SOME RECENT TRIUMPHS 



and abstruse calculations, yet the final goal of their 

 studies has to do not with abstractions but with prac- 

 ticalities, with the saving of fuel, the smelting of 

 metals, the manufacture of commodities. But theory 

 in the main must precede practice the child creeps 

 before it walks. "The later developments of indus- 

 trial chemistry," says Sir William Ramsey, "owe their 

 success entirely to the growth of chemical theory; and 

 it is obvious," he adds significantly, "that that nation 

 which possesses the most competent chemists, theoret- 

 ical and practical, is destined to succeed in the com- 

 petition with other nations for commercial supremacy 

 and all its concomitant advantages." 



Fortunately this interdependence of science and in- 

 dustry is not a mere matter of prophecy for the future 

 tense is never quite so satisfying as the present. Vastly 

 important changes have already been accomplished; 

 old industries have been revolutionized, and new 

 industries created. The commercial world of to-day 

 owes vast debts to the new science. Professor Chand- 

 ler outlined the character of one or two of these in the 

 address just referred to. He cited in some detail, for 

 example, the difference between old methods and 

 new in such an industry as the manufacture of caustic 

 soda. He painted a vivid word picture of the dis- 

 tressing conditions under which soda was produced 

 in the old-time factories. Salt and sulphuric acid 

 were combined to produce sulphate of soda, which 

 was mixed with lime and coal and heated in a rever- 

 beratory furnace. Each phase of the process was 

 laborious. The workmen operating the furnaces 



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