RESEARCH AND THE COAL-TAR DYE INDUSTRY 243 



with the possible exception of the method patented by Dale & 

 Caro for the use of copper chloride as an oxidising agent. 



In the course of these attempts to circumvent Perkin's 

 patent, various shades of reds and violets were produced, all 

 of which were claimed to be identical with mauve, though there 

 is no doubt they consisted chiefly of other colouring matters, 

 but finally in 1859 M. Verguin of Lyons produced a brilliant 

 new red dye by treating aniline with tin tetrachloride, which 

 he named " fuchsin " (or " magenta," as it came to be known in 

 England), which in some ways seems to have been of even 

 greater interest to dyers than mauve itself, very probably 

 because the latter dye had already done the pioneer work of 

 waking up the printers and dyers to new possibilities in their 

 thousand-year-old industry. 



The success of fuchsin was so great that an attempt was 

 made to " corner " its manufacture in France by forming a 

 company known as " La Fuchsine," which had sole rights for 

 its manufacture ; as is almost invariably the case, however, 

 when the attempt is made to establish a monopoly in a new 

 industry by preventing competition, the scheme came to grief 

 as newer and better methods were worked out elsewhere for 

 its production, and for some considerable time the failure 

 produced a feeling of distrust amongst investors. 



The young industry was not to be held back by any such 

 artificial restrictions as these, and soon other processes were 

 worked out in Germany and in England, in the latter case by 

 Medlock, who used arsenic acid as the oxidising agent, which 

 gave good results but had the disadvantage that the frequent 

 presence of small quantities of arsenic in the crude dye-stuff 

 gave rise to the legend, which persisted for many years, that 

 the aniline dyes were themselves poisonous. The industry 

 was now settling down in earnest and was rapidly attracting 

 to itself the more thoughtful and scientific among chemists 

 and business men. 



Heinrich Caro, one of the founders of modern dye chemistry, 

 has well expressed the general state of feeling at the time in 

 these words : 



" The beauty, the fastness, and the brilliant success of 

 the first aniline colours acted like sparks on tinder. 



" A new world was disclosed full of magic promise, and all 



