All communications for the Chemical Trade Journal should be addressed, and Cheques and Post Office Orders made payable to

DAVIS & CO., 42, John Dalton Street, MANCHESTER. Our Registered Telegraphic Address is"Expert, Manchester."

The yearly Subscription, commencing at any date, to the Chemical Trade Journal,-payable in advance,- including postage to any part of the world, is 1os. 6d. Readers will oblige by making their remittances for subscriptions by Postal or Post Office Order, crossed. The charge for a Postal Order for 10s. 6d. is one penny,

Communications for the Editor, if intended for insertion in the current week's issue, should reach the office not later than Tuesday morning.

Articles, reports, and correspondence on all matters of interest to the Chemical and allied industries, home and foreign, are solicited. Correspondents should condense their matter as much as possible, write on one side only of the paper, and in all cases give their names and addresses, not necessarily for publication. Sketches should be sent on separate sheets.

We cannot undertake to return rejected manuscripts or drawings, unless accompanied by a stamped directed envelope.

Readers are invited to forward items of intelligence, or cuttings from local newspapers, of interest to the trades concerned.

As it is one of the special features of the Chemical Trade Journal to give the earliest information respecting new processes, improvements, inventions, etc., bearing upon the Chemical and allied industries, or which may be of interest to our readers, the Editor invites particulars of such-when in working order-from the originators; and if the subject is deemed of sufficient importance, an expert will visit and report upon the same in the columns of the Journal. There is no fee required for visits of this kind.

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Advertisements intended for insertion in the current week's issue, should reach the office by Wednesday morning at the latest.

Advertisements.

Small, prepaid Advertisements, of Situations Wanted or Vacant, Premises on Sale or To be Let, Miscellaneous Wants, and Specific Articles for Sale by Private Contract, are inserted in the Chemical Trade Journal at a charge of One Penny per word for each insertion-minimum charge One Shilling. Trade Advertisements, Announcements in the Directory Columns, and all Advertisements not prepaid, are charged at the Tariff rates, which will be forwarded on application.

EVE

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

VER since the establishment of the various branches of chemical industry early in this century the trade has had its "ups and downs," but never before the last decade has depression appeared so chronic and profits so small when trade has been carried on in a legitimate manner. Mr. John Stuart Mill has told us that with advancing civilisation profits from trade become reduced to a minimum, and if our degree of civilisation be measured by the amount of profit made in the ordinary course of free trade in 1887 it may be reckoned to have reached its zenith. If we cast a glance at what has been done, in heavy chemicals, say the acid and alkali trade, we shall find that prices have been slowly and regularly falling when the products have been subjected to free and fair competition. Some say the cause is overproduction; whether this be so or not, it is quite certain that in many parts of England "the drummers" fight over orders like Kilkenny cats," and rather than agree to divide what trade there is between them, each wants it all, and continually lowers the price in order to secure the order, until one of them wakes up from his fool's paradise" and finds he is selling at a loss. This is specially true of the sulphuric acid trade, and is applicable no doubt to other branches of the heavy chemical department.

During the past year Widnes has been exceptionally busy in improvements and alterations, The early part of the year saw the Widnes Alkali Company starting their new chlorate of potash plant; then came the starting of the new revolver, which it is said has reached the workable limit of size to which revolvers may grow; then came the extensions of the manganate and soda plant, and now they are busy with the process of making the waste sludge lime from the causticing process into cement; and in a month or two will also be turning out hydrate of strontium in considerable quantities. This is an instance only of the activity of one works doing their level best in the struggle for existence; but besides all this other firms have been keeping to the front and endeavouring to avert extinction when the old Leblanc process fails them. Messrs. Mathieson have been working long and laboriously at their ammonia-soda process, and so, too, have the Runcorn Soap and Alkali Co.; the Lancashire Sulphur and Alkali Co. have also been unceasing in their efforts to overcome all the difficulties of their new process or processes, while others have been turning their attention to new uses for their oil of vitriol instead of converting it into saltcake. Why all this commotion? Simply because year by year more and more soda is made abroad, and the introduction of the ammonia-soda process added an enormous production to an already well supplied market.

If we turn to other trades we shall find the year almost inexplicable in its complications. To take the tar trade for instance ;-benzol was selling this time last year at Is. 7d. per gallon, a price at which it hardly paid the tar distillers to produce it-by the end of March the price had risen to 2s. 9d., and by June 8th it had acquired the value of 3s. 8d. This caused the carbonising works to commence again and the price receded to about 2s. 6d. The Manchester Carbonising Works and those at Milton have during the year been pulled down and erected again, partially at Talk o'thHill, and are now in operation carbonising 1,200 tons of coal per week. Prices of all tar products have risen with the exception of pitch, for which there seems no market. The year in May ushered our little Journal to the notice of the chemical trades, which to-day is presented to our readers in another garb. It was clearly foreseen that a journal to be of any real use to makers, buyers, and users of chemicals, must be issued at least weekly, and the support which has