SOME RECENT TRIUMPHS 



sugar even albumen itself, the very basis of life. 

 Rubber is a relatively simple compound of hydrogen 

 and carbon; starch and sugar are composed of hydro- 

 gen, carbon, and oxygen; albumen has the same con- 

 stituents, plus nitrogen. The raw materials for 

 building up these substances lie everywhere about us 

 in abundance. A lump of coal, a glass of water, and 

 a whiff of atmosphere contain all the nutritive elements, 

 could we properly mix them, of a loaf of bread or a 

 beefsteak. And science will never rest content until 

 it has learned how to make the combination. It is 

 a long road to travel, even from the relatively advanced 

 standpoint of to-day; but sooner or later science will 

 surely travel it. 



And then who can imagine, who dare predict, 

 the social and economic revolution that must follow? 

 Our social and business life to-day differs more widely 

 from that of our grandfathers than theirs differed from 

 the life of the Egyptian and Babylonian of three thou- 

 sand years ago; but this gap is as ditch to canon com- 

 pared with the gap that separates us from the life of 

 that generation of our descendants which shall have 

 learned the secret of making food-stuffs from inor- 

 ganic matter in the laboratory and factory. It is 

 a long road to travel, I repeat; but modern science trav- 

 els swiftly and with many short-cuts, and it may reach 

 this goal more quickly than any conservative dreamer 

 of to-day would dare to predict. 



All speed to the ambitious voyager! 



