710 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 673 



per cent, of it left their factory as pure 

 sulphur. In all this development the 

 chemist has taken an ever-increasing part 

 —in the development of new processes and 

 the direction of old ones, and in that an- 

 alytical control of raw material and fin- 

 ished product which has become indispen- 

 sable in all kinds of manufacture. 



The soda industry in its various branches 

 was begun and has developed as the result 

 of chemical work applied directly to the 

 solution of technical problems. Since then 

 it has often happened that work begun with 

 the sole purpose of adding to our fund of 

 scientific knowledge has led to important 

 technical industries. The founding of one 

 of our greatest industries began in this 

 way, at the middle of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. In 1856 William Henry Perkin, 

 then a young man of eighteen, was working 

 in London as the private assistant of Pro- 

 fessor A. W. Hoffmann. He was not satis- 

 fied, however, merely to spend the day on 

 Hoffmann's researches and he fitted up a 

 rough laboratory in his father's house 

 where he could work in the evenings and in 

 vacation time. Here, with a purely scien- 

 tific interest, he tried some experiments 

 which he hoped might lead to a synthesis 

 of quinine. He got, instead, a dirty brown 

 precipitate which must have seemed very 

 unpromising. He became interested in it, 

 however, and repeated the experiment with 

 aniline. This gave him a black and sti'- 

 more unpromising product, but on exam- 

 ining it further he found in it a beautiful 

 purple coloring matter which proved to be 

 what we 'now know as the ' ' Mauve dye. ' ' 

 At that time, only fifty years ago, such a 

 thing as an artificial dye was unknown, 

 and we must marvel at the wonderful in- 

 sight and energy of this boy who grasped 

 the significance of his discovery and made 

 it the beginning of the great industry of 

 coal-tar dyes. After further study of the 



new compound and after practical tests in 

 the dyeing of silk he gave up his position 

 as Hoffmann 's assistant and began the man- 

 ufacture of the new dye. He was fortunate 

 in having a father who had enough faith in 

 the undertaking to risk almost his whole 

 fortune on the venture, for it would have 

 been hardly possible, then, to secure from 

 outsiders enough capital for so hazardous 

 an enterprise. 



At that time benzene, the raw material 

 for the manufacture, was not to be had in 

 the market, of definite quality, and its dis- 

 tillation from tar had to be developed. 

 Further, after the dye had been prepared 

 it was quite different from the dyes then 

 in use and methods for its application to 

 silks and other goods had to be worked out. 

 All these difiieulties were finally overcome 

 and within two years the mauve was sup- 

 plied for the dyeing of silk. As soon as 

 success was assured, others turned their at- 

 tention in the new direction. Three years 

 later magenta was discovered in Prance 

 and soon after other dyes were prepared 

 by Perkin, by Hoffmann and others. Hoff- 

 mann's discoveries of dyes are especially 

 interesting because he thought that Perkin 

 was making a mistake when he left him. 

 And Perkin himself was much afraid that 

 by entering a technical pursuit he would 

 be prevented from following the research 

 work in which he was so much interested. 

 He determined, howeverj that he would not 

 be drawn away from research, and in that 

 determination and its imitation by others 

 I think we may see the secret of much of 

 the success of this industry. In no other 

 industry are so many highly-trained chem- 

 ists employed and in no other is the work 

 so closely related to research in the pure 

 science. 



Twelve years after the discovery of 

 mauve, Graebe and Liebermann succeeded 

 in preparing alizarin, or turkey red, from 



