PAINTS, DYES, AND VARNISHES 



placed by the artificial colors. The other vegetable 

 coloring-materials, such as chlorophyl, dragon's blood, 

 fustic, Persian berries, Brazil wood, gamboge, tumeric, 

 litmus, redwood, and saffron have now been relegated 

 to a place of historic interest only, so far as the com- 

 mercial pigment- and color-maker is concerned. 



THE COAL-TAR COLORS 



The story of the discovery that the black, oily refuse 

 of coal used in the manufacture of gas could be converted 

 into coloring-material of every known shade and hue 

 forms one of the most picturesque romances of ap- 

 plied science. 



Thousands of centuries before man came upon the 

 earth, in that particular period of the world's develop- 

 ment known as the Carboniferous Age, there flourished 

 everywhere in the hot, moist air luxuriant, gaudily 

 colored vegetation. The huge animals and reptiles 

 that wandered among the flowering trees and plants 

 trampled them under foot in the mire, and the natural 

 destruction of time and the elements piled them in con- 

 stantly deepening layers upon the ground, where all 

 the beauty they once represented was lost in the dirt and 

 grime of their decaying surroundings. Succeeding ages 

 piled layers of stone over this stratum of decayed vege- 

 tation, burying it and compressing it into the stonelike 

 substance that we know as coal. 



Seemingly, Nature had destroyed her creation of life 

 and color, and had hidden every trace of her handiwork. 

 But Nature does not create and destroy indiscriminately. 



