According to the Engineering (London) No. 98 for the year 1915, in 1911 Germany used 150,000,000 cubic feet of oxygen, France 100, 000,000 cubic feet and England about 70,000,000 cubic feet. Of these amounts at least 90 per cent was used for welding and cutting metals. The same authority states that in 1915 there were some 50 liquid-air oxygen plants operating in Europe and that the British Oxygen Com pany had eight factories equipped in this way; at the same time there were only five such plants in the United States. The growth of the industry abroad is indicated by the figures given in an address delivered before the Royal Institution in London, on 17 Jan. 1919, by Sir James Dewar. It was stated that in Groat Britain the total output of the 12 factories then manufacturing liquid oxygen was 118 tons per day, 85 per cent of which was used for cutting and welding purposes and 15 per cent for medical purposes; and that in Germany one plant alone was turning out 100 tons per day.
At the present writing there are oxygen plants in every industrial region in the United States. Each of the two large companies oper
ating liquefaction processes now produces more pure oxygen than was produced in the entire world prior to a few years ago.
The oxy-acetylene and oxy-hydrogen weld ing and cutting process have revolutionized the steel and construction industries. Hundreds of thousands of tons of steel scrap, formerly too heavy for handling, now are cut easily into Convenient sizes for remelting. Many machines formerly rendered useless by breakage now can be repaired quickly, and many high-grade cast ings now can be reclaimed, instead of being remelted. Cutting and welding torches, in con sequence, are to-day an indispensible part of the equipment of factories, scrap yards and machine shops.
Thorpe,