672 



TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY 



the United States Census, this being the only country which takes 

 a census of manufactures. Following the classification of Wagner, 

 I have compiled these statistics for the years 1890 and 1900: 



Statistics of Chemical Manufactures in the United States, 1890 and 1900. 



The term technical chemistry may, however, properly be ex- 

 tended to include the work done by chemists not engaged in manu- 

 facturing, but which aims at a utilitarian application of the results. 

 First in order of development among these is the class of chemists 

 engaged in the work of chemically inspecting material from all 

 sources to ascertain its suitability for its proposed uses, or its purity, 

 or its conformity with the specifications under which it was pur- 

 chased. All economically managed and well conducted operations 

 of any magnitude to-day are subjected to this check. In fact we 

 may say that, since governments by legislation specify the fine- 

 ness as well as the weights of the gold and silver coins they issue, 

 and since the fineness of these coins as well as of the bullion in 

 the Treasury is constantly proved by analyses, therefore every com- 

 mercial transaction throughout the civilized world is eventually 

 based upon the results of chemical tests. The historian Du Cange 

 gives the credit for "inventing" assaying to Roger, Bishop of Salis- 

 bury, during the reign of Henry I. Be this as it may, it is owing to 

 the accurate analyses of assayers such as Tillet, Stas, Graham, 

 Torrey, Eckfeldt, Roberts- Austen, and their successors that the 

 credit of our metallic currency has been and is maintained. The 

 office of public analyst and assayer, or, as it is often styled, "State 

 Assayer," is of long standing, Charles XI of Sweden having, in 

 1686, 1 established a technical laboratory for the chemical examina- 

 tion of natural products and the working-out of processes for their 

 practical utilization. The Census of 1900 reports that there were 

 8847 persons practicing in the United States in that year as chem- 

 ists, assayers, and metallurgists, and it is gratifying to observe that 

 this class of technical analytical chemists is rapidly increasing in 

 numbers and importance. 



Second in the order of development is the work done in the tech- 

 nical research laboratories, where methods are tested and criticised, 

 1 History of Chemistry, E. von Meyer, p. 138. 



