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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1283 



their own increase in knowledge. Thus it has 

 come about that the science of chemistry is 

 little more than a century old, and its tre- 

 mendous advances only a few decades. The 

 first chemical society in the world was born 

 in Philadelphia in 1793, and yet the real ad- 

 vances have been made since the formation 

 of this society in 1876. Since that time, how- 

 ever, the advance in knowledge has been start- 

 ling, not alone in this country, of course, but 

 in all civilized countries. It is not boasting 

 to say, however, that during all that time, the 

 progress in this country has been in no wise 

 behind that of the best anywhere, which our 

 public is at last beginning to recognize. Par- 

 ticidarly during the trying period of the war, 

 when vast and new problems were suddenly 

 thrust upon them, the work of our chemists 

 has been beyond praise. 



At the fomidation of all this advance, re- 

 search is firmly imbedded. Without it, the 

 structure could not have risen, or the glowing 

 anticipations of the future even imagined. 

 Twenty centuries ago, we were told " Seek and 

 ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened 

 unto you." No one can deny that there have 

 been accidental discoveries, some of great 

 moment; but this has not been and will not be 

 a safe dependence. Walking on the street one 

 day, I picked up a roll of bills, whose owner 

 curiously enough could not be found ; but this 

 did not lead me to give up my ordinary occu- 

 pations, and wander around the streets of ISTew 

 York with the hope of further and continued 

 good fortune of like character. Accidental 

 discoveries are not to be relied on, of course, 

 although they are not to be scorned. In chem- 

 istry the accidental good fortunes have usually 

 come to those who were really seeking, al- 

 though possibly for something far different, 

 but, note this, they were usually made by men 

 qualified to recognize an important discovery 

 when it flashed across their vision. 



Research, of course, is not of necessity to 

 result in invention. It may in that respect 

 terminate in a cul-de-sac from which with 

 present Icnowledge there is no egress, or what 

 more frequently happens, it may lead to a 

 line of reasoning, which in time leads to an- 

 other, and so on, until suddenly a bright light 



illumines the way, and a goal of the greatest 

 possible importance is attained. Many in- 

 stances illustrative of this will occur to you. 

 I will cite only one, and that one because of 

 the importance it has assumed in the light of 

 recent developments. 



As early as 1882 scientists rigidly estab- 

 lished by chemical research what chemists call 

 the " constitution " of the blue vegetable dye, 

 indigo, and clinched that scientific conclusion 

 by preparing the identical material in the lab- 

 oratory. This particular important addition 

 to human knowledge has remained a discovery 

 merely; yet it so stimulated the search for 

 practicable methods of applying that discovery 

 to human needs that voluminous researches in 

 a number of European countries were under- 

 taken almost at once for that purpose. Of the 

 host of scientific discoveries made as the direct 

 result of chemical research in this direction, 

 one was selected in 1897 as of such promise 

 as to warrant the expectation that it would 

 successfully displace vegetable indigo. Such 

 was the ultimate fact. But, in 1901, others 

 succeeded in devising a commercial mode of 

 making indigo which was so formidable a 

 rival to the mode adopted in 1897 that it 

 seriously and at once threatened the suprem- 

 acy of the latter, a thing which is now, some 

 eighteen years later, actually coming to pass. 

 It is worth while refiecting that the men who 

 accomplished the scientific work of 1882 them- 

 selves never succeeded in making that work 

 anything more than a discovery, despite the 

 fact that for more than fifteen years they 

 energetically tried to do so, and in their efforts 

 they had the close cooperation of a large com- 

 mercial organization. However, it remained 

 for a college professor of chemistry in another 

 country and himself working in quite a differ- 

 ent field, and as a direct result of that work, 

 to hit upon the central idea of the successful 

 indigo mode of 1897 and to clinch it by ap- 

 propriate laboratory methods. Yet his work 

 remained for almost seven years a discovery 

 only — a promising discovery to be sure — mitil 

 the intensive work of others, overcoming many 

 obstacles, made it serviceable to mankind. 

 These two sets of workers were engaged in the 

 same general class of chemical research, that 



