xliv Annual Report of tJie Council. 



only to revolutionise the then existing methods of dyeing and 

 dye manufacture, but at the same time to open up a new sphere 

 of investigation by which our knowledge of the compounds of 

 carbon has been vastly increased. 



The story of the discovery of mauve, the first coal-tar 

 colouring matter, has been fully toid by Perkin himself in the 

 Hofmann Memorial Lecture which he delivered before the 

 Chemical Society in 1896. During the time that he was assis- 

 tant to Hofmann he had fitted up for himself a laboratory at his 

 father's house in Shadwell in order that he might be able to 

 work in the evenings and during the vacations. It was here that 

 during the Easter vacation of 1856 he was led to investigate the 

 action of potassium dichromate on allyl toluidine in the hope of 

 preparing synthetically the alkaloid quinine. In order to under- 

 stand the reason which prompted Perkin to try this experiment, 

 it must be remembered that at that time the conception of 

 isomerism had not been evolved, and it was confidently believed 

 that a synthetical product if of the same empirical formula would 

 prove to be identical with a natural product. Hence when 

 Hofmann, in the Report of the Royal College of Chemistry for 

 1849, referred to the fact that the hydrocarbon naphthalene 

 could be converted by a series of chemical reactions into a 

 crystalline alkaloid naphthalidine ( = ((-naphthylamine of to-day) 

 he pointed out that this substance differed from quinine only by 

 the elements of two molecules of water, and quaintly adds " we 

 cannot of course expect to induce the water to enter merely by 

 placing it in contact, but a happy experiment may attain this 

 end by the discovery of an appropriate metamorphic process." 



In this way Perkin was led to try the action of an oxidising. 

 agent on allyltoluidine in the hope that the following reaction 

 would ensue : — 



2(QoH,,N) + 30 = C.,oH,A.N. + HA 

 allyltoluidine quinine 



In the light of our present knowledge it is hardly necessary 

 to say that no quinine was formed in this reaction, but only, to 



