Food Production

The production of artificial food as a means for causing an increase of the human mass naturally suggests itself. But a direct attempt of this kind to provide nourishment does not appear to me rational, at least not for the present.

Whether we could thrive on such food is very doubtful. We are the result of ages of continuous adaptation, and we cannot radically change without unforeseen and, in all probability, disastrous consequences. So uncertain an experiment should not be tried.

By far the best way to meet the ravages of the evil, would be to find ways of increasing the productivity of the soil.

For this, the preservation of forests is extremely important.

I strongly advocate water-power for electrical transmission. This will prevent the need to burn wood, helping forest preservation.

But there are limits in the improvement to be effected in this and similar ways.

To increase materially the productivity of the soil, it must be more effectively fertilized by artificial means.

The question of food-production resolves itself, then, into the question how best to fertilize the soil.

What it is that made the soil is still a mystery.

To explain its origin is probably equivalent to explaining the origin of life itself.

The rocks were in themselves not capable of maintaining life.

Some unexplained new principle came into effect which allowed the first layer capable of sustaining low organisms, like mosses, to be formed.

These, by their life and death, added more of the life sustaining quality to the soil. Higher organisms could then subsist, and so on and on, until at last highly developed plant and animal life could flourish.

But though the theories are, even now, not in agreement as to how fertilization is effected, it is a fact, only too well ascertained, that the soil cannot indefinitely sustain life, and some way must be found to supply it with the substances which have been abstracted from it by the plants.

Nitrogen

The chief and most valuable among these substances are compounds of nitrogen. The cheap production of these is the key.

Our atmosphere has an inexhaustible amount of nitrogen. Mankind could have incalculable benefit if we could oxidize it and produce these nitrogen compounds.

Long ago this idea took a powerful hold on the imagination of scientific men, but an efficient means for accomplishing this result could not be devised.

The problem was rendered extremely difficult by the extraordinary inertness of the nitrogen, which refuses to combine even with oxygen.

But here electricity helps. The dormant affinities of the element are awakened by an electric current of the proper quality.

A lump of coal which has been in contact with oxygen for centuries without burning will combine with it when once ignited. Likewise, nitrogen, excited by electricity, will burn.

I did not succeed, however, in producing electrical discharges exciting very effectively the atmospheric nitrogen until a comparatively recent date.

Although I showed, in May, 1891, in a scientific lecture, a novel form of discharge or electrical flame named “St. Elmo’s hotfire,” which, besides being capable of generating ozone in abundance, also possessed, as I pointed out on that occasion, distinctly the quality of exciting chemical affinities.

This discharge or flame was then only three or four inches long, its chemical action was likewise very feeble, and consequently the process of oxidation of nitrogen was wasteful. How to intensify this action was the question.

Evidently electric currents of a peculiar kind had to be produced in order to render the process of nitrogen combustion more efficient.

The first advance was made in ascertaining that the chemical activity of the discharge was very considerably increased by using currents of extremely high frequency or rate of vibration.

This was an important improvement, but practical considerations soon set a definite limit to the progress in this direction.

Next, the effects of the electrical pressure of the current impulses, of their wave-form and other characteristic features, were investigated.

Then the influence of the atmospheric pressure and temperature and of the presence of water and other bodies was studied, and thus the best conditions for causing the most intense chemical action of the discharge and securing the highest efficiency of the process were gradually ascertained.

Naturally, the improvements were not quick in coming; still, little by little, I advanced. The flame grew larger and larger, and its oxidizing action grew more intense.

From an insignificant brush-discharge a few inches long it developed into a marvelous electrical phenomenon, a roaring blaze, devouring the nitrogen of the atmosphere and measuring sixty or seventy feet across.

Thus slowly, almost imperceptibly, possibility became accomplishment. All is not yet done, by any means, but to what a degree my efforts have been rewarded an idea may be gained from an inspection of Fig. 1 (p. 176), which, with its title, is self explanatory.

The flame-like discharge visible is produced by the intense electrical oscillations which pass through the coil shown, and violently agitate the electrified molecules of the air.

By this means a strong affinity is created between the two normally indifferent constituents of the atmosphere, and they combine readily, even if no further provision is made for intensifying the chemical action of the discharge.

In the manufacture of nitrogen compounds by this method, of course, every possible means bearing upon the intensity of this action and the efficiency of the process will be taken advantage of, and, besides, special arrangements will be provided for the fixation of the compounds formed, as they are generally unstable, the nitrogen becoming again inert after a little lapse of time. Steam is a simple and effective means for fixing permanently the compounds.

The result illustrated makes it practicable to oxidize the atmospheric nitrogen in unlimited quantities, merely by the use of cheap mechanical power and simple electrical apparatus.

In this manner, many compounds of nitrogen may be manufactured all over the world, at a small cost, and in any desired amount.

Through these compounds the soil can be fertilized and its productiveness indefinitely increased.

An abundance of cheap and healthful food, not artificial, but such as we are accustomed to, may thus be obtained. This new and inexhaustible source of food-supply will be of incalculable benefit to mankind, for it will enormously contribute to the increase of the human mass, and thus add immensely to human energy.

Soon, I hope, the world will see the beginning of an industry which, in time to come, will, I believe, be in importance next to that if iron.