The sodium by
the action of water goes into caustic soda. Nowadays sodium and chlorine
and their components are made in enormous quantities by the
decomposition of salt. The United States Government in 1918 procured
nearly 4,000,000 pounds of chlorine for gas warfare.
The discovery of the electrical process of making aluminum that
displaced the sodium method was due to Charles M. Hall. He was the son
of a Congregational minister and as a boy took a fancy to chemistry
through happening upon an old text-book of that science in his father's
library. He never knew who the author was, for the cover and title page
had been torn off. The obstacle in the way of the electrolytic
production of aluminum was, as I have said, because its compounds were
so hard to melt that the current could not pass through. In 1886, when
Hall was twenty-two, he solved the problem in the laboratory of Oberlin
College with no other apparatus than a small crucible, a gasoline burner
to heat it with and a galvanic battery to supply the electricity.
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