reacts by itself in turn, without expenditure of additional power, with the oxygen of the air to form NO2, and this in turn reacts automatically when brought into contact with water to form the indispensable HNO,, which is nitric acid.

The limitation in the formation of NO the first step in the process, is due to its breaking down again because its decomposition temperature lies within a few degrees of its formation temperature. It is this troublesome reverse reaction, or chemical equilibrium, which establishes itself, which prevents us from realizing an economic achievement. But let someone discover a chemical check valve, if I may use such an expression, to prevent this backslide, and the boon to agriculture and the arts and sciences in general would be enormous, and the inventor, if he knew how to protect himself, would make his everlasting fame and fortune. Do not be skeptical about the possibility of burning nitrogen in oxygen to a highly economic point, because it can be done, only just now we don't know how to do it.

Nitrogen is usually described as an inactive, inert, and lazy element, yet it has been known for a long time that vacuum tubes, containing nitrogen, frequently show a luminosity of this element after the discharge of electricity through the tube has taken place and has been cut off.

The glowing nitrogen has been shown to

have some very remarkable chemical properties. It combines quite readily now with common phosphorous and at the same time produces a great quantity of red phosphorous. In its behavior, it resembles the halogens, chlorine, bromine and iodine. The glowing nitrogen also combines with sodium, with mercury and certain other metals, in each case developing the line spectrum of the metal concerned.

In the molecule of high explosives we all know its fierce activity. We have not begun to reach the borderline limit of possibilities with this remarkable sleepy element. Who will wake it up? Who will secure the electric current direct from the oxidation of carbon, and who will produce light without heat? There are no borderline limits here; both things may be accomplished, only just at present we miss the little trick or the little key to enable us to unlock the secret. The more we know in the entire field of science, the better are we fitted for attacking a specific problem. Science is nothing more than a refined application of common sense, making the best possible use of facts already known to acquire new facts.

Who believes for a minute that we have reached the borderline limit in the storage battery, that massive and cumbersome storage tank discovered so long ago by Augustin Planté?

The storage cell today is fundamentally the same as it was when first discovered - two plates of lead suspended in water; and when a current of electricity is passed between them and through the water, hydrogen is thrown off at one plate, making it bright, and oxygen at the other plate, peroxidyzing its surface. When this current is discontinued and the altered plates are connected by means of a wire, the current is established in the opposite direction, and this continues until the plates reach their original condition. Hundreds of modifications have been made and patented, but no basic improvement has yet been realized, and he who succeeds in this field to extend the borderline of our knowledge here will indeed be rendering a superb service.

I might go on, of course, and cite case after case where we know perfectly well we are working within stupid and constricted areas, but anything like an attempt to make a complete list here would be outside of the domain of this little volume, and in this field of borderlines and human endeavor Sir William A. Tilden very beautifully expresses himself in the following lines:

It is one of the characteristic features of modern physical science, which is not, like the ancient, content with observation of natural phenomena, but depends for progress on the results of experi

ment, to be perpetually in a state of flux. Its advance is analogous to the ascent of a mountain; the higher the traveler arises, the broader is the prospect which becomes visible. He may now and then reach a plateau which tempts him to rest and look backward, content for a time with the view; at the same time he knows full well that this resting-place is not the summit and that what he now sees will appear insignificant when a higher altitude is reached."

And with all these wonderful acquisitions in the form of additional materials and newly devised tools with which to work them, and an ever profounder understanding of the universe, are we not also acquiring new and sharper intellects a new scheme of mental motion?

T

CHAPTER VII

Research in the Factory

HE modern factory is the outgrowth of the old hand shop, and for uniformity

of product and economy of output has almost completely displaced it.

Early hand shops, and many later factories clung to their antiquated methods, their trade secrets, jealously guarded, and later to patents, but today no industrial concern can succeed financially which within its works stands still scientifically.

For a progressive policy, therefore, we must visualize the modern factory as fundamentally a work-shop-laboratory, and conversely, I propose to show that the factory is equally important to the laboratory.

And it is with this research spirit and method, if not the actual equipment and research activity within the factory building itself, which is so necessary to keep its product in the fore front, that this chapter has to deal.

And this modified research affiliation, by keeping development work a thing apart from the actual factory buildings, is at the present time of considerable interest, for many concerns do