3io Cellulose 



manufactures being carried on with the greatest precision, on 

 the basis of an extensive empirical knowledge of the properties 

 of the products. It must be admitted, however, that, in the 

 absence of any precise knowledge or even accepted theories of 

 the constitution of the cellulose nitrates, there remains a vista 

 of progress to be opened out by the solution or partial solution 

 of this important problem. 



So, in fact, it may be said, generally and in conclusion, of 

 the industrial uses and treatments of the celluloses. All of 

 great and some of the greatest importance in human affairs, and 

 all highly developed upon an extremely slender foundation 

 of exact knowledge of the raw materials, it is probably true 

 that the cellulose industries have in many directions attained 

 a position of terminal excellence, measured from the point of 

 view of an empirical technology of the subject-matter. It may 

 be said with greater certainty that future progress will go hand 

 in hand with the progress of scientific investigation. 



It is a province of applied chemistry where, as in many 

 others, the distinctions between ' Science ' and * Practice ' exist 

 only in the minds of those who grasp neither the one nor the 

 other. Manufacturers and technical men, if they will only take 

 the trouble to inform themselves, must see that an enormous field 

 of natural products and processes about to be explored has 

 a number of industrial prizes and surprises in store ; scientific 

 men who have to undertake the pioneering work in this field 

 will find sufficient stimulus to effort in the promise of progres- 

 sive discovery. It is to be hoped that some suggestions of 

 matter for research will be conveyed in the foregoing brief 

 account of the present position of the chemistry of cellulose. 



