SHORT PAPERS 705 



in the Franklin Institute, delivering three courses of lectures extending over 

 three years each. He was the author of an Encyclopedia of Chemistry (Phila- 

 delphia, 1850) and with Campbell Morfit of a report On Recent Improvements in 

 the Chemical Arts, published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1852. His 

 appointment to the mint was coincident with the discovery of gold in California, 

 and the new processes required to prepare the bullion for coinage were largely 

 of his own invention and many of them, to use his own words, " were not known 

 outside the mint." 1 



It is well known that prior to 1850 and for some time thereafter Philadel- 

 phia was the acknowledged centre for the manufacture of chemicals for me- 

 dicinal use. To collect the details of the many improved methods for the pro- 

 duction of these chemicals would be a long and difficult task, and would require 

 more space than I have at my command in this article. The names of such 

 firms as Powers and Weightman and Rosengarten and Sons are readily recog- 

 nized as those of manufacturers of standard chemicals. M. I. Wilbert has re- 

 cently published a paper entitled Early Chemical Manufacturers : A Contribution 

 t<> the History and Rise of the Development of Chemical Industries in America, 

 to which I must refer you for further information concerning their growth and 

 progress.' 



I am reminded in this connection that the name of Edward Robinson Squibb 

 (1819-1900) is one well worthy of deserved recognition among manufacturers of 

 chemicals. The ether prepared by him by processes of his own invention has long 

 been accepted as standard. For a brief period during the early fifties of the last 

 century Dr. Squibb was associated with J. Lawrence Smith (1818-83) in Louis- 

 ville, Kentucky, in the commercial production of chemical reagents and of the 

 rarer pharmaceutical preparations. 3 It is also proper to add the name of the 

 Baker and Adamson Chemical Company of Easton, Pennsylvania, as that of 

 a corporation which has established a reputation for the manufacture of pure 

 chemicals by processes, many of which are of their own devising. The success of 

 this young firm is generally admitted to be largely due to Edward Hart 4 (1854- ), 

 who fills the chair of chemistry in Lafayette College. 



Eben Norton Horsford (1818-93) made distinct contributions to technical 

 chemistry and among these may be mentioned his invention of condensed milk. 

 According to Charles L. Jackson, he originally prepared that most valuable 

 article of food for use in Dr. Kane's Arctic expedition and afterwards presented 

 the process to one of his assistants, who then sold it to Gail Borden. His name, 

 however, is more commonly associated with his invention of a phosphatic yeast 

 powder, the object of which is to return to the bread the phosphates lost in bolting 

 the flour, and which, as is well knowTi, form such an essential constituent of the 

 food of animals. He also devised "a marvelously compact and light marching 



1 A sketch of his career by Patterson Du Bois was presented before the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society on October 5, 1888, and has since been issued in a 

 pamphlet of eight pages. 



2 Journal of the Franklin Institute, vol. CLVII, p. 365, 1904. 



3 See Original Researches in Mineralogy and Chemistry, by J. Lawrence Smith 

 (Louisville, Kentucky, 1884), p. xxxviii. 



4 Since this address was written I have learned that credit is due to Professor 

 Hart for a complete process for the manufacture of nitric acid from Chili salt- 

 peter, by means of which it is possible to distill the acid continuously and to make 

 it of any strength and any degree of purity. This process is not only used by the 

 Baker and Adamson Company but also by a number of powder concerns both in 

 this country and abroad. Professor Hart is also the inventor of a complete pro- 

 cess for the manufacture of hydrochloric acid which is being used in Easton. One 

 of his earliest patents was for the manufacture of a pure hydrofluoric acid which 

 he put on the market in a container, for which he received the John Scott legacy 

 medal and premium of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. 



