PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 167 



titioners in chemistry Avill no longer find it essential that in describing their 

 vocation they should be required to add, unless for special reasons, such pre- 

 fixes as 'analytical,' 'research,' 'scientific,' or ' engineering! ' to the word 

 chemist, secure in the feeling that by describing themselves as ' chemists ' their 

 standing, training, and profession will be correctly understood. 



Still a feeling akin to despondency, if nothing worse, is pardonable, when 

 realising the fundamental importance of chemistry to our industries, and the 

 thousand and one ways chemical research has ministered to the amenities of 

 our every-day life, there should exist not alone in the mind of the general 

 public, but of the educated also, such a lack of information as has been revealed 

 during the past few years — to wit, the myth woven into the history of the 

 production of glycerine, the confusion in the minds of legislators between 

 phosphates and phosgene. More serious, however, is the fact that the method 

 of investigation employed by the chemist is so little appreciated or understood 

 as to lead_ one to imagine that the discoveries and achievements are the results 

 of a species of legerdemain. The production of new colours, a succession of 

 happy thoughts, and that ' by an accident the secret of synthetic indigo was 

 unlocked.' This last is a quotation from a review entitled 'The Value of 

 Scientific Research,' published some three years ago, and is typical of much 

 that passes muster in appraising the value of chemical research. That the 

 unravelling of the constitution of indigo which occupied Baeyer and his pupils 

 some thirteen years, the account of these investigations covers some 180 pages 

 of Baeyer's collected works, should be summarised In this way appeared to me to 

 call for a protest. My protest was made and I attempted to put the matter 

 in the correct light, showing the synthesis of indisro to be, indeed, a brilliant 

 example of the value of theory and of a practical illustration of the importance 

 of the^ chemist's conception of the Architecture of Molecules, as exemplified by 

 Kekule's theory of the constitution of benzene. The protestation evoked a 

 reply from a correspondent, signing himself D.fc, Ph.D., who sought to justify 

 the description of the revelation of the secret of svnthetic indigo by reference 

 to an accident which occurred in the investigation of the processes for the manu- 

 facture of phthalic acid and which certainly greatly facilitated the production of 

 this substance, an intermediate in the manufacture of artificial indigo. So, if 

 the initiated emphasise the unessential, why should we blame the layman and be 

 surprised that well-ordered and planned "design should appear to be but the 

 workinsfs of chance, for every such achievement is a witness to the conquest 

 of well-founded theoretical speculation ? 



But I do not wish to conclude on a despondent note, nor is it right that I 

 should do so, in view of the many activities operating for the promotion of 

 scientific research, and of such evidence as that supplied by the magnificent 

 endowment of the Chemical Department of the University of 'Cambridge, all of 

 which are evidences of what we may reasonablv hope to be a happy augury for 

 t'lc future of chemistry and chemists in this countrv. 



The following Papers were then read : — 

 1. Chemistry and the War. By Sir Willi.am J. Pope, F.R.S. 



2. Chemical Warfare. Bij Brig^adier-Gen. H. Hartley 



(See p. 393.) 



3. High Explosives. By Lieut. -Col. C. D. Crozier.^ 

 * See Journ. Royal Artillery, vol. 46, No. 9. 



