The Allied Industries

THE ALLIED INDUSTRIES.

Dyestuffs and Extracts.—The manufacture of natural dyestuffs and tanning extracts en gaged 112 establishments, whose total product was valued at $20,576,769— an increase of 29 per cent since 1909.

Essential Oils were made in 108 establish ments (of which 53 were in Michigan and 29 in Indiana) whose total output was valued at $2,565,361 — an increase of 44.7 per cent since 1909.

Explosives were made in 111 establishments, the combined output aggregating in value $41, 453,339— an increase of 3.5 per cent since 1909.

Fertilizers engaged 1,124 establishments whose combined output was 16,827,000 tons, valued at $168,388,405 — an increase of 50.5 per cent since 1909.

Paints and Varnishes were made in 855 establishments, of which 618 were devoted to paints and 237 to varnishes. The paint produc tion was valued at $113,953,084, and the varnish production at $35,096,736, a combined value for this section of $149,049,820— an increase over the 1909 figures of 16.9 per cent. A subsection is made of the 46 additional establishments which manufacture boneblack, carbon black and lampblack, to the value of $2,949,797 — an increase of 38.1 per cent since 1909.

Petroleum Refining engaged 176 establish ments whose combined products were valued at $396,361,405 — an increase of 67.2 per cent since 1909. These establishments consumed as raw material 191,262,724 barrels of crude oil, and produced naptha and gasoline, illuminating oils, fuel oils, lubricating oils, greases, paraffin wax, etc.

Soap manufacture engaged 513 establish ments, whose combined production was, in value, $135,340,499—a decrease of 2.5 per cent from the 1909 figures. The output comprised 2,064,288,000 pounds of hard soaps, 57,000,000 pounds of soft and liquid soaps and 45,419,827 pounds of glycerine, the last named valued at $7,562,423 above the value of the soap produc tion.

Wood Distillation was conducted in 101 establishments, the output being valued at $10, 236,332— a very slight increase over 1909. The

figures include the output of 14 establishments engaged in making turpentine. Other products were 7,196,975 gallons of wood alcohol, as well as acetate of lime, acetone, formaldehyde, acetic acid, wood creosote, etc.

Chemical production comprises such an infinite variety of combinations of raw materials that it is almost impossible to give anything like a detailed view of the subject without go ing far beyond the restrictions which space fixes upon such an article as this, and yet it is to this variety of raw materials, as well as to its almost numberless combinations, that the chemical industry owes its unique position in the com mercial world. Although it is impossible to give all the raw materials and their combinations, it may be said in brief that scarcely any sub stance on the face of the earth, from the purest water to the blackest tar, fails to find a new utility in the chemist's hands. And thousands of industries exist not only in the United States, but in foreign lands as well, solely to supply the raw materials needed in the chemical industry. Some little idea as to the enormous quantities of raw materials thus consumed may be gained by figures for some of the principal substances as given in the 1914 census. The amount of petroleum so used was 28,689,44)0 tons; of iron pyrites, 1,581,600 tons; of nitrate of soda, 412, 748 tons (all from Chile) ; of sulphur, 82,248 tons.

In the United States the manufacturers of chemicals have such a wide range of territory from which to select their location that they have not infrequently constructed their plant in some position of convenience to their natural products. The markets for such chemical pro ductions, however, are far apart, but they may be classified in a list of such attractive points as the great- centres of the textile manu facture, of the dyeing. and bleaching works, the great oil refineries, the artificial manure works, etc.