242 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
in this almost virgin field may in their turn by that effect of super- 
induction between industry and science, bring about a rapid develop- 
ment similar to what we have witnessed in the advancement of 
electricity, as well as chemistry, which both began to progress by 
bounds and leaps, way ahead of other sciences, as soon as their 
growing industrial applications put a high premium on further 
research. 
Photochemistry may allow us some day to obtain chemical effects 
hitherto undreamed of. In general the action of light in chemical 
reactions seems incomparably less brutal than all means used hereto- 
fore in chemistry. This is the probable secret of the subtle chemical 
syntheses which happen in plant life. To try to duplicate these 
delicate reactions of nature by our present methods of high tempera- 
tures, electrolysis, strong chemicals, and other similar torture pro- 
cesses, seems like trying to imitate a masterpiece of Gounod by 
exploding a dynamite cartridge between the strings of a piano. 
But there are endless other directions for scientific research relat- 
ing to industrial applications which until now do not seem to have 
received sufficient attention. 
For instance, from a chemical standpoint, the richest chemical 
enterprise of the United States, the petroleum industry, has hitherto 
chiefly busied itself with a rather primitive treatment of this valuable 
raw material, and little or no attention has been paid to any methods 
for transforming at least a part of these hydrocarbons into more 
ennobled products of commerce than mere fuel or illuminants. 
A hint as to the enormous possibilities which may be in store in 
that direction is suggested by the recent work in Germany and Eng- 
land on synthetic rubber; the only factor which prevents extending 
the laboratory synthesis of rubber into an immense industrial under- 
taking is that we have not yet learned how to make cheaply the 
isoprene or other similar nonsaturated hydrocarbons which are the 
starting point in the process which changes their molecules by 
polymerization into rubber. 
Nor has our science begun to find the best uses for such inexpensive 
and never exhaustible vegetable products as cellulose or starch. 
Quite true, several important manufactures, like that of paper, 
nitrocellulose, glucose, alcohol, vinegar, and some others, have been 
built on it; but to the chemist at least it seems as if a much greater 
development is possible in the cheaper and more extended produc- 
tion of artificial fiber. Although we have succeeded in making 
so-called artificial silk, this article is still very expensive; furthermore 
we have not yet produced a cheap, good, artificial fiber of the quality 
of wool. 
If we have made ourselves independent of Chile for our nitrogen 
supply, we are still absolutely at the mercy of the Stassfurt mines in 
