330 THE DEBT OP THE WORLD TO PURE SCIENCE. 



have gained liundreds of dollars. G-rain and flour can be brought from 

 Chicago to the seaboard as cheaply by rail as by water; the farmer 

 iu Dakota raises wheat for shipment to Europe. Coal mined in West 

 Virginia can be sold on the docks of New York at a ijrofit for less than 

 half the freight of twenty-five years ago. Our internal commercial 

 relations have been changed, and the revolution is still incomplete. 

 The influence of the Holley-Mushet-Bessemer process upon civilization 

 is hardly inferior to that of the electric telegraph. 



Sixty years ago an obscure German chemist obtained an oily liquid 

 from coal-tar oil, which gave a beautiful tint with calcium chloride; 

 five years later another separated a similar liquid from a derivative 

 of coal-tar oil. Still later, Hofmann, then a student in Liebig's labora- 

 tory, investigated these substances and proved their identity with an 

 oil obtained long before by Zinin from indigo, and applied to them all 

 Zinin's term, Auilin. The substance was curiously interesting, and 

 Hofmann worked out its reactions, discovering that with many mate- 

 rials it gives brilliant colors. The practical application of these dis- 

 coveries was not long delayed, for Perkins made it in 1856. The 

 marvelous dyes, beginning with Magenta and Solferino, have become 

 familiar to all. The aniliu colors, especially the reds, greens, and blues, 

 are among the most beautiful known. They have given rise to new 

 industries and have expanded old ones. Their usefulness led to deeper 

 studies of coal-tar i)roducts, to which is due the discovery of such 

 substances as antipyrin, phenacetin, ichthyol, and saccharin, which 

 have proved so important in medicine. 



One is temj^ted to dwell for a little upon meteorology, that border 

 land where physics, chemistry, and geology meet, and to speak of the 

 signal- service system, the outgrowth of the studies of an obscure school 

 teacher in Philadelphia, but the danger of trespassing too far upon your 

 endurance makes proi^er only this passing reference. 



While men of wealth and leisure wasted their energies in literary and 

 philosoi)hical discussions respecting the nature and origin of things, 

 William Smith, earning a living as a land surveyor, plodded over Eng- 

 land, anxious only to learn, in no haste to explain. His work was done 

 honestly and slowly; when finished as far as possible with his means, 

 it had been done so well that its publication checked theorizing and 

 brought men back to study. His geological map of England was the 

 basis upon which the British survey began to prepare the detailed 

 sheets showing Britain's mineral resources. 



In our country Yanuxem and Morton early studied the New Jersey 

 Cretaceous and Eocene, containing vast beds of marl. Scientific inter- 

 est was aroused, and eventually a geological survey of the State, was 

 ordered by the legislature. The appropriation was insignificant, and 

 many of the legislators voted for it hoping that some economic discov- 

 ery might be made to justify their course in squandering the people's 

 money. Yet there were lingering doubts in their minds and some 



