It may perhaps be of interest to learn what impression your industries made on a fellow chemist, not only at his first visit, but also during the present one, and I shall not hesitate to give frankly my impartial opinion.
At first sight it alarms us Germans when we observe what tremendous natural resources this country possesses—the wealth of lumber in your forests, the fertility of your soil, the mountains, the extent of the plains and valleys—all natural storehouses of great riches. If a hole is drilled or a drift is made in the mountains in some of the states, natural gas or petroleum is found; in another the finest of anthracite coal or soft coal, which furnishes the best material for coking and distillation; in a third state we find ores of every description; in a fourth salt, or sulphur; in a fifth, deposits of phosphates which are of so much importance in agriculture, while in some of them we find a collection of nearly all these products.
This is not the case in Germany. We are not blessed with natural gas or petroleum; anthracite coal is very rare. We have immense soft coal fields, but we must go down to a depth of two to three thousand feet, whereas in America it is at the surface, or in the very worst cases a depth of only three hundred feet must be penetrated. We have minerals, but not in such masses as here, and above all they are not of that purity which facilitates metallurgical processes. Only of salt have we as much as you, and more as far as potash salts are concerned, of which we have immense fields in Stassfurt. While with us the water in rivers flows gently and softly, and even for navigation our rivers need to be constantly dredged, you have in your grand country natural water courses such as are found in no other land in this world. In addition to this, your rivers rush down high mountains, so that every stream can be made a tributary to the industries. The millions of horse-power which are available in Niagara Falls, and have been partly utilized, give your country a decided superiority over all others.
But in spite of these natural advantages Germany has remained the ruling power in chemical industries, and I may venture to say that, in my opinion, we shall retain this commanding position in the immediate future. If I am asked to give my reasons for this opinion, I must say that the answer is neither simple nor easy, but I hope to be in the right if I remark as follows:
In view of the wealth of this country in products of all kinds, but in view of the want of labor, it has been and is still the chief task of the industry and of the engineer to devise means to render these products available in the simplest and cheapest manner. This is the field of the mechanical engineer, and American engineers, indeed, have accomplished the most magnificent results in handling and transporting vast masses and in the substitution of machinery for manual
