COTTON INDUSTRY OF FRANCE.

From a report recently published by MM. Grandgeorge and Cabourier, it appears that the capacity of French spinning mills did not appreciably increase in 1896. The number of new spindles in the north is estimated at 25,000, and in the east at about the same figure; but, taking account of the old spindles which may have been destroyed, it is apparent that 5,400,000 spindles represent approximately the capacity of French spinning mills. It was in 1892 that the largest quantity of cotton was imported into France-202,000 tons. Deducting reshipments, about 175,000 tons of cotton remained in France that year. Since then the imports have decreased; in 1894, they amounted to a total of 186,000 tons, of which, after reexportation, about 155,000 tons remained for use.

These figures might be thought normal and subject to increase; on the contrary, in 1895 and 1896 there was an appreciable decline. In 1895, only 139,000 tons, and in 1896, only 133,000 tons, were consumed.

As regards the trade in foreign cotton yarns, France imports less and less quantities every year. The figures before 1890 averaged 12,000 tons, in 1896, the imports were 4,589 tons. At the present time, the quantity of cotton yarns imported by France is scarcely equal to 3.5 per cent of the domestic production. Still less cotton, however, is exported-less than 1 per cent of the French production. The French yarn industry, therefore, depends on domestic

conditions.

It is estimated that in 1896 France exported about 27,000 tons of cotton textiles. The output of French spinning mills being about 130,000 tons, it may be said that the export trade in cotton textiles represents more than one-fifth of the total production of France.

The exportation of plain and plaid cotton textiles is increasing. From 11,000 tons in 1890, it rose to 17,000 tons in 1895 and 18,500 tons in 1896. The ascendant movement is marked and rapid, and on reading these figures one is inclined to believe that the products of the French cotton mills have an importance on the international markets of the world. Such an idea, however, is misleading, for it must be borne in mind that of the quantity exported 12,000 tons or more are destined for colonies and markets reserved to French industry. Only the balance-6,500 tons, valued at $5,000,000-comes into the world's markets to compete.

GHENT, April 27, 1898.

HENRY C. MORRIS,

Consul.

THE DIESEL CALORIC MOTOR AT THE MUNICH EXPOSITION.

In a report describing briefly the new caloric motor invented by M. Rudolf Diesel,* it was stated that at the machinery exposition to be held at Munich this summer a collective exhibit would be made by the several firms and companies in Germany which have begun. the manufacture of Diesel motors of different types for practical use. The exposition was opened with great éclat early in the present month and will continue until October. The display of Diesel motors occupies a special building, and, in view of the originality and vast economic importance of the new engine, is recognized as the most interesting feature of the exhibition. The interest manifested in this invention by American engineers and machinists has been so general and insistent that a brief account of what can be seen at Munich during the coming three months may be of timely import, although it is generally known that all patented rights for the construction and use of the Diesel motor in the United States have been acquired by an American company whose main office is at No. 11 Broadway, New York.

The collective exhibit at Munich is made by the Augsburg Machine Company, where the invention of Mr. Diesel was first built and tested in practical form, Messrs. Fred Krupp, of Essen, the Machinery Construction Company, of Nuremberg, and the wellknown Otto Gas Motor Manufacturing Company, of Deutz-Colognefour of the most important and powerful manufacturing firms in Germany, whose names form a sufficient guaranty of the industrial value of the new engine. The Diesel motors on exhibition are five in number, and are described in the official catalogue as follows:

(1) By the Augsburg Machinery Company: Single cylinder, 30horsepower motor, for petroleum fuel; drives a rotary pump that lifts 1,600 liters (398 gallons) of water per minute to a height of 60 meters (196.7 feet).

(2) By Fred Krupp, of Essen: Single-cylinder, 33-horsepower engine, which drives a high-pressure, centrifugal pump that draws up from the River Iser a stream of water that is projected through a 2-inch nozzle at 45° elevation to a distance of 230 feet into the river.

(3) By the Machinery Construction Company, of Nuremberg: A single-cylinder, 20-horsepower motor, which, at a speed of 180 revolutions per minute, is used for purposes of test and demonstration.

*See CONSULAR REPORTS No. 208 (January, 1898), p. 21.

(4) By the same company as above: One double-cylindered, 40horsepower motor, coupled directly to a Schückert dynamo, and at 180 revolutions per minute generates current for lighting the pavilion and driving a fast rotary printing press and several machine tools which are installed in the same building.

(5) By the Otto Gas Motor Manufacturing Company, of DeutzCologne: One single-cylinder motor of 20 horsepower, which propels a Linde condensing machine for the production of liquefied air.

Besides the four firms above named and represented at the Munich Exposition, three others-viz, the H. Paucksch Company, at Landsberg-on-the-Warthe; L. A. Rudinger, of Augsburg, and the Diesel Motor Fabrik, a special establishment organized at Augsburg for the purpose-are all now interested and engaged in the manufacture of Diesel motors for practical use. The invention, which was first publicly described at the meeting of the German Engineers' Association hardly a year ago, has thus already entered upon its career of economic usefulness.

The Munich Exposition of 1888 revealed as its dominant note the previously unknown preeminence of Germany in the development and utilization of the gas engine as a source of motive power, and it will be the principal function of the exhibition of 1898 to show in how far the Diesel motor surpasses-in respect to economy of space and fuel, cleanliness, and practical efficiency for a wide range of purposes-all other motors, whether propelled by steam or which dispense with the evaporation of water and burn the fuel inside the cylinder.

FRANKFORT, June 25, 1898.

FRANK H. MASON,
Consul-General.

A NEW INCANDESCENT FILAMENT FOR ELEC

TRIC LIGHTS.

The German Journal for Gas Lighting of recent date contains some highly interesting information upon what is perhaps the most important new topic in the science of illumination, namely, the improved incandescent filament for electric lamps, which has just been announced by Dr. Auer von Welsbach, the distinguished inventor of the incandescent gaslight which bears his name. It was but natural hat, having perfected the device which increases so remarkably the illuminating power of gas, Dr. von Welshbach should seek to develop some similar improvement for the application of electrical currents to illuminating purposes.

This he appears, from the somewhat meager accounts published, to have found in a filament of osmium, one of the rare metals,

which, besides being the densest of all metals, is the most refractory, being infusible at any except the highest attainable temperatures. Osmium is found native as an alloy in certain ores of platinum and iridium. It is a hard, bluish-gray metal, with an atomic weight of 191. 1, and the enormous specific gravity of 22.477, the heaviest substance known. Its tetroxide has a strong odor of chlorine, from which circumstance its name was originally derived.

But the property which must have suggested osmium as the material of the new electrical filament was its practical infusibility, its known resistance to temperatures in which platinum and iridium volatilize and disappear. It is well known that the intensity of light emitted by an incandescent substance increases rapidly with its absolute temperature. By heating osmium in a vacuum with an electrical current strong enough to volatilize platinum, it attains a luminosity hitherto almost unknown, emitting a white light of agreeable quality and color, but of great intensity.

So far as can be inferred from what has been published, the experiments of Dr. von Welshbach go quite beyond the employment. of a naked osmium filament, and include coating the metal with a refractory oxide like thoria.

It has long been known that a platinum wire or filament, through which a sufficiently strong current is passed, attains a white heat and then suddenly melts. If, however, the filament be coated with a highly refractory oxide like thoria, the temperature required to melt it is greatly increased, for the reason that part of the electrical energy is withdrawn from the metal to its oxide coating and is radiated in the forms of light and heat. Precisely the same result happens when the filament coated with oxide is of osmium, instead of platinum, and the resistance of the filament is still further increased to the extent that osmium is in itself more infusible than platinum.

There is thus obtained a filament capable of sustaining a temperature and consequent intensity of illumination hitherto unachieved by such means, and it is this which forms the germ of the present invention of Dr. von Welsbach. It has been noted in his experiments that osmium used for this purpose must be almost chemically pure, and that commercial forms of that rare and costly metal require, before using, to be cleansed as far as possible of all impurities except platinum, a small admixture of which renders the osmium more elastic without sensibly diminishing its infusibility. The whole effect of the invention, if practically applied, will be to advance in an important degree the limit of electrical energy which may be used in incandescent lighting and thus reach a new standard of economy in the production of artificial light, which is cheapest at the intensity obtainable only at high temperatures.

Osmium, according to the trade catalogue of a leading German chemist, costs $1.10 for 20 grains; so that if the new filament should become successful in general use, there will be a demand for a larger supply of that metal at a more moderate price.

FRANKFORT, July 5, 1898.

FRANK H. MASON,

Consul-General.

THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE SUPPLY OF CALCIUM CARBIDE.

The rapidly increasing use of acetylene has pushed the demand for calcium carbide so close to the present limit of available supply that the questions of increased productive capacity, the future output, and probable price of this new and important material assume a definite international interest.

It is understood that the use of acetylene, and consequently the consumption of carbide, has increased somewhat more rapidly in America than in Europe, and that, notwithstanding the large output at Niagara Falls, the home demand has rather more than kept pace with the supply. The latter may practically be also said of Europe at least of Germany, which country, notwithstanding its preeminence in all kinds of chemical manufacture and all that one hears and reads of new plants projected or under construction, still obtains almost its entire supply of carbide from Switzerland, notably from the great works at Neuhausen.

A year ago about the only manufacturer of carbide in Germany was a company at Bitterfeld, in Prussian Saxony, which smelted the lime and carbon by electrical heat generated by steam power, and found itself, for that reason, unable to compete, and so suspended operations and removed its plant to Neuhausen, where it has reopened with water-power generators and a largely increased capacity.

The whole carbide industry, so far as central Europe is concerned, is now in a transition stage, and the conditions of supply and price are likely to be greatly modified by the increased production of next year. The Compagnie Genevoise, at Vernier, on the Rhone, near Geneva, has greatly enlarged its plant and is making contracts for 1899 at a considerable reduction from present rates.

But the most important accession will come through the operations of the great combination headed by the Schückert Electrical Manufacturing Company, at Nuremberg, which, as is stated on published authority, will increase its capital to 28,000,000 marks ($6,664,000)