70 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 



worse than a waste product: it was a nuisance. It 

 clogged up the gas works in the old days and could 

 hardly be given away. 



When the chemist took this disagreeable stuff in 

 hand he extracted from it, or rather prepared out of it, 

 useful and beautiful things innumerable. Out of the 

 strong came forth sweetness. The most dainty per- 

 fumes, the most brilliant colours, the most potent 

 drugs, the most violent explosives, the means of de- 

 stroying life and extending life, and making life more en- 

 joyable. A good chemist, like a good cook, is one who 

 can make best use of left-overs. 



Yet coal-tar is not peculiar in its ability to contribute 

 to man's needs. There are dozens of other forms of 

 waste that might be made as valuable lying around 

 loose. As I look out of the window for lack of an il- 

 lustration, I see the ground covered with autumn leaves 

 and dried weeds standing thick by the roadside. I 

 wonder how many million tons of such vegetable matter 

 containing all sorts of carbon compounds go to waste in 

 the woods and wilds of the world every year without 

 serving any other purpose than to refresh the humus 

 of the soil. And then there is sawdust, and peanut 

 shucks, oathulls, corncobs, straw, and the refuse from 

 sugar factories, oil mills, and wood-pulp works; any of 

 these and their like might well be worked up into all 

 sorts of desirable commodities. 



The production of coal-tar compounds is an import- 

 ant industry, and I have not tried to conceal its im- 

 portance in these pages. But it is not a big business. 

 It is one of the minor chemical industries as measured 



