244 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



joined eagerly in the search, the manufacturer and the professor, 

 the business man and the adventurer ; for the one a new gold- 

 mine, for the other new opportunities for fruitful investigation." 



Prof. Hofmann, who had strongly advised Perkin against 

 the latter's project of manufacturing mauve, was himself 

 caught in the whirlpool of excitement resulting from his 

 pupil's discovery, and very soon prepared a new violet dye — 

 " Hofmann 's violet " — by treating magenta with ethyl chloride, 

 the violet dye so resulting becoming a serious competitor with 

 Perkin 's mauve, the master thus competing against his own 

 erstwhile pupil ! 



From thenceforward a continuous and ever-growing stream 

 of new dye-stuffs made its way into the world, such as " aniline 

 blue " or " Bleu de Lyons," discovered by Girard and Delaire 

 in 1 86 1, and the soluble sulphonic acid " Nicholson's blue," 

 prepared from it by Nicholson by the action of concentrated 

 sulphuric acid, Britannia violet, iodine green, and many 

 others. Even at this time in the early days of the industry, 

 two men, Perkin and Hofmann themselves, foresaw clearly that 

 the only way in which the young industry could grow healthily 

 and normally would be by the close co-operation of chemical 

 theory and technical practice. 



In particular Hofmann devoted himself to the elucidation 

 of the constitution of the dye-stuffs and his laboratories at the 

 Royal College of Chemistry gradually became the chief centre 

 for the British dye industry— that is to say, for the aniline 

 colour industry of the world. 



Perkin also was emphatic in his recognition of the necessity 

 for scientific chemical research, as evinced by his remarks at 

 the end of the lecture cited above : 



" The coal-tar industry is entirely the fruit of theoretical 

 chemistry, not studied for the purpose of producing com- 

 mercial products, but simply for its own sake." 



And at the close of another lecture he again emphasises 

 the same fact : " This industry is the fruit of scientific researches 

 in organic chemistry conducted mostly from the scientific 

 point of view ; and while this industry has made such great 

 progress it has, in its turn, acted as the handmaid to chemical 

 science, by placing at the disposal of chemists products which 

 otherwise could not have been obtained." 



