Am'Nov  r'ifi8arm' )      Industrial  Organic  Chemistry.  797 
ropean  raw  beet-sugar,  had  become  an  extensive  industry  with  the 
most  modern  of  plant  equipment  and  under  scientific  chemical 
control. 
As  America  is  in  large  degree  the  granary  of  the  world  in  its 
production  of  cereal  foods,  we  had  large  chemical  industries 
already  occupied  with  the  preparation  of  the  special  classes  of  food 
products  of  cereal  origin.  One  of  the  best  instances  of  a  distinc- 
tively American  industry  developed  from  American  material  is  the 
corn  products  industry.  From  the  Maize  or  Indian  corn  is  pro- 
duced corn  starch  for  food  purposes  and  for  technical  purposes, 
glucose  or  commercial  dextrose,  corn  or  maize  oil  and  commercial 
dextrines.  This  industry  has  been  developed  from  a  distinctively 
American  cereal  and  on  lines  quite  peculiar  to  it  as  an  industry  of 
American  growth. 
Turning  to  the  textile  industries,  we  have  as  an  American  pro- 
duction, one  of  the  world's  most  useful  fibers,  viz.,  the  cotton  fiber. 
I  have  already  referred  to  its  peculiar  byproduct,  the  cotton  seed  and 
its  utilization.  However,  we  have  many  important  industries  util- 
izing the  cotton  fiber  in  which  its  bleaching,  dyeing  and  other  treat- 
ment is  controlled  by  accurate  chemical  knowledge  and  practice. 
The  textile  industries  using  wool  and  silk  as  well  as  cotton  have, 
moreover,  attained  a  high  development  in  the  United  States,  and  the 
chemical  side,  involving  the  cleansing  and  after  treatment  of  the 
fibers,  had  been  thoroughly  worked  out. 
The  products  of  destruction  distillation  remain  to  be  spoken  of. 
Our  American  wood  distillation  industry  will  be  specially  presented 
by  another  speaker  during  this  exposition  and  so  I  will  pass  this  by. 
Coal  distillation  for  gas-making  had  been  practiced  by  the  most 
accurate  scientific  methods  and  great  varieties  of  special  gas-making 
processes  had  been  developed.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
Lowe  water-gas  process  was  an  American  invention  which  has  been 
copied  and  adapted  since  in  various  other  countries.  However,  we 
were  slow  to  discard  the  old  wasteful  beehive  oven  for  coking  of 
coal  for  byproduct  ovens,  which  collect  the  valuable  residuals  includ- 
ing gas,  tar  and  ammonia.  The  production  of  coaltar  crude  ingre- 
dients was  therefore  only  moderately  developed  and  of  what  we 
term  the  "  intermediates  "  for  the  color  industry  hardly  at  all. 
An  American  dye-color  industry,  using  imported  intermediates, 
therefore  existed,  but  it  existed  under  difficulty  and  played  but  a 
