24 
Scientific Progress of the Past Year . [January, 
branches of chemical industry, that of the manufacture of 
dyes from coal-tar derivatives. 
Forty-three years ago the production of a violet-blue 
colour by the addition of chloride of lime to oil obtained from 
coal-tar was first noticed, and this having afterwards been 
ascertained to be due to the existence of the organic base 
known as aniline, the production of the colouration was for 
many years used as a very delicate test for that substance. 
The violet colour in question, which was soon afterwards 
also produced by other oxidising agents, appeared, however, 
to be quite fugitive, and the possibility of fixing and obtain- 
ing in a state of purity the aniline product which gave rise 
to it, appears not to have occurred to chemists until Mr. 
Perkin successfully grappled with the subject in 1856, and 
produced the beautiful colouring matter known as aniline 
violet, or mauve, the production of which, on a large scale, 
by Mr. Perkin, laid the foundation of the coal-tar colour 
industry. 
His more recent researches on anthracene derivatives, 
especially on artificial alizarine, the colouring matter iden- 
tical with that obtained from madder, rank among the most 
important work, and some of them have greatly contributed 
to the successful manufacture of alizarine in this country, 
whereby we have been rendered independent of the importa- 
tion of madder. 
Among the very numerous researches of purely scientific 
interest which Mr. Perkin has published, a series on the 
hydrides of salicyl and their derivatives may be specially 
referred to ; but among the most prominent of his admirable 
investigations are those resulting in the synthesis of cou- 
marin, the odoriferous principle of the tonquin bean and the 
sweet scented woodruff, and of its homologues. 
The artificial production of glycocol and of tartaric acid 
by Mr. Perkin conjointly with Mr. Duppa, afford other 
admirable examples of synthetical research, which excited 
very great interest among chemists at the time of their pub- 
lication. 
It is seldom that an investigator of organic chemistry has 
extended his researches over so wide a range as is the case 
with Mr. Perkin, and his work has always commanded the 
admiration of chemists for its accuracy and completeness, 
and for the originality of its conception. 
A Royal Medal has been awarded to A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S. 
Professor Ramsay has been for a period of nearly forty years 
connected with the Geographical Survey of Great Britain, 
