SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 699 



the turning out of strong and sound cement 

 is a matter depending almost wholly upon 

 the carefulness of the control exercised by 

 the chemist. The limestone or marl and 

 the clay or blast-furnaee slag which go to 

 make up the mis, must be analyzed with 

 the greatest care, to insure a uniform 

 product of high quality. I have mentioned 

 the word "uniform." Probably no single 

 thing in manufacture is more important 

 than the turning out of a product which 

 is of the same quality from day to day and 

 from year to year. The public even to- 

 day buys largely according to appearances, 

 and, for example, if one lot of commercial 

 fertilizer is gray and another brown, 

 although of the same grade and composi- 

 tion, the farmer is very apt to have a 

 strong prejudice in favor of one or the 

 other. 



The list of industries in which the 

 chemical control work is vitally important 

 might be extended indefinitely. I will only 

 say that in every well-organized pottery 

 works in the country, in every large brew- 

 ery, in every oil works, gas works, wood 

 distillation plant, varnish works, sugar 

 factory, explosive plant, dye house, tan- 

 nery, glue factory and fertilizer plant, not 

 to mention those very modern lines of in- 

 dustry which are engaged in the manu- 

 facture of acids, alkalies and salts— the 

 so-called heavy chemicals — there is a well- 

 organized laboratory and chemical staff 

 constantly engaged in this work of chem- 

 ical control. It is hardly necessary, under 

 these circumstances, to answer the ques- 

 tion: Does it pay? if the question should 

 be asked. I say unqualifiedly that not 

 only does it pay, but it nets the industry 

 the largest return on the investment of any 

 branch of the establishment. I will go 

 further and say that during the next ten 

 or twenty years, where there is one chemist 

 working at a given industry now, there will 

 be two or thi-ee chemists working then. 



And that this great increase in the chem- 

 ical forces of this country will mean more 

 to the development of the manufacturing 

 industries here than mere words can ex- 

 press. Germany's preeminence in certain 

 large lines of manufacture to-day is freely 

 acknowledged to be due solely to the con- 

 tributions which her scientific men, and 

 chiefly her chemists, have made to the 

 cause of manufacture. 



The third way in which I stated that 

 the chemist is useful in the manufacturing 

 plant was in the capacity of consulting 

 man, interpreting chemical processes, terms 

 and operations to the administrative heads 

 of the business. In a large plant there is 

 constantly coming up a host of new prob- 

 lems and suggested processes, as well as 

 incidental questions, which can only be 

 properly handled by a technical chemist. 

 To him comes the manager, the president, 

 the superintendent or other members of the 

 executive staff, asking for information: 

 And on these occasions, the chemist is the 

 man of ready reference for everybody. 

 When the questions are coming in thick 

 and fast, his information must be prac- 

 tically all that is recorded in existing and 

 non-existing scientific books and journals 

 and his mind must be as well organized as 

 a card index in a library. There is no 

 question concerning force or matter on this 

 earth, the heavens above or the waters 

 beneath, that the manager or superin- 

 tendent can not ask, or, I am happy to 

 say, his chemist can not answer with equal 

 facility. What is the difference between 

 salt and sugar? If an iron pipe will rust, 

 why will not a lead pipe? Have you got 

 a good recipe for taking aniline stains out 

 of a table cloth? What is the latest deci- 

 sion on the Board of Food and Drug In- 

 spection? How much salt per day is the 

 proper ration for draft horses? And the 

 list might be carried on to infinity. All 

 these questions, I say, the chemist can 



