126 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 108 



electricity. The electrical furnace, for in- 

 stance, as it is used in the manufacture of 

 aluminum, is distiuctlj^ an American in- 

 yention, and the electrolytic refining of 

 copper is carried out in this country on a 

 scale unknown elsewhere. 



If we consider the subject of applied 

 chemistrj' at all broadly, we shall at once 

 see that it has several distinct aims ; such 

 as the discovery of new products, the im- 

 provement of processes and the utilization 

 of waste materials. It seeks also to increase 

 the accuracy of methods; to make industrial 

 enterprises more precise, and therefore more 

 certainly fruitful ; in short, to replace em- 

 piricism by science. It is, perhaps, in this 

 direction that chemistry has made its most 

 notable advances in America, and that 

 within comparatively recent years. Three 

 decades ago, even our greatest manufactur- 

 ing establishments employed chemists only 

 in a sporadic fashion, sending occasional 

 jobs to private laboratories, and then only 

 after counting the cost most parsimoniously. 

 Except in a few dyehouses and calico prin- 

 teries, the chemist was not fully appreciated; 

 great losses were often sustained for lack of 

 the services which he could have rendered, 

 and the cost of goods was therefore higher 

 than was necessary. By degrees, however, 

 a change was brought about ; one effect of in- 

 dustrial competition was to narrow margins 

 and to render greater accuracj' of manip- 

 ulation imperative; and so the chemist was 

 brought upon the scene. To-day it is almost 

 the universal custom among manufacturers 

 to maintain chemical laboratories in con- 

 nection with their works ; and this is espe- 

 cially true with regard to metallurgical 

 establishments, oil refineries, soap, candle 

 and glass works, in the making of paints, 

 varnishes and chemicals, and so on in many 

 directions. Even the great firms whose in- 

 dustries are connected with the Chicago 

 stockyards, with their artificial refrigeration 

 and their manufacture of lard, lard and 



butter substitutes, meat extracts, pepsin 

 and fertilizers, all employ skilled chemists 

 and provide well-equipped laboratories. In 

 the making of steel and iron the processes 

 are followed by analyses from start to finish, 

 from ore, fuel and flux to the completed 

 billets ; and the chemists who are thus occu- 

 pied have gained marvellous dexterity. The 

 analytical methods have been reduced to 

 great precision, and are extraordinary as 

 regards speed ; work which once required 

 a day to perform being now executed in less 

 than t went J' minutes. Exact measurement 

 has replaced rule of thumb; certainty has 

 supplanted probability ; industrj^ has be- 

 come less wasteful and surer of a fair re- 

 turn ; and to all this the chemist has been 

 a chief contributor. Without his aid the 

 manufactures of the world could never have 

 been developed to their present magnitude 

 and efBciencj'. His influence reaches even 

 beyond the furnace or the factory and 

 touches the greatest economic questions. 

 Take, for example, the financial agitation 

 through which our country has so recentlj^ 

 passed, with its discussion of monetary 

 ratios. Chemical processes have profoundly 

 modified the metallurgy of gold and silver, 

 cheapening the production of both metals, 

 and changing the commercial ratio of their 

 values. Can the bi-metallic question be 

 intelligently investigated with the chemical 

 factor left out? Furthermore, chemistry 

 has created new industries in which both 

 gold and silver are employed; and so, af- 

 fecting both supply and demand, touches 

 their ratios still more deeply. When poli- 

 tics becomes true to its definition, when it is 

 really ' the science and art of government,' 

 then we may expect politicians to consider 

 questions like these and to study the evi- 

 dence which chemistry has to offer. 



One other phase of applied chemistry, 

 chiefly developed in this country, remains 

 to be mentioned. In 1875 the Pennsyl- 

 vania Railroad opened a laboratorjr at Al- 



