Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/417

Rh equal to the students who have attended the English universities and prepare them for work equally important? And could we not give opportunity to foreign men and women of ability to continue here work from which they will be debarred by the conditions following the war?

of the Interior Lane has announced the discovery by Dr. Walter F. Rittman, chemical engineer in the Bureau of Mines, working at Columbia University, of two chemical processes, one of which, it is claimed, will greatly increase the supply of gasoline, while the other may make the United States independent in regard to materials necessary for the dye industry and the manufacture of high explosives. Application has been made by Dr. Rittman, on behalf of the federal government, to patent these processes in order to prevent any monopoly in their use, the patents to be dedicated to the American people.

The statement made by Secretary Lane deserves quotation, for even though his opinion of Dr. Rittman's work may be somewhat optimistic, it tells us what we may hope to accomplish by the proper organization of chemical research. Secretary Lane says:

These processes are fraught with the utmost importance to the people of this country. For some time the Standard Oil Company, through the great