342 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



important English industry — the manufacture of colours 

 from coal-tar, which is now practically in the hands of the 

 Germans and Swiss, so much so that Dr. Caro, the chief 

 living authority on these matters, in addressing the German 

 Chemical Society a couple of years ago was able to refer 

 to it as a German national industry. 



It was established in 1856 at Sudbury, near Harrow, 

 by Perkin, who discovered the first aniline colour in the 

 course of a research which he was carrying out, with purely 

 scientific objects in view, under the direction of Hofmann, 

 then Professor in the Royal College of Chemistry, in Ox- 

 ford Street, London. Soon afterwards the important firm 

 of Simpson, Maull & Nicholson was founded at Hackney 

 Wick — Nicholson being another of Hofmann's pupils. 

 Although similar works were erected in France and Ger- 

 many, the main business remained in English hands during 

 perhaps twenty years. Meanwhile Dr. Griess — chemist 

 throughout his life to the celebrated brewers at Burton-on- 

 Trent, Messrs. Allsopp — was carrying on researches on 

 diazo-compounds, which he had begun as a student in 

 Germany — one of the most remarkable series of scientific 

 researches ever made ; but these did not meet with full 

 appreciation until 1876. In this year the firm of Williams, 

 Thomas & Dower of Brentford introduced certain azo- 

 colours into the market which had been made in their 

 works under the direction of a most accomplished Swiss 

 chemist, Dr. O. N. Witt, strictly in accordance with Griess's 

 prescriptions. The importance of the step thus taken was 

 not fully apparent here, but it was in Germany. Dr. Caro, a 

 member of the now world-renowned Badische Anilin und 

 Soda Fabrik, near Mannheim on the Rhine, who had 

 formerly been chemist to Roberts, Dale & Co., in Man- 

 chester—the personal friend of Griess — had been working 

 in the same direction as Witt, and his firm shortly after- 

 wards brought out azo-colours similar to those manufactured 

 by the English firm. This time the seed had fallen upon 

 fruitful soil : the Germans were theoretical as well as 

 practical, and at once saw that the application of Griess's 

 discoveries was likely to be productive of practical con- 



