PREFACE 



TO 



THE NEW EDITION 



THE call for a further edition of this work is an occasion 

 for a brief general review of progress. Of progress there are 

 certain outstanding landmarks, scientific, technical, and indus- 

 trial, which to the initiated are comprehensive measures of 

 development. The continuous growth of ' Cellulose ' as a 

 section of organic chemistry is evident in the comparison of 

 our original edition (1895), on the one hand, with articles on 

 the subject in the Dictionaries and Encyclopaedic Works of the 

 preceding period e.g., Watts' 'Dictionary of Chemistry ' and 

 Supplements, 1878-1882 ; and, on the other hand, with 

 C. Schwalbe's ' Chemie der Cellulose' (Berlin, 1911), a 

 monograph of some six hundred pages, and E. C. Worden's 

 * Nitrocellulose Industry' (London, 1911), a technical mono 

 graph of sections of the subject of such industrial importance 

 as ' Celluloid,' Artificial Fibres and Explosives. 



The plan and purpose of our more modest volume differs 

 from both of the above. It was designed rather as a study of 



