TREE PRODUCTS 133 



does not know. Nor, until recently, was he able 

 to duplicate the feat of building up these com- 

 plex molecules, even though he is perfectly 

 familiar with the general properties of the atoms 

 of both carbon and hydrogen. 



In very recent years, however, chemists have 

 been at work on the problem of compounding the 

 atoms in such a way as to get them together in 

 the right combination to produce organic sub- 

 stances. And, although this work is only at its 

 beginning, a good measure of success has been 

 attained. 



In particular, the chemists of Germany and 

 England have recently succeeded in combining 

 carbon and hydrogen in the proportion of eight 

 atoms of the former to seven of the latter and 

 thus have produced an artificial rubber that is not 

 merely an imitation rubber but is as truly pure 

 rubber as if it had been produced in the cellular 

 system of a plant. 



The artificial product may be said to be some- 

 what more pure than the natural, inasmuch as 

 the latter is more or less contaminated by ex- 

 traneous products. 



Reference has elsewhere been made to the 

 famihar feat of the chemist through which the 

 famous dyestufFs, indigo and madder, have been 

 manufactured in the laboratory, and manufac- 



