Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/263

Rh atom is charged always with one equivalent, either of positive or of negative electricity, they can form compounds, being electrically neutral, only if every unit charged positively unites under the influence of a mighty electric attraction with another unit charged negatively. You see that this ought to produce compounds in which every unit of affinity of every atom is connected with one and only with one other unit of another atom. This is, as you will see immediately, indeed, the modern chemical theory of quantivalence, comprising all the saturated compounds. The fact that even elementary substances, with few exceptions, have molecules composed of two atoms, makes it probable that even in these cases electric neutralization is produced by the combination of two atoms, each charged with its electric equivalent, not by neutralization of every single unit of affinity.

But I abstain from entering into mere specialties, as, for instance, the question of unsaturated compounds; perhaps I have gone already too far. I would not have dared to do it if I did not feel myself sheltered by the authority of that great man who was guided by a never-erring instinct of truth. I thought that the best I could do for his memory was to recall to the minds of the men, by the energy and intelligence of whom chemistry has undergone its modern astonishing development, what important treasures of knowledge lie still hidden in the works of that wonderful genius. I am not sufficiently acquainted with chemistry to be confident that I have given the right interpretation—that interpretation which Faraday himself would have given, perhaps, if he had known the law of chemical quantivalence, if he had had the experimental means of ascertaining how large the extent, how unexceptional the accuracy of his law really is; and if he had known the precise formulation of the law of energy applied to chemical work, and of the laws which determine the distribution of electric forces in space as well as in ponderable bodies, transmitting electric current or forming condensers. I shall consider my work of to-day well rewarded if I have succeeded in kindling anew the interest of chemists for the electro-chemical part of their science.

 

HE manufacture of sirup and sugar from corn-starch is an industry which, in this country, is scarcely a dozen years old, and yet it is one of no inconsiderable magnitude. On August 1, 1880, ten glucose-factories were in operation in the United States, consuming daily about twenty thousand bushels of corn. These, with their several capacities, are as follows: 