RESEARCH AND THE COAL-TAR DYE INDUSTRY 245 



The wonderfully rapid progress of the industry in its early 

 years may be gauged by the fact that at the International 

 Exhibition of 1862, only six years from the beginning of the 

 industry, the annual production of coal-tar dyes was already 

 valued at £400,000 sterling, and the number of products 

 obtained from coal-tar, given by Mansfield as 13 in 1848, had 

 increased to 40 in 1862. 



At the same Exhibition Messrs. Simpson, Maule & Nicholson 

 exhibited a " crown " of magenta crystallised on a wire frame- 

 work, calculated to be worth £100, whilst the dye remaining 

 in the crystallising vat was valued at £8,000, the market 

 price being about £3 per ounce. Both by nature and by good 

 fortune England seemed destined to be the great coal-tar dye 

 producing country of the world ; Great Britain produced more 

 tar than any other country, the first synthetic dye was dis- 

 covered here, and Professor Hofmann himself at the Royal 

 College of Chemistry was the centre of attraction of the industry ; 

 one thing only was lacking, namely a sufficient scientific 

 education of the general public, such as was already obtaining 

 in Germany, and a sympathetic understanding and apprecia- 

 tion of the methods and objects of research. To this last is 

 to be traced directly and indirectly the ultimate collapse of 

 the British dye industry. 



In order to appreciate fully the revolution which was 

 inaugurated by the first aniline dyes, it is worth while noting 

 the position of the dyeing industry in those days. 



Practically the only dyes obtainable in any quantity were 

 madder, indigo, logwood, fustic, Orleans, cochineal, saflor, 

 catechou, and orseille, together with a few compounds such as 

 Prussian blue, and coloured compounds of iron and chromium 

 and arsenic, also picric acid and murexide to a small extent. 



Nearly each dye needed separate and different treatment, 

 so that mixed dyeings were very difficult or impossible, and 

 with the exception of indigo and madder the colours were 

 mostly dull, not very fast, and very expensive. 



The appearance of aniline dyes altered everything ; dyeing 

 became simpler and cheaper despite the high cost of the dyes, 

 owing to their greater purity and intensity ; mixed dyeings 

 were readily obtainable ; and the uses and production of all 

 manner of textile goods increased enormously. 



Whilst in France the failure of " La Fuchsine " set back 



