xlvi Annual Report of the Council. * 



his paper with Duppa on the constitution of glycocoll. In fact 

 during the whole of the period of his association with the 

 industry, that is, until 1874, he was directing and instaUing 

 operations on the technical scale, whilst at the same time con- 

 ducting original research in other branches of organic chemistry. 



In 1868 Graebe and Liebermann settled the constitution of 

 alizarine, the colouring matter of the madder root, by preparing 

 it synthetically from anthracene, but the process they used was 

 too costly for technical purposes. In the following year the 

 method by which this, the first natural dye-stuff to be prepared 

 synthetically, is at the present day manufactured was discovered 

 and patented simultaneously by Caro, Graebe, and Liebermann 

 in Germany and by Perkin in England. As a matter of fact the 

 German patent of Caro, Graebe, and Liebermann bears the date 

 June 25th, 1869; the English patent of Perkin the date June 

 26th, 1869. 



The manufacture of artificial alizarine was carried out by 

 Perkin at Greenford until 1873, when the works were sold to 

 Messrs. Brooke, Simpson, and Spiller The factory was subse- 

 quently transferred to the present British Alizarine Company 

 who removed the manufacture from Greenford to Silvertown. 



In 1874 Perkin retired from the industry and devoted the 

 remainder of his life to the prosecution of research in pure 

 chemistry. His work during this portion of his life is thus 

 described by Professor J. W. Brlihl, of Heidelberg, in the letter 

 sent by him on the occasion of the Coal-tar Jubilee. " And, 

 finally, at an age when most men would have retired on such 

 well-earned laurels, you undertook once more an altogether new 

 and wide-embracing task. Availing yourself of the marvellous 

 discovery of your great countryman, Michael Faraday, you 

 undertook to investigate the relations between the chemical 

 composition of bodies and their magnetic circular polarization — 

 that is to say, one of the general properties of all matter. . . . 

 You created a new branch of science, taught us how from the 

 magnetic rotation conclusions can be drawn as to the chemical 



