INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY—BAEKELAND. 243 
Germany for our requirements of soluble potash salts, which are just 
as necessary for agriculture. Shall we succeed in utilizing some of the 
proposed methods for converting that abundant supply of feldspar, 
or other insoluble potash-bearing rocks, into soluble potash salts by 
combining the expensive heat treatment with the production of 
another material, like cement, which would render the cost of fuel 
less exorbitant? Or shall the problem be solved in setting free 
soluble potassium salts as a by-product in a reaction engendering 
other staple products consumed in large quantities ? 
We have several astonishingly conflicting theories about the con- 
stitution of the center of the globe, but we have not yet developed 
the means to penetrate the world’s crust beyond some deep mines— 
merely an imperceptible faint scratch on the surface—and in the 
meantime we keep on guessing, while to-day astronomers know 
already more about the surface of the planet Mars than we know 
about the interior of the globe on which we live. 
Nor have we learned to develop or utilize the tremendous pressures 
under which most minerals have been formed, and still less do we 
possess the means to try these pressures, in conjunction with in- 
tensely high temperatures. 
No end of work is in store for the research chemist, as well as for 
the chemical engineer, who can think by himself, without always 
following the beaten track. We are only at the beginning of our 
successes; and yet, when we stop to look back to see what has been 
accomplished during the last generations, that big jump from the 
rule of thumb to applied science is nothing short of marvelous. 
Whoever is acquainted with the condition of human thought 
to-day must find it strange, after all, that scarcely 70 years ago 
Mayer met with derision even among the scientists of the time when 
he announced to the world that simple but fundamental principle of 
the conservation of energy. 
We can hardly conceive that just about the time the Columbia 
School of Mines was founded Liebig was still ridiculing Pasteur’s ideas 
on the intervention of microorganisms in fermentation, which have 
proved so fecund in the most epoch-making applications in science, 
medicine, surgery, and sanitation, as well as in many industries. 
Fortunately, true science, contrary to other human avocations, 
recognizes nobody as an “authority,” and is willing to change her 
beliefs as often as better studied facts warrant it. This difference has 
been the most vital cause of her never ceasing progress. 
To the younger generation, surrounded with research laboratories 
everywhere, it may cause astonishment to learn that scarcely 50 
years ago that great benefactor of humanity, Pasteur, was still 
repeating his pathetic pleadings with the French Government to give 
him more suitable quarters than a damp, poorly lighted basement, 
