Show wood long in use but forever doomed I 1 by other materials charcoal replaced wood has found a wide variety of uses as a raw mater material jal in the past but it seems forever foreve r doomed to be replaced by something else writes write s dr thomas at beck in the chicago tribune it was the first fuel that men burned but now it has been largely replaced by coal and petroleum the tha first houses were made of wood but now brick glass concrete and steel are gradually taking its place the wooden ships of a century ago have given way to the iron ships ot of today so it has been in the chemical industry but with one important difference wood has been the source of a number of important raw materials which have later been produced more economically from other sources however the chemical importance of wood itself has not declined for or new uses have continually been discovered to take the place of the old ones for example the first chemical rea reagent gent to be made from wood probably was charcoal char coat which Is the fairly good grade ol of carbon left when the other elements of wood are driven off by intense heat carbon Is an excellent reducing agent t which means that it can r readily combine when hot enough with the oxygen of metallic ic ores to form gaseous carbon oxides thereby leaving the metal in a free state at one ona time practically all the iron produced was doneso done so with the help of if charcoal now coke has taken its place almost completely almost simultaneous with the decline of the metallurgical application of charcoal has been the development ot of another important use although one ne more limited in volume carbon has an unusual ability to absorb organic matter on its surface the porous nature of wood charcoal gives it a great amount of exposed surface so that it possesses POSSeSS 03 this absorptive power to t an unusual extent |