Predicted Discoveries M a y Keep Chemisfs Busy, Consumer Happy C&EN REPORTS: Kansas C i t y Section, A C S . 50th Anniversary

KANSAS CITY.-With 50 years of growth and progress as its legitimate boast, the Kansas City Section of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY has pledged itself to the continued advancement of chemistry and the chemical industry. Fifty years to the day after the granting of the section's charter, 250 of its members and friends met here on Nov. 6 to celebrate the sec-lion's arrival at the 50-year mark.

One of the section's charter members, Gdward B.irtow of the State University of fowa, reviewed for banquet guests the founding of the Kansas City Chemical So­ciety in 1899, and that group's attainment of status as the Kansas City Section of the ACS a year later. (Of the original 20 charter members, only Dr. Bartow and Charles Van Brunt survive. Dr. Van Brunt, ciow retired from General Electric Co., was «mable to be in Kansas City for the fiftieth anniversary celebration, but sent his con­gratulations to the section via letter.) Dr. Bartow recalled some of the section's early technical session programs and pointed out «he close relationship between the subject «natter of the early papers and the principal

chemical industries then operating in the Kansas City area—flour milling, soap, paint, and portland cement manufacture, food processing, coal and natural gas pro­duction, and early petroleum processing. Papers today cover a wider variety of in­dustries, he said, but are more specialized in content because of the professional trend toward technical specialization.

advancement. From its charter member­ship of 20 in 1900 the section has grown to its present size of 350 members, in spite of the fact that the section's geographical domain has been reduced considerably in size through the years. In 1900 the sec­tion's territory included those portions of Missouri and Kansas lying between the ninety-third and ninety-eighth meridians. The release of Webb City, Mo., to the Ozark Section (1917), followed by the chartering of new sections in Manhattan (1928), Wichita (1929), and Pittsburg ( 1930), reduced the Kansas City Section's boundaries, until in 1950 10 counties in Missouri and 11 counties in Kansas com­prise the entire territory.

iries M a y Keep

SS, 50th Anniversary

chemical industries then operating in the Kansas City area—flour milling, soap, paint, and portland cement manufacture, food processing, coal and natural gas pro­duction, and early petroleum processing. Papers today cover a wider variety of in­dustries, he said, but are more specialized in content because of the professional trend toward technical specialization.

advancement. From its charter member­ship of 20 in 1900 the section has grown to its present size of 350 members, in spite of the fact that the section's geographical domain has been reduced considerably in size through the years. In 1900 the sec­tion's territory included those portions of Missouri and Kansas lying between the ninety-third and ninety-eighth meridians. The release of Webb City, Mo., to the Ozark Section (1917), followed by the chartering of new sections in Manhattan (1928), Wichita (1929), and Pittsburg ( 1930), reduced the Kansas City Section's boundaries, until in 1950 10 counties in Missouri and 11 counties in Kansas com­prise the entire territory.

E. R. Weidlein of Mellon Institute, the principal speaker; Edward Bartow, one of two remaining charter members; and M P. Puterbaugh, section chairman, help the Kansas City Section celebrate its fiftieth anniversary

THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK

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The Kansas City area fostered one of the earliest examples of industrial recognition of the value of research, according to the principal speaker of the evening, Edward R. Weidlein of Mellon Institute. This early cooperation, between the laundry industry and academic research men, was the pre­cursor of many cooperative industrial re­search ventures now thriving in this country. Reviewing some of the many con­tributions which research—both academic and industrial—has made during the last half-century in the United States, Dr. Weidlein prophesied even greater achieve­ment in the years ahead. New synthetic fibers and fabrics, improved multipurpose greases and liquid lubricants, cheaper and more plentiful synthetic benzene, better engines for the efficient utilization of low-octane fuels, and the conquest of many diseases, were among Dr. Weidlein's pre­dictions for research results in the future. Bui the biggest and most important of all problems facing science—and all mankind —Dr. Weidlein said, is that of learning to live in peace.

With its 50th anniversary meeting, the Kansas City Section marked a period of numerical growth, as well as technological

Active from the beginning in the na­tional affairs of the ACS, the Kansas City Section has been host to two national meet­ings (1017 and 1936) and two midwest re­gional meetings (1934 and 1947). Four presidents of the national Society have been one-time members of the section, and two other national presidents resided in the area before the section was formed.

Gas Machinery Co· Gran ted Patent

The Gas Machinery Co., Cleveland, Ohio, reveals it has been granted a patent by the U. S. Patent OfBce for production of oil gas using various types of process oil and with oil as a fuel for hearing. The announcement says that the process is en­tirely drSerent from water gas production, although, the apparatus resembles that equipment somewhat. No solid ffuel hed is employed, nor does a water gas re­action occur to any extent during the cycle, the company says.

The company has already installed and licensed processes coming within the scope of the patent, it says.

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