CHAPTER IV
A GOOD SERVANT, THOUGH A BAD MASTER
One morning during the war the whole British nation was startled to learn that Mr. Lloyd George, then the Minister of Munitions, had taken over a large number of distilleries. Could it be that he, a teetotaller and temperance advocate, was going to supply all his workers with whiskey? Or was he going to close the places so as to stop the supply of that tempting drink?
Neither of these suggestions was his real reason. What he wanted the distilleries for was to make alcohol for the war, not for drinking purposes but for the very many uses which only alcohol can fulfil in most important manufactures.
Probably alcohol is the next important liquid to water. For example, certain parts of shells have to be varnished and the only satisfactory way to make varnish is to dissolve certain gums in alcohol. The spirit makes the solid gum for the time being into a liquid which we can spread with a brush, yet, after being spread, it evaporates and passes off into the air, leaving behind a beautiful coating of gum. That is how all varnishing is done, the alcohol forming the vehicle in which the solid gum is for the moment
carried and by which it is applied. It is far and away the most suitable liquid for the purpose, and without it varnishing would be very difficult and unsatisfactory. Hence one need for alcohol, to carry on the war.
Then again some of the most important explosives are solid or semi-solid, and yet they require to be mixed in order to form the various "powders" in use by our gunners. The best way to bring about this mixture is to dissolve the two components in alcohol, thereby forming them both into liquids which can be readily mixed. Afterwards the alcohol evaporates; indeed, one of its great virtues for this and similar purposes is that it quietly takes itself off when it has done its work like a very well-drilled servant.
What then is this precious liquid and how is it produced? In order to answer that question it is necessary first to state that there are a whole family of substances called "alcohols," all of which are composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in certain proportions. There are also a number of kindred substances also, not exactly brothers but first cousins, so to speak, which because of their resemblance to this important family have names terminating in "ol."
They owe their existence to the wonderful behaviour of the atoms of carbon. In order to obtain some sort of system whereby the various combinations of carbon can be simply explained chemists picture each carbon atom as being armed with four little links or hooks with which it is able to grapple, as
it were, and hold on to other atoms. Each hydrogen atom, likewise, has its hook, but only one instead of four.