RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 129 



manufacture of dye-stuffs in this country, an historical resume 

 of the discovery of all the more important dyes by such an 

 eminent authority as Prof. Noelting {Arch. set. phys. nat. 

 Geneve, 1914 [iv], 38, 244 and 337) makes very interesting 

 reading. / ccording to him the number of dyes which have 

 been synthesised runs into tens of thousands if not hundreds of 

 thousands, by far the greater number of which are of course 

 not used industrially ; but it is no exaggeration to say that the 

 number of definite individuals actually on the market extends 

 to more than 2,000. We are once more told the old tale that 

 the aniline-dye industry originated in England, partly from the 

 researches of Perkin and partly from the researches of German 

 chemists, such as Hoffmann, Caro, and Martius, working in 

 this country. Much of the earlier work was also done in 

 France by both French and Alsatian chemists ; yet, in spite of 

 these facts, by far the greater proportion of dyes are manu- 

 factured in Germany and Switzerland, which latter country, how- 

 ever, produces only about one-tenth the amount that Germany 

 produces. The reasons for the pre-eminence of these two 

 countries in the manufacture of dyes is, according to the author, 

 easy to comprehend. He says : " Nowhere has organic chemis- 

 try been held in greater esteem than in these two countries — 

 nowhere have young men found such facilities for study, both 

 theoretical and practical, which has enabled them to apply their 

 knowledge industrially. Nowhere have the manufacturers 

 shown such intelligence, breadth of outlook and enterprise, 

 shirking no expense and considering no difficulty as insur- 

 mountable, and leaving no question without having exhausted 

 it — ' nil actum reputans dum quid superesset agendum ' — or, 

 in other words, considering nothing completed so long as some- 

 thing remained to be done." These views, coming from such 

 an expert as Prof. Noelting, are of considerable interest, as it 

 will be seen that he nowhere suggests that the success of foreign 

 countries is due to any innate gift or peculiarities of disposition 

 or even originality, but attributes success merely to facilities 

 for study and business enterprise — a fact which should give 

 heart to those in this country who are anxious to reorganise 

 matters with a view of putting our chemical industries on a 

 better footing. 



Before concluding this review, the attention of English 

 readers should be drawn to an article by Willstatter on 

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