August 5, 1886| 
NATURE 
329 
? 
me that of some 159 tons of ‘‘aniline” dyes which passed 
through their hands as agents last year, 95 per cent. were of 
Continental make. With reference to the two chief raw mate- 
rials, benzene and aniline, this same firm estimates that about 
75 per cent. of the whole quantity of these products made in 
England goes to the Continent.? 
The facts and figures which I have now laid before you must 
be left to tell their own story—time will not permit me to 
attempt any analysis of them. The evidence collected will at 
any rate give a much more forcible idea of the true state of the 
coal-tar colour industry in this country than has hitherto been 
attempted, and if this evidence goes against us as a manufactur- 
ing nation, it is all the more desirable that our true position 
should be realised. I find that it is almost impossible to give a 
correct numerical expression in pounds sterling for the annual 
value of this industry to the country, as the estimates vary within 
very wide limits. According to Dr. Perkin, whose opinion on 
this matter will perhaps carry the greatest weight, the value of 
the annual output is between 3,000,000/, and 4,000,000/. That 
the industry is one of considerable importance on the Continent 
may be gathered from the official returns relating to the German 
exports. For the following figures I am indebted to Dr. H. 
Caro, of the ‘‘Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik,” Ludwigs- 
hafen on Rhine :— 
Exported from Germany, from Fanuary 1 to December 31, 
1885 
Alizarin paste (? per cent.) 4283 tons 
Aniline and intermediate products My fie) 5, 
Aniline, &c., colours 4645 5, 
Dr. Caro adds that it is generally believed that about four- 
fifths of the entire German production are exported. 
The magnitude of this branch of chemical industry abroad 
will be gathered from the fact that a German factory of about 
the third magnitude consumes at the present time between 500 
and 600 tons of aniline annually. According to information 
recently furnished to me from the two largest of the German 
factories, the Badische Company employ 2500 working men and 
officials, and the Hoechst Colour Works (formerly Meister, 
Lucius, and Briining) 1600 working men and fifty-four chemists. 
Tt must, of course, be borne in mind that in these factories the 
products are not ‘‘aniline” colours only, but alizarin, acids, 
alkalies, and all chemicals required in this branch of manu- 
facture. 
The industry which has been selected for this evening’s topic 
is thus not only an important one in itself, but for us, as 
chemists, its development is fraught with meaning both scien- 
tifically and educationally. In taking up this subject it has not 
been my desire to exalt the coal-tar colour industry to a position 
of undue importance, nor do I wish it to be inferred that the 
remarks which I have made concerning its decadence, or at any 
rate stagnation, in this country are applicable to this manufac- 
ture only. The failure on our part to grasp the true spirit of 
chemical science in its relation to our manufactures makes itself 
felt in every industry in which chemistry is concerned. The 
strength of our competitors is in their laboratories, and not, as 
here, upon the exchanges. It is only by showing up our weak- 
ness in each industry that the state of affairs can be remedied, 
and our prestige as a manufacturing country restored. If each 
specialist would do for his industry what I have here attempted 
to do broadly for the coal-tar colour industry, we should get 
together a body of evidence which the Royal Commissioners on 
the depression of trade would do well to take into consideration. 
We have heard a great deal of late years about the subject of 
technical education, but the talk has been rather one-sided. We 
have had utterances from those who, recognising the enormous 
importance of this subject to the country, have munificently 
endowed those institutions for the promotion of technical educa- 
tion which are springing up around us; we have had all kinds 
of schemes from those who are taking upon themselves the 
duties of technical educators, but it appears to me that we have 
not heard with sufficient distinctness the voices of those who 
may be presumed to suffer most from the want of technical edu- 
cation, viz. the manufacturers themselves. I have heard rumours 
of the existence ofa certain class of manufacturer—let us hope a 
T According to a later estimate, kindly supplied by Mr. Ivan Levinstein, 
the quantity of benzene and toluene used in this country amounts to about 
500,000 gallons, and that used in Germany to about 2,000,000 gallons annu- 
ally. About half the English production is, however, exported as aniline, 
toluidine, and aniline salt, while Germany converts into colouring-matters at 
least 1,600,000 gallons of these hydrocarbons. 
rare species—who declares that science is no use to him, and 
that he can get along better without it. I must confess that I 
never met this individual in the flesh, but I know that he exists 
in some of our manufacturing centres. As a species he is, how- 
ever, doomed to extinction in the struggle with his competitors, 
and we may consider him out of court in the discussion of 
schemes of technical education. It is now generally admitted 
that the days of empiricism have passed away, and most manu- 
facturers admit that present success and future development 
depend upon a proper recognition of technical, ze. of applied 
science. But unless the manufacturers themselves speak loudly 
on this question, the voices of those who wish to promote 
scientific education may be drowned by the clamour of mere 
theorists. 
In no other department of our manufactures is the want of 
technical science more felt than in the chemical industries. We 
not only see this in the greater development of these industries 
abroad, but in some of our most successful factories here—and 
this applies more especially to the coal-tar colour industry— 
foreign chemists are employed, and as I have lately been in- 
formed by a well-known manufacturer, it is even impossible to 
get the necessary plant properly made in this country. There 
is no doubt that the recondite character of the truths of chemical 
science, as compared with the more obvious truths of mechanics 
and physics, has much to do with the want of popularity of this 
branch of knowledge, and is responsible for the circumstance 
that our science is regarded with comparative indifference until 
some branch of manufacture is 7 extremis. In our national 
characteristic of being ‘‘ practical,” we are apt to become short- 
sighted in our manufacturing policy, and to recognise only 
actualities, to the exclusion of the potentiality conferred upon a 
nation by a broader scientific culture. 
In conclusion, I have to express my thanks to Messrs. Brooke, 
Simpson, and Spiller; Messrs. Burt, Bolton, and Haywood ; 
and to the British Alizarin Company for the fine series of speci- 
mens now exhibited. For the beautiful specimens illustrating 
the Continental manufacture, I am especially indebted to the 
Badische Anilin and Soda Fabrik, of Ludwigshafen on Rhine, 
and to the Hoechst Colour Works. The series of patterns dyed 
with known weights of fifty distinct coal-tar colours were pre- 
pared by Mr. Ivan Levinstein for the lecture recently delivered 
at the Royal Institution by Sir Henry Roscoe, to whom I am 
indebted for being able to show them on the present occasion. 
DRYING UP OF SIBERIAN LAKES 
ae rapid drying up of lakes in the Aral-Caspian depression, 
in so far as it appears from surveys made during the 
last hundred years, is the subject of a very interesting and im- 
portant paper contributed by M. Yadrintseff to the last issue of 
the Zzvestia of the St. Petersburg Geographical Society (vol. 
xxii. fasc. 1). Two maps, which will be most welcome to 
physical geographers, accompany the paper. One of them 
represents the group of lakes Sumy, Abyshkan, Moloki, and 
Tchany, in the Governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, according 
to a survey made in 1784. The other represents the same 
lakes according to three different surveys made during our 
century, in 1813 to 1820, in 1850 to 1860, and finally in 1880, 
and it shows thus the rapid progress of drying up of these lakes. 
There are also earlier maps of Lake Tchany, which represent 
it as having very many islands (Pallas estimated their number at 
seventy), but they are not reliable. As tothe map of 1784, 
no cartographer, accustomed to distinguish ‘‘nature-true”’ maps 
from fancy ones, would hesitate in recognising it as quite 
reliable as to its general features. It is also fully confirmed by 
the ulterior detailed surveys dating from the beginning of our 
century. It appears from this series of four maps, dating from 
different periods, that the drying up has gone on at a speed 
which will surely appear astonishing to geographers. The 
group of lakes consisted of three large lakes—Sumy, Abyshkan, 
and Tchany, with a smaller lake, Moloki, between the two 
latter. Lake Tchany (the largest of the three) has much dimin- 
ished in size, especially in its eastern and southern parts ; but 
the greatest changes have gone on in the other lakes. Whole 
villages haye grown on the site formerly occupied by Lake 
Moloki, which had a Jength of twenty miles at the end of last 
century, and now is hardly three miles wide. Of Lake 
Abyshkan, which had a length of forty miles from north to 
south, and a width of seventeen miles in the earlier years of this 
century, and whose surface was estimated at 530 square miles, 
