If a new process devised by John Woods Beckman, Oakland, Calif., industrial chemist, proves commercially practicable, people will have tiny "bugs" to thank for their soap, salad oil, synthetic hot dogs,* margarin, shortening and such commercial products as Mazola, Wesson Oil, Snowdrift, Crisco, Nuco Butter.
Vegetable oils occurring in cottonseed, linseed, copra, peanuts, are held in microscopic cells. About these cells there is a hard crust, largely cellulose, which must be cracked to release the oil. Of the three commercial methods, which produce some seven million tons of oil per year, the most...