SHORT PAPERS 701 



of all that relates to the welfare of man. We might get along without the facili- 

 ties of transportation, we might do away with the adaptations of the electrical 

 force to industry, we might dispense with the perfected armaments of modern 

 battleships, but we cannot do without food and clothing, and these scientific 

 agriculture furnish. While almost every science contributes something to agri- 

 culture, and while we recognize the contributions of all fully, we must admit that 

 chemistry takes the lead. Chemistry determines the fertility of the soil, the char- 

 acter of the materials removed by the crop, and furnishes the means to restore the 

 plant-foods which are removed. It studies the processes of nutrition and shows 

 how foods can be used to secure the best economical results. It improves the 

 yield of old fields by the scientific application of fertilizers combined with system- 

 atic mechanical treatment. It adapts the raw material of agriculture to specific 

 uses. It develops great industries which without it would be forever dormant, as, 

 for instance, the beet-sugar industry, which is, it may be said, almost purely a 

 chemical product. In fact the applications of chemistry to agriculture are so 

 numerous and important that only a volume could adequately portray them. If, 

 therefore, it be adjudged proper to call abstract chemistry pure, we must claim 

 that it is only appropriate that technical chemistry should be called perfect. 

 After all, man is the chief thing to be valued in this world and all that ministers 

 to his welfare, to his progress, and to his happiness should receive the special 

 favor of human thought. That application or effort which does not do something 

 for the advancement of man directly or indirectly is hardly to be thought 

 worthy of occupying the time of man. We, therefore, deem it only fitting that the 

 authorities in charge of the Programme of this Congress should have made a spe- 

 cial division of this, in some respects, the most important part of our science. 



DR. MARCUS BENJAMIN, of the United States National Museum, and Secretary 

 of the Section of Technical Chemistry, presented the following valuable paper on 

 "The Historical Development of Technical Chemistry in the United States:" 



The inventive genius of the American people is universally conceded. The 

 necessity of accomplishing things quickly, incidental to the growth of a new 

 country, such as ours, has naturally led to the invention of many forms of labor- 

 saving machinery, and so with improved appliances have come improved methods. 

 The technical chemist is, however, less fortunate than his brother in the pro- 

 fessorial chair whose merits are made known by his students, thus attracting an 

 ever-increasing following to his laboratory, and perhaps he is also less fortunate 

 than his associate who devotes himself to research work; for to him are given 

 medals and honorary memberships, which are properly the "blue ribbons" of 

 science; hence it is that the discoveries of the technical chemist, especially where 

 they are commercially meritorious, remain too frequently unknown, and the 

 profits of the improvement go to swell the dividends of the corporation to which 

 he owes his allegiance while he receives no public recognition. It naturally follows, 

 therefore, that any summary of the achievements in the development of technical 

 chemistry must be very incomplete. 



To say when chemistry begins is not generally possible, for its origin wanders 

 back into alchemy and pharmacy on the one side and into physics on the other, 

 and there are no sharp lines of separation among the various branches of science, 

 for they gradually merge one into the other. In this country, however, we have 

 grown to accept the date of the arrival of Joseph Priestley, June 4, 1794, as a most 

 excellent time at which to begin the modern history of chemistry. 



The younger Silliman's masterly American Contributions to Chemistry * gives 

 me the right, therefore, to mention first Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford 



1 American Chemist, 1874, vol. v, p. 70. 



