ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 
BULLETIN 
OF 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION, 
No. 135.] MARCH. (1898. 
DXCVI.—ARTIFICIAL INDIGO. 
The Kew Report for 1880 contained (p. 49) a note by Professor 
Armstrong, F.R he then recent “discovery by Professor 
Baeyer, the successor of Liebig, at Munich, of a method of 
producing indigo artificially, which it is proposed to employ on a 
large scale (Patent No. 1177, 18th March, 1880).” The note con- 
cluded with the remark :—* It is difficult to avoid the conclusion 
that artificial indigo will most seriously interfere with, even if it 
does not within very few years altogether displace, the natural 
article.” 
Eighteen years have elapsed, and the prediction, if not imme- 
diately verified, is now much nearer realisation. The stages in 
the artificial synthesis of a natural product follow an inevitable 
course. The first is to ascertain, however complex, its chemical 
composition. The next is to put it together from substances of 
simpler constitution. The first attempts, although successful, are 
cumbrous because success is mostly only attained by circuitous 
methods. It is not, therefore, at first, usually available for 
commercial purposes. But this is only a matter of time when 
once the problem has been shown to be theoretically capable of 
solution. The next step is to simplify the manufacturing processes, 
and this is inexorably pursued till the artificial product can be 
produced more cheaply than the natural one. 
In the case of indigo, this result is actually within sight. | 
Such a result is the inevitable outcome of the application of 
scientific chemistry to the industrial arts. The world views it on 
the whole with equanimity, for if it displaces labour in one 
part, it gives increased employment in another. But it is 
not without its drawbacks. It substitutes the factory for the 
field, and makes for the congestion of the urban population which 
seems inseparable from an advanced civilisation. Moreover, the © 
substitution of an artificial dye for a natural one has a defect o 
the same kind as the substitution of mechanical work for that of 
the hand, The artificial dyes have the defects of their qualities ; 
they are too good, i.e., too pure. Their use is apt to lack interest, 
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