108 Sir Frederick Ahel [April 22, 



also one of the most remarkable, as illustrating by eacb stage of its 

 development the direct application of scientific research to the attain- 

 ment of momentous practical results. 



It is interesting to note that Perkin's discovery of mauve, as a 

 product of one of the most important derivatives of coal-tar, called 

 aniline, was arrived at in the course of an investigation, having for 

 its object the artificial production of the invaluable vegetable alkaloid, 

 quinine, the synthesis of which has been the aim of many researches 

 during the past half century, and aj)pears to be at length about to be 

 achieved, as the result of a long chain of scientific research. The 

 difficulties to be overcome before mauve could be produced upon a 

 manufacturing scale were very great, and were only solved by a steady 

 pursuit of scientific research, side by side wdth practical experiments 

 suggested by its results. Aniline — the parent of the first coal-tar 

 colour, a liquid organic alkali — a most fertile source of interesting 

 and important discoveries in organic chemistry, which have made the 

 names of Hofmann and others famous — was produced with difficulty 

 by various methods in very small quantities, so as to be almost a 

 chemical curiosity at the time of the discovery of mauve. Among 

 the substances from which it had been prepared was the volatile 

 liquid known as benzene, first discovered in the laboratory of this 

 Institution in 1825 by Faraday, in the liquid products condensed 

 from oil gas, but afterwards obtained by Mansfield, in the College of 

 Chemistry, from coal-tar naphtha, which also furnished in his hands a 

 series of homologous liquids, many of them now of great importance 

 as the raw materials from which dyes are obtained. 



The conversion of benzene into aniline, which had been efiected 

 on a very small scale in different ways by German and Russian 

 investigators, was accomplished as a manufacturing process after 

 many difficulties by Perkin, and within a year after the discovery of 

 mauve by him, it was in the hands of the silk dyer. Perkin's success 

 led other chemists at once to pursue researches in the same direction, 

 especially in France, where the next important coal-tar colour, 

 magenta or fuchsine, was obtained, by M. Verquin, the successful 

 manufacture of which in a pure state was, however, first accomplished 

 by English chemists, with Mr. E. C. Nicholson at their head, whose 

 magnificent specimens in the 18G2 Exhibition excited universal 

 admiration. In 1861 beautiful violet and blue colours were 

 produced, again by French chemists (Girard and De Laire), but 

 were manufactured shortly afterwards in a pure state by Nicholson. 

 This brought the coal-tar dye industry down to the year 1862, and 

 Hofmann, in congratulating his young pupil Perkin (in his Jury 

 Report) upon the splendid industrial result achieved, in having first 

 manufactured a colour from coal-tar, which had been arrived at by 

 purely scientific research, expressed the hope that the commercial 

 success of his enterprise might not divert him from the path of 

 scientific inquiry — a hope which he has lived to see fully realised, as 

 the long scries of fresh contributions, made almost without inter- 



