PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 2g 



making of paper, of printing and writing ink. not to mention 

 again the materials wherewith bool^s are bound and the colouring 

 of the binding. The production of illustrations in those books, 

 by whatever means, and also the whole art of photography, must 

 Stand or fall with the ability of chemistry to assist them. And 

 then, as I have already said, there is the increasingly large sub- 

 ject of fine and synthetic chemicals, beginning with manufactures 

 like those of starch, glucose, and dextrine, the synthetic dyes 

 which surpass natural products in brilliance and permanence, the 

 synthetic perfumes which far transcend natural odours in 

 potency, the synthetic drugs which have done much to afford 

 relief to the suffering ; artificial products — I do not say imita- 

 tions, for they are often better suited to their applications than 

 the natural products which they replace — artificial products in 

 substitution of rubies, of bone, horn, and ivory, of resins, and 

 of leather, are all the result of chemical research. Again and 

 again the chemist has shown us how to produce the most valu- 

 able commodities out of waste and refuse. The refuse of the 

 Bessemer steel works gave rise to one of our most efficient fer- 

 tilisers ; the refuse of the gas works provided the world with 

 dyes, drugs, and a marvellously long list of other useful articles ; 

 the waste of wool-washeries furnishes us with lanoline. Waste 

 wood, if destructively distilled, and. amongst others, waste wattle 

 wood, of which large quantities are annually available in Natal, 

 is capable of producing acetone, whereof enormous quantities 

 are now being used for the manufacture of propellants. 



And so we may rightly claim that the present age is the age 

 of the chemist. The chemist has never before had such oppor- 

 tunities for the application of his knowledge to the betterment 

 of material conditions upon earth, and never has he more effec- 

 tively applied it to the attainment of this aim. It is also sadly 

 true that never before has he applied his knowledge with such 

 damaging eft'ect as during the present w^ar ; but when the war 

 shall have run its course, all the chemist's resourcefulness, all his 

 energy, all his persistence will be needed to repair the damage 

 done, and to start exhausted nations upon new lines of industry. 

 On the chemist, more than on anyone else, will this task devolve, 

 and in South Africa in particular he will find abundant work 

 awaiting him. Is he to be there to respond to the call? Then it 

 is for us to educate and train him to the necessary standard ; it 

 is for us to provide the means whereby his purpose may be accom- 

 plished ; it is 'for us to accord him sympathetic treatment. Do 

 not let us regard him as useful only as long as he is bound down 

 to routine work, and as academic when he is occupied with in- 

 vestigations beyond our limited capacity to understand. 



We have heard much during the past four years of the diffi- 

 culties under which the chemist has been labouring in Britain 

 and America — of the apathetic attitude adopted towards him by 

 Governments, public institutions, and industrial concerns, of the 

 sparing hand wherewith the essentials for the pursuit of his 



