RESEARCH AND THE COAL-TAR DYE INDUSTRY 251 



sive item ; and in fact it is not too much to say that during the 

 first few years of manufacturing synthetic alizarine it was 

 Perkin's originality in working out the second process that 

 permitted the new branch of the industry to be carried on 

 profitably until methods were found for producing the fuming 

 acid cheaply in this country. In Germany the Badische firm, 

 under the guidance of Caro, proceeded very cautiously for the 

 first few years, devoting most of their energy to a detailed 

 examination of the chemical mechanism of the reaction before 

 setting out to produce the colouring matter on a large 

 scale. 



In addition, owing to the vague state of the German Patent 

 Laws in those days, the German patent lapsed through some 

 technical flaw, so that any other firm could take up its manu- 

 facture, an invitation that was quickly accepted by several 

 firms, notably the firm of Meister, Lucius & Briining, so that 

 the Badische Company had from the outset to compete against 

 home as well as foreign competition. 



In connection with the Hoechst Company an interesting 

 incident was related regarding the lack of chemical knowledge 

 on the part of English tar-distillers in those days : 



In order to obtain the necessary supplies of crude anthra- 

 cene, the Hoechst Company sent a representative, Herr De 

 Ridder, to England to arrange with tar-distillers about the 

 matter, but apparently no one knew in the least what anthra- 

 cene was, nor would any of the distillers allow Herr De Ridder 

 to enter their works in order to show them what he wanted, until 

 at last he obtained permission to go over the works of a dis- 

 tiller, John Blott, of Poplar ; almost immediately on entering 

 the courtyard De Ridder saw a huge pile of rubbish waiting to 

 be carted away, which he recognised at once as crude anthra- 

 cene ; needless to say, his offer of £20 per ton was accepted 

 at once and in addition he was promised the entire output 

 for the next twelve months at the same price, although, of 

 course, after that date the price increased very considerably. 



In spite of the activity abroad, however, little competition 

 was felt in England until 1873 in the alizarine industry, and 

 the Greenford Green works continually increased their annual 

 output as shown by these figures (for convenience the figures 

 for the output of the Badische works, given by Graebe and 

 Liebermann, are also shown) : 



