PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 211 



manufacture, and these by-products are now so valuable 

 that factories arc set up beside the gas-works for the 

 purpose of working them up. On Bow Common a 

 factory is thus located beside the Great Central Gas Com- 

 pany. From one of the products of Coal-distillation 

 worked up at this factory, is prepared the impure Muriate 

 of Ammonia in crystals, and in order to convert this salt 

 into the " Sal Ammoniac" of commerce a Chemical firm 

 has built another factory adjoining. Thus three labora- 

 tories, placed side by side, pass on from one to the other 

 products, which, in the passage, suffer transformations as 

 remarkable as any we read of in Arabian story. 



There is hardly anything more wonderful than the 

 development of the utilization of by-products from Coal- 

 tar in the last 35 years. The value of the colouring 

 matters alone is estimated at over ^5,000,000 per annum. 



The products which half a century ago were made in 

 the laboratory with great difficulty and in small quantities, 

 are now turned out by the cwt. and ton. To achieve 

 these results the most profound chemical knowledge has 

 been combined with the highest technological skill. The 

 outcome has been to place at the service of man from 

 the waste products of the gas manufacturers a series of 

 colouring matters which can compete with the natural 

 dyes, and in many cases have displaced them. From the 

 same source we have been supplied with explosives, such 

 as Picric Acid ; with perfumes and flavouring materials, 

 like Bitter Almond Oil and Banillin ; with a sweetening 

 principle, like Saccharine, compared with which the pro- 

 duct of the sugar-cane is but feeble ; with photographic 

 developers, such as Hydro quinone and Eikonogen ; with 

 disinfectants, which largely contribute to the healthiness 

 of our lives ; with potent medicines, which rival the 

 natural Alkaloids ; and with stains, which reveal the inner- 

 most structure of the tissues of living things. Surely if 

 ever romance was woven out of prosaic material, it has 

 been in this industrial development of modern Chemistry. 



