4 CHEMISTRY 



to us by an unscrupulous enemy during the past 

 two years. 



The discussion of the bearing of Chemistry on 

 national prosperity leads immediately to a con- 

 sideration of the ramifications of the chemical 

 industries and later to an examination of the way 

 in which industrial chemical development must be 

 secured by both academic and technical research 

 work. So vast is the subject that for the present 

 purpose some limitation of ambit must be premised ; 

 it will be convenient to omit the great metallurgical 

 industries, the pottery and earthenware industries 

 and others, which are indeed purely chemical but 

 lend themselves appropriately to separate treat- 

 ment, and to deal mainly with those industries 

 which produce more or less pure chemical com- 

 pounds. Such chemical compounds may be roughly 

 divided into "heavy" chemicals, which serve 

 largely as raw materials in other branches of 

 chemical industry, and "fine" chemicals, which 

 consist mainly of high-priced finished products such 

 as dye-stuffs, drugs, photographic chemicals and 

 the like. 



The heavy chemical industries include those con- 

 cerned with the manufacture of low-priced materials 

 such as sulphuric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric 

 acid, washing soda and caustic soda, ammonia, 

 bleaching powder and many other inorganic and 

 organic substances which can be produced cheaply 

 and in large quantities. Up to the present the 



