GERMAN SCIENCE . 109 
said emphatically that we have artificial colouring matters 
‘to produce almost any shade with any desired degree of fast- 
ness on any kind of material, whether it be wool, cotton, silk, 
or paper’. The idea that artificial colours are necessarily 
either gaudy or fleeting is quite fallacious. If evidence is 
wanted it can be supplied by such facts as these, given by 
Dr. Duisberg, that in the great Gobelin tapestry factory at 
Paris, where it takes nearly a year to make a square yard of 
material, costing about £200, the older dye-stuffs have to 
a considerable extent been displaced by the artificial ones for 
the sake of their greater fastness to light. Certain blue dyes 
discovered in 1901 are authoritatively declared to be the 
most indestructible colours known. 
Perkin’s colour factory near London grew and prospered. 
In 1868 the abstruse researches of two German chemists gave 
another great impulse by the discovery of the chemical nature 
of madder—the famous ‘ Turkey red’. This was followed by 
the discovery of a practicable method of making the colour. 
In a short time the cultivation of madder root began to die 
out, in thousands of acres in France madder growing gave 
place to the cultivation of the sugar beet, and the manufac- 
ture of alizarine (for so the artificial madder was called) grew 
apace. At this point the necessity of enlarging his manu- 
factory to cope with the increased trade led Perkin to retire. 
He had always vowed that the lure of industry with its golden 
guineas should never detach him from the joy of scientific 
investigation, and so in 1873 he sold his works. From that 
time till his death in 1907, he continued, happy in his labora- 
tory, to enrich science with his discoveries. He left behind 
him an honoured name and happily also distinguished sons 
who have continued in the footsteps of their illustrious father. 
One of them, I am happy to say, exercises his talents within 
our own university. 
In addition to Perkin’s factory, others arose in London and 
