Word: phosphorus
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Despite inadequate equipment, which the recent drive for $10,000,000 will try to remedy, the University's chemistry department has made several important discoveries during the past few years. One of the most noteworthy of these was the location of "black" phosphorus...
...many years the Red and White members of the phosphorus family have been well known. A new member has now joined the group--Black, according to Professor P. W. Bridgman '04, Professor of Physics in the University. Phosphorus means "light- bearer" and most of us have seen the glow which the old-fashioned "all-day choker" matches gave out when scratched in the dark. This pale glow is due to white phosphorus used in making the head of the match so that it will strike easily and anywhere--from the thumb nail to the trouser...
Unfortunately the same chemical activity that makes white phosphorus glow in the dark also makes it poison the workmen in the factories and occasionally kill a mouse or an inquiring baby, so that matches of this sort were practically taxed out of existence by Federal law some years...
Nowadays the chemists have found other materials to take the place of white phosphorus, so that the "strike- anywhere" match has become a fairly digestible article. White phosphorus still finds use, however, to improve the vacuum in electric lamps, in making rat poisons, and, in smoke screens, for when a shell filled with it bursts, the phosphorus catches fire instantly and sprays its flaming drops in every direction, sending up a cloud of dense white smoke...
...Charles C. Bussey, of New York, is in successful operation at Louisville, Ky. It differs in method from the Piron system, but gives somewhat similar results. It utilizes inferior bituminous coal and oil shale, and yields by-products of fuel oil, gas, ammonia and benzol, while eliminating sulphur and phosphorus from the coke...