1917] Cellulose and Chemical Industry (1866-1916) 21 



WEEKLY EVENIXG MEETING, 



Friday, March 2, 1917. 



Sir William Phipsox Beale, Bart., K.C. M.P., 

 Vice-President, iu the Chair. 



Charles F. Cross, B.Sc. F.C.S. Y.P.I.C. 



Cellulose and Chemical Industry (1866-1916). 



Cellulose in the natural order ranks with the air-gases, and water 

 as a primary substance, or, in the sense of the Creek cosmology, an 

 " element." 



In the affairs of " the world," that is, man's world, it plays a 

 similar predominant part by reason of its original qualities of struc- 

 ture and of resistance as a chemical individual to oxygen and water. 

 Under chemical treatment there results a development of structural 

 adaptabihty through the plastic properties of characteristic synthetic 

 derivatives ; and in the special properties of the ceUulose nitrates 

 there is realized the many-sided technical ideal of explosive and the 

 indispensable condition qua matter of modern warfare. 



The chemical industrial developments of cellulose are character- 

 istic of the modern age, which in this section of technology dates 

 from 1866. At this date the necessity of meeting the progressive 

 consumption of paper by a supply of original raw cellulose material 

 led to the introduction of esparto grass by Thos. Routledge, and to 

 the investigation of wood material as the most massive form and 

 source of cellulose. As the result of the pioneer work of an Anglo- 

 Swedish group, of which the late C. D. Ekman was a prominent 

 member, and for which his English collaborators (Messrs. Thomson, 

 Bonar and Co., and George Fry, F.L.S., of Berwick-on-Tweed) 

 supplied the means, the business organization, and a considerable 

 contribution to the technical scientific basis of investigation, the wood 

 pulp (cellulose) industry was launched. 



It was considerably developed by the technical improvements 

 introduced by our countryman, Edward Partington, now Lord 

 Doverdale, who also brought to bear on the industry organizing and 

 business capabilities of a high order ; the results, which have been 

 cumulatively successful, are known to the world. 



In these processes of resolving raw material into paper-maker's 

 " pulps," the ceUulose, as the chemically inert or non-reactive basis of 

 the raw materials, resists the severe treatments required to attack the 



