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Show South Is Treasury for U. S. Chemists; Raw Material Wealth Cited in Survey Physical frontiers are gone, but chemical frontiers remain to challenge chal-lenge the United States, Dr. Frank C. Whitmore, dean of the school of chemistry and physics at the Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania State college, believes, writes a State College (Pa.) United Press correspondent. "The South will be the chemical frontier of the country for the next quarter century, at least," he said after a tour through the southern states to visit sections of the American Amer-ican Chemical society. "Its chemical raw materials, especially es-pecially tlie new ones such as cellulose, cellu-lose, starch and vegetable oils, have hardly been touched. They are ready for the chemical pioneers who are going south and the additional ones trained in southern institutions." institu-tions." Considering the United States as a whole, Dr. Whitmore believes it has limitless supplies of cellulose in cotton, cot-ton, tiie purest form, in the slightly less pure form of cotton linters and in the rapid-growing pine. He said pine made an ideal chemical crop because it utilizes sunlight, water and air without taking more ihan traces of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash from the soil. "Starch also exists in limitless quantities from fast-growing crops such as sweet potatoes," Dr. Whitmore Whit-more continued. "The Department of Agriculture has already placed this preparation of starch on a semi-commercial semi-commercial basis. "Great varieties of vegetable oils, such as cottonseed oil, peanut oil and tung oil, exist in limitless supplies. sup-plies. The tung groves are reaching the bearing stage in many parts of the South. A nation which is growing grow-ing must constantly have new frontiers. fron-tiers. Physical frontiers are gone, but chemical frontiers remain to challenge the United States." |