetus undeveloped in the womb of
the laboratory for years to come.

Returning again to France some time during the years between 1854 and
1858, and under the patronage of the Emperor Napoleon III., we behold
Deville at last forcing Nature to yield and give up this precious
quality as a manufactured product. Rose, of Berlin, and Gerhard, in
England, pressing hard upon the heels of the Frenchman, make permanent
the new product in the market at thirty-two dollars per pound. The
despair of three-quarters of a century of toilsome pursuit has been
broken, and the future of the metal has been established.

The art of obtaining the metal since the period under consideration has
progressed steadily by one process after another, constantly increasing
in powers of productivity and reducing the cost. These arts are
intensely interesting to the student, but must be denied more than a
reference at this time. The price of the metal may be said to have come
within the reach of the manufacturing arts already.

A present glance at the uses and possibilities of this wonderful metal,
its application and its varying quality, may not be out of place. Its
alloys are very numerous and always satisfactory; with iron, producing a
comparative rust proof; with copper, the beautiful golden bronze, and so
on, embracing the entire list of articles of usefulness as well as works
of art, jewelry, and scientific instruments.

Its capacity to resist oxidation or rust fits it most eminently for all
household and cooking utensils, while its color transforms the dark
visaged, disagreeable array of pots, pans, and kitchen implements into
things of comparative beauty. As a metal it surpasses copper, brass, and
tin in being tasteless and odorless, besides being stronger than either.

It has, as we have seen, bulk without weight, and consequently may be
available in construction of furniture and house fittings, as well in
the multitudinous requirements of architecture. The building art will
experience a rapid and radical change when this material enters as a
component material, for there will be possibilities such as are now
undreamed of in the erection of homes, public buildings, memorial
structures, etc. etc., for in this metal we have the strength,
durability, and the color to give all the variety that genius may
dictate.

And when we take a still further survey of the vast field that is
opening before us, we find in the strength without size a most desirable
assistant in all the avenues of locomotion. It is the ideal metal for
railway traffic, for carriages and wagons. The steamships of the ocean
of equal size will double their cargo and increase the speed of the
present greyhounds of the sea, making six days from shore to shore seem
indeed an old time calculation and accomplishment. A thinner as well as
a lighter plate; a smaller as well as a stronger engine; a larger as
well as a less hazardous propeller; and a natural condition of
resistance to the action of the elements; will make travel by water a
forcible rival to the speed attained upon land, and bring all the
distant countries in contact with our civilization, to the profit of
all. This metal is destined to annihilate space even beyond the dream of
philosopher or poet.

The tensile strength of this material is something equally wonderful,
when wire drawn reaches as high as 128,000 pounds, and under other
conditions reaches nearly if not quite 100,000 pounds to the square
inch. The requirements of the British and German governments in the best
wrought steel guns reach only a standard of 70,000 pounds to the square
inch. Bridges may be constructed that shall be lighter than wooden ones
and of greater strength than wrought steel and entirely free from
corrosion. The time is not distant when the modern wonder of the
Brooklyn span will seem a toy.

It may also be noted that this metal affords wide development in
plumbing material, in piping, and will render possible the almost
indefinite extension of the coming feature of communication and
exchange--the pneumatic tube.

The resistance to corrosion evidently fits this metal for railway
sleepers to take the place of the decaying wooden ties. In this metal
the sleeper may be made as soft and yielding as lead, while the rail may
be harder and tougher than steel, thus at once forming the necessary
cushion and the avoidance of jar and noise, at the same time
contributing to additional security in virtue of a stronger rail.

In conductivity this metal is only exceeded by copper, having many times
that of iron. Thus in telegraphy there are renewed prospects in the
supplanting of the galvanized iron wire--lightness, strength, and
durability. When applied to the generation of steam, this material will
enable us to carry higher pressure at a reduced cost and increased
safety, as this will be accomplished by the thinner plate, the greater
conductivity of heat, and the better fiber.

It is said that some of its alloys are without a rival as an
anti-friction metal, and having hardness and toughness, fits it
remarkably for bearings and journals. Herein a vast possibility in the
mechanic art lies dormant--the size of the machine may be reduced, the
speed and the power increased, realizing the conception of two things
better done than one before. It is one of man's creative acts.

From other of its alloys, knives, axes, swords, and all cutting
implements may receive and hold an edge not surpassed by the best
tempered steel. Hulot, director in the postage stamp department, Paris,
asserts that 120,000 blows will exhaust the usefulness of the cushion of
the stamp machine, and this number of blows is given in a day; and that
when a cushion of aluminum bronze was substituted, it was unaffected
after months of use.

If we have found a metal that possesses both tensile strength and
resistance to compression; malleability and ductility--the quality of
hardening, softening, and toughening by tempering; adaptability to
casting, rolling, or forging; susceptibility to luster and finish; of
complete homogeneous character and unusually resistant to destructive
agents--mankind will certainly leave the present accomplishments as
belonging to an effete past, and, as it were, start anew in a career of
greater prospects.

This important material is to be found largely in nearly all the rocks,
or as Prof. Dana has said, "Nearly all rocks are ore-beds of the metal."
It is in every clay bank. It is particularly abundant in the coal
measures and is incidental to the shales or slates and clays that
underlie the coal. This under clay of the coal stratum was in all
probability the soil out of which grew the vegetation of the coal
deposits. It is a compound of aluminum and other matter, and, when mixed
with carbon and transformed by the processes of geologic action, it
becomes the shale rock which we know and which we discard as worthless
slate. And it is barely possible that we have been and are still carting
to the refuse pile an article more valuable than the so greatly lauded
coal waste or the merchantable coal itself. We have seen that the best
alumina ore contains only fifty-four per cent. of metal.

The following prepared table has been furnished by the courtesy and
kindness of Mr. Alex. H. Sherred, of Scranton.

ALUMINA.

Blue-black shale, Pine Brook drift 27.36
Slate from Briggs' Shaft coal 15.93
Black fire clay, 4 ft. thick, Nos. 4 and 5 Rolling Mill mines 23.53
First cut on railroad, black clay above Rolling Mill 32.60
G vein black clay, Hyde Park mines 28.67

It will be seen that the black clay, shale, or slate, has a constituent
of aluminum of from 15.93 per cent., the lowest, to 32.60 per cent., the
highest. Under every stratum of coal, and frequently mixed with it, are
these under deposits that are rich in the metal. When exposed to the
atmosphere, these shales yield a small deposit of alum. In the
manufacture of alum near Glasgow the shale and slate clay from the old
coal pits constitute the material used, and in France alum is
manufactured directly from the clay.

Sufficient has been advanced to warrant the additional assertion that we
are here everywhere surrounded by this incomparable mineral, that it is
brought to the surface from its deposits deep in the earth by the
natural process in mining, and is only exceeded in quantity by the coal
itself. Taking a columnar section of our coal field, and computing the
thickness of each shale stratum, we have from twenty-five to sixty feet
in thickness of this metal-bearing substance, which averages over
twenty-five per cent. of the whole in quantity in metal.

It is readily apparent that the only task now before us is the reduction
of the ore and the extraction of the metal. Can this be done? We answer,
it has been done. The egg has stood on end--the new world has been
sighted. All that now remains is to repeat the operation and extend the
process. Cheap aluminum will revolutionize industry, travel, comfort,
and indulgence, transforming the present into an even greater
civilization. Let us see.

We have seen the discovery of the mere chemical existence of the metal,
we have stood by the birth of the first white globule or bead by Wohler,
in 1846, and witnesssed its introduction as a manufactured product in
1855, since which time, by the alteration and cheapening of one process
after another, it has fallen in price from thirty-two dollars per pound
in 1855 to fifteen dollars per pound in 1885. Thirty years of persistent
labor at smelting have increased the quantity over a thousandfold and
reduced the cost upward of fifty per cent.

All these processes involve the application of heat--a mere question of
the appliances. The electric currents of Berzelius and Oersted, the
crucible of Wohler, the closed furnaces and the hydrogen gas of the
French manufacturers and the Bessemer converter apparatus of Thompson,
all indicate one direction. This metal can be made to abandon its bed in
the earth and the rock at the will of man. During the past year, the
Messrs. Cowles, of Cleveland, by their electric smelting process, claim
to have made it possible to reduce the price of the metal to below four
dollars per pound; and there is now erecting at Lockport, New York, a
plant involving one million of capital for the purpose.

Turning from the employment of the expensive reducing agents to the
simple and sole application of heat, we are unwilling to believe that we
do not here possess in eminence both the mineral and the medium of its
reduction. Whether the electric or the reverberatory or the converter
furnace system be employed, it is surely possible to produce the result.

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