LEST WE FORGET

By E. G. Lange

State Normal School, Whitewater, Wis.

HIS is a day when many subjects and activities are clamoring for the time

thing intrinsic to make it worth while. In recent years, especially, courses and subjects have been expanded and enriched for the purpose of making a stronger appeal to students. In high school and college these factors often determine interest to a considerable degree. In the common school, however, the enthusiasm of the teacher for the subject often determines to a large extent whether or not the pupils get much out of the work either in inspiration or knowledge.

Observation has led me to believe that teachers do the best teaching in the subjects about which they know much. When they attempt to teach things which are not clear in their own minds the results are pathetic. Before we can hope for much better results in common school geography teaching we must have enthusiasm for the subject, clear ideas regarding its subject matter, and a wide and intimate acquaintance with the spirit of the new science of geography.

The live teacher of geography in the grades should also be aware of several other important things. Of late the work of enriching subjects has been so assiduously carried on that school people have suddenly concluded that it is again time to apply the knife. Apparently we have been loading pupils with more subjects and at the same time have been adding more and richer stuff to each. All this work has been launched upon the pupil and he has been required to "take it" in the same or shorter time than formerly. This implies not only that pupils of today must have greater capacity but also that teachers must have more ability. Even idealists are now admitting that we have gotten ahead of ourselves in preparing mental rations for the boys and girls. Attempts to do too much have led to a rather thin veneer of knowledge and not much power. As all common school branches are receiving considerable attention with regard to the matter of elimination, so geography will certainly come in for its share of pruning. An interesting report along this line is Bulletin No. 51 (March, 1914) on the elimination of subject matter in elementary schools. It is issued by the Department of Public Instruction, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Occasionally we hear about "crying our own wares." There is plenty of evidence indicating that the geography people who know that there is a new science of modern geography, rich and worth while in content, will have to spread the knowledge of the new and better things in more places, if a wider influence is to be obtained. Certain it is that there are still many, many teachers who have a very imperfect concept of the modern science of geog

raphy. Custom dies hard. So in our teaching we hold to many things which are no longer of much value in life. Go into our schools and observe the grade work in geography. Too many teachers are still teaching geography very much as it was taught them when they were in the grades. Often this is all the geography that the teacher knows. If the teacher is naturally bright the result is tolerable. Far too often, however, there is mere reading, naming, and memory cramming and little else. Emphasis on geographic principles and basal concepts; the evaluation of subject matter; the use of modern text books, supplementary materials, and experience, as sources from which to draw in solving problems; the real meaning of controls and responses; the use of manual exercises,-these and many other phases of work which geography should emphasize do not receive the attention they merit. It is my conviction that we geography teachers have here a problem which demands much more attention than it is receiving.

We may blame ourselves largely for the present state of affairs. We have not been brave enough in carrying the campaign for better things in geography to those who control and do the teaching. We have too long taken for granted that the people who come into our classes for a taste of the subject (and we may as well admit now that the amount of required work in geography will not be greatly increased in the near future), will in some miraculous way get more geographical knowledge and inspiration for themselves. This is likely to prove otherwise. Unless we send out these people with something very definite in subject matter, method, experience, and especially a concrete, reliable, knowledge of sources from which they may continue to draw after they are out in the field at work, it will prove true that they will have little enthusiasm for the new geography.

It seems especially desirable that we require more in the way of helpful books and periodicals which students should purchase for themselves. Right here is where our system of free text books in institutions makes for one weakness. The students have too few good books and periodicals of their own when they go out into the field to teach. Too often there is a limited supply in the school library. Think of the splendid articles and books that have recently appeared and which emphasize the essence of the new geography. Yet how many grade teachers own and use even a limited number of these good things? Such useful volumes on the teaching of geography as those by Sutherland, Dodge & Kirchwey, McMurry, Holtz, Charters and others, should be more largely owned and studied by those who wish to be qualified to teach geography in the schools of our land. How many take even one strictly geographical magazine or consult one regularly? To what extent do our teachers attempt to make a larger use of the almost limitless geographic material in the daily papers and standard magazines? To what extent do they make use of exhibit materials? Why not require that some of these good things become the property of those who expect to teach geography? Preachers, physicians, and lawyers very generally own libraries, why not more of this for grade.

teachers? It has been held that it is unreasonable to ask professional students to buy books and magazines on geography because they cost money and because the vast majority of our teachers are only transients and will remain in the profession a very short time. Is this a very strong argument?

Just now the whole world is studying its geography lesson because conditions have made it desirable to know something about countries and people. What are our schools doing to make this more effective?

Lastly, if the leaders in geography do not believe in the subject with sufficient enthusiasm to keep pounding away, even more vigorously, for the rich new science of geography, we need not expect that better results will soon be produced in the school rooms where most people must continue to get much of the geography which they take into life.

A

ALUMINUM

By M. G. Edwards

Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland

LUMINUM is the most abundant and widely distributed metal in that portion of the earth available to observation. It is known to exist in over 200 different minerals and in practically all rocks. It forms twenty-one per cent of pure clay and one writer has estimated that in a cubic yard of clay there exists about 800 pounds of the metal. It is only within comparatively recent times that aluminum in its elemental state has ceased to attract wonder.

Properties.-Aluminum is a tin-white, lustrous metal resembling silver. It is malleable, ductile and sectile. It takes a brilliant polish and may be rolled or beaten into thin leaves. Cast in bell form its sound is short and sharp but in bar form it has a clear, resonant tone. It is a very good conductor of electricity and heat. It is not affected by hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur or carbon and is scarcely attacked by nitric acid, but it is attacked by chlorine, fluorine, boron and iodine and is readily soluble in hydrochloric acid. It is the lightest of all useful metals, having a specific gravity of 2.58. Its tensile strength is about 35,000 pounds per square inch. It has a melting point of 657.3°C.

Ores of Aluminum.-Due to its great affinity for oxygen, aluminum does not exist in a free state in nature. Like iron, its most important ores are the oxides and hydrous oxides. Its sulphide is not found in a natural state. Only a few minerals have been employed for the production of the metal.

Kaolin (Al,O,.2SiO2.2H2O).-The cost of separation of the alumina from the silica in kaolin by any known process is at present prohibitive. It is probably only a matter of time before a process will be discovered for converting the extensive kaolin deposits into an important aluminum ore. The highly aluminous clays will then be particularly desirable.

Corundum (Al,O,).—Corundum is a comparatively rare mineral and is extremely hard. When broken it becomes too valuable as an abrasive to permit its use as an aluminum ore. Certain varieties of corundum are regarded as gems. Ruby is the red variety and sapphire is the blue.

Cryolite (AIF,.3NaF).-Before the discovery of the bauxite deposits of the South cryolite was practically the only aluminum ore. This was brought from the southwestern coast of Greenland. It was first used by soap makers for its soda, and later used in making soda and aluminum salts and a white porcelain-like glass. The metallic aluminum derived from this source was expensive, as the metallurgical process used involved the use of metallic sodium. This in addition to the high cost, entailed in importing the mineral caused an almost prohibitive price to be placed on the finished product. The Ivigtut cryolite was valued in 1912 at $80 per ton.

Bauxite (Al,O,.2H2O).-Bauxite was discovered in 1821 by a chemist, Berthier, at the village of Baux, Bouches du Rhone, in southern France. These deposits were the first to be worked and from them the mineral receives its name. The deposits are about thirty feet thick and are associated with Cretaceous limestone, sandstones and clays which are distinctly stratified and are thought to represent products of a Cretaceous lake.

Bauxite occurs in many localities in Germany. At Vogelsburg the mineral occurs in masses, embedded in clay with which is associated masses of iron ore. It appears to be a direct residue from the decomposition of basalt. In Glenariff Valley, Ireland, the bauxite deposits are associated with volcanic rocks and are believed to be derived by the decomposition of rhyolite or rhyolite ash.

Bauxite was first discovered in America in 1887 near Rome, Georgia. This discovery was followed in 1891 by the discovery of the mineral in Alabama and Arkansas. The latter state is the greatest producer in the United States at the present time. The discovery of the New Mexico deposits followed in a few years but these deposits have never been worked because of their inaccessibility. They also appear to be derived from the decomposition of basic volcanic rock. Still later, bauxite in commercial quantities was found in Tennessee on the east side of Missionary Ridge, near Chattanooga. Active mining has been going on continuously for many years. No other deposits of commercial importance are at present known in the United States.

Alunite (KO.3Al2O3.4SO ̧.6H2O).—Recent studies of the alunite deposits of Marysville, Utah, Rosita Hills, Colorado, and of other western states by the United States Geological Survey indicate that alunite may become an important source of aluminum in the future. Although it has heretofore been regarded valuable as a source of potash, it should by no means be ignored as a possible source of aluminum.

Production. The remarkable increase in the production of aluminum is shown by the following table which gives the production in pounds for every fifth year since the beginning of the industry in 1883.

The total production between 1883 and 1912 was 305,358,779 pounds. The value of the domestic consumption of the metal in 1912 was $11,907,000. In the same year the value of the exports of aluminum and of the manufactures of aluminum was $1,347,621. In order to supply this rapidly increasing demand for the metal there was mined in the United States in 1912, 159,865 long tons of bauxite valued at $768,932.

Metallurgy. In the early part of the nineteenth century, Oerstad suggested a process for obtaining the metal aluminum by treating the chloride with an alkali metal. This suggestion was adopted by Wohler in 1827 when he isolated aluminum for the first time and determined some of its physical properties. This process was later modified by Deville who in 1855 exhibited a bar of the "silver white metal made from clay" at the Paris Exposition. At the time it was considered one of the chemical wonders of the age. It sold for $15

an ounce.

The cost of the metal was rapidly reduced by improved metallurgical methods, so that in 1884 Colonel Frishmuth who cast the tip of the Washington Monument furnished the metal at $15 a pound.

Electrolytic processes were then devised of which the Cowles Brothers. process, the Hall process and the Hiroult process were the most important for many years. Alfred H. Cowles has recently patented a process for the extraction of alumina from clay. In 1912 a process was patented for the extraction of alumina from silicates like the feldspars.

The manufacture of metallic aluminum as carried out at present by one of the largest companies is as follows: The aluminum is obtained from bauxite by dissolving the mineral in caustic soda and precipitating it by the addition of some previously precipitated alumina. The alumina is then filtered off, washed, dried, calcined and taken to the electric furnaces. The molten electrolyte consists of alumina and its flux, cryolite. Aluminum is reduced at the point of contact of the carbon anodes which oxidize and burn away, the gases going into the atmosphere. Hydrofluoric acid gas is evolved from the cryolite. The aluminum sinks to the bottom of the furnace and is tapped off.

Uses.-The first article ever to be manufactured from the pure aluminum was a rattle for the young Prince Imperial of France in 1856. At first it was confined largely to jewelry, medals, and inlaid work. On account of its extreme lightness it became valuable for sextants, eye-glasses and telescope tubes. It found a frequent use in the manufacture of delicate weights, fine wires,