164 MORRIS LOEB 



force into electricity, whereby water-power, the next deriva- 

 tive of solar energy, becomes available as a constant source 

 of light, heat and chemical action. 



Coal, petroleum, natural gas and ores have accumulated 

 within the earth's crust for untold ages. Mankind commenced 

 to draw upon this supply during the past hundred years and 

 is already considering anxiously its approaching exhaustion. 

 Chemistry, which has played the leading part in this sudden 

 increase of consumption, is largely concerned in the effort to 

 restore the balance which has been disturbed. 



With justifiable confidence, we pin our faith upon the 

 progress of scientific discovery and invention. We should not, 

 however, do this blindly, but seek to estimate our present 

 accomplishments at their true value. This is what I have set 

 out to do in the present volume; 1 not, indeed, with the hope of 

 presenting an exhaustive treatise, but of stimulating thought 

 in this direction and of leading to a closer inquiry into the 

 steps by which legislation might differentiate the industries 

 which promote from those which might endanger the public 

 good. 



For this purpose, I intend to follow up the ramifications of 

 the chief industries affected by chemical research and attempt 

 to trace their influence upon human welfare, partly by ascer- 

 taining what facilities they have afforded, partly by esti- 

 mating what consumption of energy they have entailed, and 

 partly by showing what older industries they have displaced 

 or effaced. . . . 



Local conditions, legislation, trade and labor combina- 

 tions have so much more effect upon wages and living-con- 

 ditions of the laborer, than has the progress of technical 

 science, that this subject may be deemed outside of the pre- 



1 One cannot but feel poignant regret that the rest of the volume was never 

 written. [EDITOR.] 



