THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN INDUSTRIAL 
CHEMISTRY. 
AN ADDRESS 
DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL OF CHEMISTRY, 
AT NORTHUMBERLAND, PA., 
July 31,1874. 
BY 
J. LAWRENCE SMITH, MD. 
[Reprinted from the American Chemist for’August and SeptemDer,,1874.] 
PHILADELPHIA: 
COLLINS, PRINTER, 705 JAYNE STREET. 
1874. THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN INDUSTRIAL 
CHEMISTRY* 
Chemistry was an art long before it was a science. 
But it was not until Priestley had discovered oxygen, 
and Lavoisier became the interpreter of chemistry with 
his great analytical mind, and the balance in his hand, 
did the daylight of chemistry truly dawn upon the world ; 
previous to that time all was dim twilight, little better 
than darkness. When Lavoisier made the study of 
quantity an important element in chemistry, followed 
by Dalton’s discovery of chemical proportions, then the 
inventive genius of mankind made chemistry a useful 
and certain servant, and built up one industry after 
another. As an art it has a pre-historic date ; for what- 
ever of the arts furnished products resulting from 
changes in the materials that nature furnished, and 
were produced by the reaction of one substance upon 
another, properly ranks as a chemical art; but it never 
began to assert its dignity as such until the sixteenth 
century, when that rude specimen of a scientific reformer, 
Paracelsus, undertook to deal with his contemporaries 
in a language more forcible than elegant, and in h*is vio- 
lent denunciation of the medical men of his day he 
says 
“ After having studied Hippocrates, Galen, and 
Avienne, you think that you know everything, but you 
absolutely know nothing; you prescribe medicines, and 
you are ignorant of the method of preparing them ! 
Chemistry it is that solves all problems of physiology, 
* Much that is contained in this paper I have written at othe 
times, when one or other of the subjects embraced had to be dis- 
cussed by me. J. L. S. 2 
pathology, and therapeutics; outside of chemistry you 
only grope in the dark.” 
“ Your Prince Galen is in hell; and if you knew 
what he had written to me from that place, yon would 
make the sign of the cross with a fox’s tail. Your 
Avienne is at the threshold of purgatory. 0 hypocrites! 
you will not listen to the voice of a physician instructed 
in the works of God; and after my death my disciples 
will expose your impositions, and show you to be but 
poisoners of Christian princes and gentlemen. 
“ Speak to me rather of chemists ; they are not a lazy 
set such as you are, and are not clothed in velvet and 
silk, with rings on their fingers, and white gloves on 
their hands. They work night and day to get at their 
results ; they do not frequent places of amusement, but 
pass all their time in the laboratory, and wear soiled 
clothes, are not afraid of burning and soiling their fingers 
with fire or filth ; they are as black and sooty as black- 
smiths and coal-heavers.” 
This was Paracelsus’s theme, drunk or sober, and if 
history be correct, he was only sober when not in the 
first condition. In vigor and boldness he was a re- 
former of the type of his cotemporary Luther. 
And from the age of Paracelsus, we may fairly date 
the epoch of that reform in the chemical art, which in 
the latter part of the eighteenth century culminated in 
the present science of chemistry, the result of hard 
labor and much self-denial. 
All that is asked of me on this occasion is a review 
of a century’s progress in industrial chemistry; to do this 
in an efficient manner, requires more time than is given 
to the celebration of this memorable occasion ; to treat 
it otherwise, is but to give an imperfect enumeration of 
the wonderful applications of chemistry to those arts 
which have added so much to the prosperity, wealth, and 
well-being of the civilized world during the nineteenth 
century, which latter I must content myself with. In 
fact, industrial chemistry links itself with every modern 
art in such an intimate manner, that were we to take 
away the influence and results of chemistry, it would be 
.almost like taking away the laws of gravitation from the 3 
universe. Industrial chaos would result in one case, as 
material chaos would in the latter. The miner, the met- 
allurgist, the machinist, the weaver, the paper-maker, 
the painter, the glass-maker, the fine arts, all draw from 
the rich storehouse of chemistry. To these we must add 
the new arts born directly from the same source, viz., 
photography, galvanoplasty, gilding and silvering 
metals, dyeing with new colors obtained from coal, vul- 
canized India-rubber, stearine candles, sugar from starch 
and wood, etc. 
No one can paint in too vivid colors the sum of the 
indebtedness the civilized world is already under to the 
chemist, and no enthusiast can transcend in his wildest 
speculations what we are yet to realize. 'The chemical 
arts in their strictest sense do not simply aid the other 
arts, but they keep in activity a vast amount of capital, 
and consequently give employment to a large num- 
ber of individuals, skilled and unskilled. In France 
alone, the annual value of chemical products is over 
$250,000,000, of which $125,000,000 represents the 
articles of sulphuric acid, soda, soap, India-rubber, 
and candles. Of chemical products, France exports 
$20,000,000 worth, the remainder being consumed at 
home in giving activity to other industries whose pro- 
ducts are largely exported in the form of woollen, cotton, 
and silk stuffs, etc. 
The above statement represents the activity of indus- 
trial chemistry in but one country, yet every part of 
the civilized world is more or less engaged in the manu- 
facture of chemicals. 
It is not an easy matter to decide in what order to 
review the details of its progress, whether chronological 
or otherwise. I have, however, thought it best to ad- 
here more or less to the former, without binding myself 
strictly by it. So I will call your attention first to the 
industrial chemistry of oxygen and chlorine, both ele- 
ments of 1774. 
Oxygen. 
Oxygen, we are well aware, was first formed from dis- 
sociation of the elements of oxide of mercury through 4 
the agency of heat, and from that time to this most of 
the processes for obtaining oxygen have this for their 
basis. There are no less than eleven methods of pro- 
ducing this gas practically. 
1. By heating oxide of mercury—Priestley in 1774. 
2. “ “ red oxide of lead. 
3. “ “ nitrate of potash. 
4. “ “ peroxide of manganese. 
5. “ “ chlorate of potash. 
6. “ “ sulphuric acid to a red ' 
heat. 
7. “ “ binoxide of baryta. . 
St. Clair Deville 
and Daubray. 
8. “ “ oxychloride of copper. 
9. “ “ manganate of soda in the presence 
of steam—perfected by Tessie du 
Motay. 
10. By decomposing chromic acid with sulphuric acid. 
11. “ electrolysis. 
But of all of these processes, only two or three of them 
may be said to belong to the domain of industrial chem- 
istry, viz., heating chlorate of potash, sulphuric acid, 
oxychloride of copper, or manganate of soda. 
For producing pure oxygen, the former is the one 
most commonly employed ; for an impure oxygen, but 
costing much less, the latter method, by permanganate, 
is employed. There is one other development con- 
nected with oxygen during the past century : it is that 
of Schonbeiu, of giving to it a condition different to 
its ordinary one, approximating much nearer to chlorine 
than ordinary oxygen, and known under the name of 
ozone. 
As yet oxygen in either of its conditions has received 
but limited application in the arts, but as the ready and 
economical method of producing it is of but recent 
origin, we must wait for the development of its indus- 
trial application. And my conviction is, that the day 
is not far distant when Priestley’s name will not only be 
connected with the discovery of the corner-stone of 
modern chemistry, but will also be associated with one 
of the most useful agents in the chemical arts. Its most important application is to the fusion of platinum 
in conjunction with hydrogen or hydro-carbon gases, and 
within the past few months a large ingot of 500 pounds 
of the alloy of platinum and iridium (used for making 
the standard meter for the different European and 
American governments), was fused by its use ; in fact, 
no other known method could have been applied to give 
the required uniformity to the above alloy. 
5 
Chlorine. 
I dow pass to chlorine, to which this celebration be- 
longs almost as much as it does to oxygen, and none of 
us can hear the name of Priestley pronounced, without 
our associating it in our mind with that of Scheele. To 
chemical industry and to the development of some of the 
most useful arts, the importance of the discovery of chlo- 
rine cannot be overrated. 
When Scheele first described it, he seems to have 
studied all its properties, and left nothing for future 
chemists to develop, under this head, except his miscon- 
ception of its true chemical position ; which, of course, 
in no way affected the results of his investigation with 
reference to its reactions. The one property, however, 
which makes it so important an article in chemical 
industry, is its power of destroying organic coloring 
matter, by what is by many supposed to be an indirect 
process of oxidation. Thus the two elements discovered 
by the two great contemporaries, Scheele and Priestley, 
interweave themselves in their useful effects. 
The present advanced condition of the art of bleach- 
ing was not the growth of a day. The following is a 
short summary of its growth. Berthollet in 1785 ob- 
serves that an aqueous solution of chlorine, which had 
been discovered by Scheele in 1774, possessed the power 
of destroying vegetable colors, in the same manner as 
the gas itself. Berthollet showed the process to Watt 
at Paris in 1786, and Watt on his return to Scotland 
tried the plan on 1500 yards of linen in the bleach-fields 
of his father-in-law near Glasgow. It was brought under 
the notice of the bleachers at Aberdeen by Professor 
Copeland, and was introduced at Manchester about the 6 
same time, chiefly through the labors of Dr. Henry. It 
was soon found that the texture of the goods was injured 
by the action of the chlorine, and that the workmen were 
much affected by the gas. Berthollet obviated these 
difficulties in a great measure by adding potash to the 
water, and Henry followed by substituting lime. About 
this period, the eminent manufacturer, Mr. Tennent, to 
whom we are indebted for the adaptation of this valu- 
able agent to all the purposes of bleaching, took out 
his first patent for the manufacture of a saturated so- 
lution of chloride of lime, which he superseded by 
another patent, 1799, for the dry chloride of lime or 
bleaching powder, and this last we may regard as the 
greatest advancement since the discovery of chlorine, 
towards rendering it available in the arts, for it can now 
be transported readily to all parts of the world, and, 
moreover, we are indebted to this form (so to speak) 
of chlorine for the discovery and manufacture of that 
great boon to suffering humanity, viz., chloroform. 
As regards the manner of making chlorine, no pro- 
cess has been devised since that of Scheele that is more 
ready or more economical, viz., the reaction of black 
oxide of manganese on chlorhydric acid or its equiva- 
lent, a mixture of common salt and sulphuric acid. 
Various processes have been devised for oxidizing the 
chlorhydric acid by mixing its vapor with air, and pass- 
ing it over red-hot surfaces, but as yet none of these 
processes are adopted. 
Let us see what chlorine has accomplished in its in- 
dustrial application during the past century. Com- 
mencing with the agriculturist, it has stimulated the 
growth of cotton, and I believe that I am within bounds 
when I say that $100,000,000 less of cotton would be 
made and sold in this country than is now the case, had 
chlorine not been discovered; a vast amount of the 
mineral wealth, in the shape of coal and iron, that has 
now enriched England for the past century, would have 
been still dormant in her mines, the buzz of the spindle, 
and the ceaseless racket of the loom, would have been 
far less than what it is; and why ? 
It is not sufficient simply to spin and weave cotton to make it useful for the purposes of comfort and luxury 
—the cotton fabric as it comes from the loom is but a 
dingy and unsightly stuff—it must first be rendered as 
white as the driven snow before it becomes fitted for 
many of its uses. This in former times, as is well known 
to us all, wras done by the agency of the oxygen of the 
air, the stuff being spread out on the greensward, or 
hung on rails, and moistened with water, a process re- 
quiring days and months, and a large surface of terri- 
tory. 
Chlorine has revolutionized this, and a few hours ac- 
complishes that which formerly required days; and a 
few hundred square feet, containing properly constructed 
vats, takes the place of thousands of acres of land. 
Thus the civilized world has been able to use four or 
fivefold the amount of cotton than it otherwise would 
have done, and millions upon millions of acres of terri- 
tory saved to the cultivation of grain and other neces- 
sities of life. 
Perhaps I do not exaggerate when I say that one- 
twentieth the cultivatable territory is saved in England 
through the agency of chlorine, on the assumption that 
it could manufacture cotton, to the amount that it does, 
without chlorine. 
So then, all hail to the industrial power of Scheele’s 
chlorine, by its reaction on water developing the oxygen 
of Priestley. If chlorine has done thus much in the 
past century, she has a host of assistants around her 
scattering their beneficient influences, although the 
principal one savors strongly of brimstone. 
Sulphuric Acid. 
I allude to sulphuric acid, which cannot be said to 
have been known for more than three or four hundred 
years; but the industry, as it now exists, belongs to 
this century. 
The process of manufacturing this acid, by the com- 
bustion of sulphur, now employed, is an English inven- 
tion, and dates back to the early part of the last cen- 
tury. The first great improvement in its manufacture, 
during the past hundred years, was made by Dr. Roe- 
7 8 
buck, of Birmingham, in 1786. It consisted in the 
substitution of leaden for earthenware vessels, and all 
subsequent improvements in apparatus have been based 
upon the increase of the size of the recipient vessels, 
and improvements in the apparatus for burning the , 
sulphur, and the manner of applying the nitric acid to 
the sulphurous acid, until the lead vessels have become 
immense lead chambers, and the apparatus for burning 
the sulphur have become furnaces. 
Improvements of a secondary character, but yet of 
very great importance, have been added to the above. 
The principal one of these is the substitution of iron 
pyrites FeS2 for sulphur, and the other is the substitu- 
tion of platinum for glass vessels in the concentration 
of the acid. 
The first use of pyrites is claimed for two parties, Dr. 
Manson and Mr. Hill. While the use of iron pyrites 
in the manufacture of sulphuric acid dates back prior 
to 1830, it was not until 1838 that the short-sighted 
policy of the King of Naples, in granting the monopoly 
of Sicilian sulphur to Messrs. Faix & Co., of Mar- 
seilles, fairly established its use, for the price of sul- 
phur rose in England from $25 to $70 a ton; and in 
twelve months from that time, in England alone, not 
less than fifteen patents were granted for the manufac- 
ture of sulphuric acid from pyrites. 
And although the monopoly was soon withdrawn, by 
the persuasion of English vessels of war, and the diplo- 
macy of other governments, the pyrites had secured a 
firm footing in supplanting sulphur in the manufacture 
of sulphuric acid; and since then its use has rapidly 
increased, giving a wholesome lesson to governments to 
exercise great caution in granting monopolies, and in 
legislating so as not to thwart industries based upon a 
science that draws brilliant dyestuffs from coal, and is 
not to be confined in the manner and methods of its 
creations, so long as the elements in one shape or 
another are at its command. 
Since the first production of sulphuric acid from 
pyrites, the establishment of Fahlun, in Sweden, has 
employed this process altogether, pyrites being very 9 
abundant in that locality. This example was followed 
by Ferret, of Chessey, France, where the pyrites con- 
tain from three to four per cent, of copper, which metal 
can only be extracted by desulphurizing the ore. From 
the mines of this locality seventy thousand tons of 
pyrites are used and exported annually, and the vari- 
ous lead chambers here for making sulphuric acid have 
a capacity of about 1,600,000 cubic feet. This process 
is carried on in all parts of France, whether the pyrites 
contain copper or not; and Sicilian sulphur is only em- 
ployed for special purposes in France and England. I 
would here remark that so perfectly can the pyrites be 
now burnt, that there need not remain over one per 
cent, of sulphur in the residue. 
It is not to be supposed, however, that sulphur is 
henceforth to be excluded from the manufacture of sul- 
phuric acid ; on the contrary, it is more than probable 
that many factories will return to its use, as the sulphur 
in Sicily is almost exhaustless ; and if ever the country 
becomes opened to the world by good and numerous 
roads, the price of sulphur must diminish, and the dimi- 
nution required is very small to bring it again into 
more common use among the acid manufacturers of the 
world. 
The factories in Belgium, in the north of France, and 
in some other parts of that country, those in Germany, 
and a number in England, will find it profitable in 
almost any state of the case to continue the use of 
pyrites. 
As regards the concentration of the acid, the great 
cost of platinum vessels is a serious drawback in its 
manufacture, but we are none the less indebted to the 
use of these vessels for the cheapening of the acid. 
Glass can be used in some places advantageously. 
Efforts are now being directed to perfect a method of 
concentrating in vacuum, by which lead vessels can be 
used; but, up to the present time, with only partial 
success. Dobereiner’s suggestion of making sulphuric 
acid in very much smaller apparatus than that now 
used (by the agency of sulphurous acid, air, and spongy 
platinum), has been tried and worked successfully on a IO 
small scale, and its extended success belongs to the 
future of chemistry; the minor improvements, such as 
recovering the nitrous acid, etc., do not properly form 
a part of the review of the subject for such an occasion 
as this. 
Besides the use of sulphur for sulphuric acid in the 
chemical arts, it has of latter years been employed to 
no inconsiderable extent in making bisulphide of car- 
bon, which is now manufactured on a very large scale, 
especially by the improved arrangement of apparatus 
of M. Deiss, placing a battery of four fire-clay cylinders, 
five feet high by twenty inches in diameter, into one fur- 
nace, and producing it at a cost of five cents per pound. 
Other forms of apparatus, however, are used to advan- 
tage. Some idea of the extent of its production may 
be inferred from the fact that several manufacturers 
make over a half ton each per day. It is used princi- 
pally for dissolving and softening caoutchouc in the 
process of vulcanization ; in the gutta-percha manufac- 
ture ; in extracting bitumen from minerals by a process 
invented by M. Moussu; in extracting fat and oil from 
bones, oil cake, etc., sheep’s wool, greasy refuse 4tuff, 
as cotton waste, etc.; also used for the extraction of the 
aromatic principles of spices and other odoriferous 
plants, and, when perfectly pure, it is said that it can 
be used for extracting the most delicate perfumes from 
plants and flowers, without injuring the odors. It has 
also served as an agent for producing motive power, 
owing to its low boiling point, and engines have been 
worked successfully by it. In fact, much may be ex- 
pected of it from its extended use in the future. 
Bisulphide of Carbon. 
From sulphuric acid my subject naturally glides into 
the history of the Industrial Chemistry of Soda, and, in 
referring to its origin, I will use the words of Hofmann 
and Ward: “The ever memorable discovery, by the 
illustrious Le Blanc, of the process now everywhere in 
use for manufacturing carbonate of soda from common 
salt, stands distinguished in the annals of industry, not 
Soda. 11 
only as by far the most important of all chemico-indus- 
trial inventions, but also (a signal fact) of having been 
created perfect. All the other great chemical indus- 
tries have been slowly worked out by the toil of succes- 
sive inventors, but Le Blanc’s process, the greatest of 
them all, remains to this day, what it was when he first 
gave it to the world, the best and simplest method of 
effecting the most valuable of all known transforma- 
tions. Though eighty-six years have elapsed since this 
splendid discovery was made, and innumerable researches 
have been undertaken with a view to its improvement, 
the original indications of Le Blanc are all but univer- 
sally followed, with merely a few comparatively unim- 
portant modifications. 
“ It might have been expected that a process which, 
at its first introduction, was examined by a government 
commission of thoroughly practical men, and which, 
after having been submitted to comparative experi- 
ments, made with the greatest care, was recommended 
in an elaborate official report, would have been almost 
immediately adopted throughout Europe, with propor- 
tionate advantage to its discoverer. Such reasonable 
hopes, if entertained by Le Blanc, were destined to cruel 
disappointment. Le Blanc himself never reaped the re- 
ward of his admirable discovery. 
“ This man, who was certainly one of the greatest 
benefactors of his race, and to whom, long since, France 
and England should have joined to raise a statue, lived 
in poverty, and died in despair. The creator of incalcu- 
lable wealth for his species, he wanted bread himself; 
and, after endowing man with cheap soda—that is, with 
the inestimable blessings of cheap glass and soap, cheap 
light and cleanliness, and a hundred collateral advan- 
tages—he was suffered, to the shame of Europe, to end 
his days in a hospital. There he lingered, a wreck in 
fortune, health, and hope, till reason herself gave way, 
and he perished madly by his own hand. It is to be 
hoped that with the advance of civilization these terrible 
tragedies, so frequent in past ages, will become more 
and more rare, till the future historians of progress shall 
be spared the pain and shame of recording any more 12 
such outrages on justice—such ghastly martyrdom of 
genius.” 
As the soda industry is the most gigantic chemical 
industry in its results upon the well-being of society, 
and the advancement of civilization, it is well to give a 
little history of it, as from its incipiency to its present 
state it belongs to the past hundred years, and, besides, 
it is somewhat historic, too, in its relation upon the early 
recognition of the importance of the science of chemistry 
by great governments. 
Early in the war of the French Revolution, France 
was cut off from her usual supply of soda, so requisite 
for many of its arts, as those of glass and soap-making, 
for at the time Spain supplied France with the soda she 
used, it being manufactured from the ashes of the sea- 
weed. 
The French Convention at that time issued a pro- 
clamation, which went on to say: “Considering that 
the Republic ought to extend the energy of liberty to 
all of the objects which are useful in the arts of first 
necessity, free itself from all commercial dependence, 
and draw from its own sources all the materials de- 
posited therein by nature, so as to render vain the efforts 
and the hatred of despots, and should place equally in 
requisition for the general service all industrial inven- 
tions and productions of the soil, it is commanded that 
all citizens who have commenced establishments, or who 
have obtained patents for the extraction of soda from 
common salt, shall make known to the Convention the 
locality of these establishments, the quantity of soda 
now supplied by them, the quantity they can hereafter 
supply, and the period at which the increased supply 
can be rendered.” 
In conjunction with the proclamation, a committee of 
four chemists was appointed in the first year of the 
French Republic to examine into all the processes de- 
vised for the purpose. The chemists were Lelievre, 
Pelletier, D’Arcet, and Giroud, and they made their 
report the following year, after having examined thir- 
teen processes, six of these commencing with the forma- *3 
tion of sulphate of soda from common salt; and here is 
what they say in their report:— 
“ Citizens Le Blanc, Dize, and Shee (copartners) were 
the first who submitted to us particulars of their pro- 
cesses ; and this was done with a noble devotion to the 
public, good. Their establishment had been formed 
some time previously at Trainciade, but the conse- 
quences of the French Revolution, and of the war which 
followed it, having deprived them of funds, the works 
were suspended, and for some months past the manu- 
factory had become a national establishment. 
“ This establishment had been erected entirely with 
the private funds of the partners. It would be difficult 
to collect together, in so moderate a space, more means 
and conveniences than are met with in this manufac- 
tory—furnaces, mills, apparatus, and magazines, all 
arranged in the best order for the convenience of the 
service.” 
The report then gives a full description of all the 
various steps in the process that constitutes the inven- 
tion of Le Blanc. 
It is needless for me to detail how extended this soda 
industry has become, but will conclude this part of my 
subject by giving a chronology of the soda trade, as 
given by Gossage. 14 
Chronology of the Soda Trade, 
© 
Quantity 
Raw material used, and prices. 
manufac- 
Prices, 
PU 
tured. 
1790 
I792 
Barrilla and kelp 
Le Blanc’s process invented and ap- 
Not known. 
Not known. 
plied in France 
Not known. 
Not known. 
1814 
Crystals of soda, made from 1 
Bleacher's residua, and by Mr. > 
* 
Soda crystals 
Losh from brine ) 
$300 per ton. 
1823 
Mr. Muspratt’s works commenced 
and 
using— 
1824 
Common salt at $ 4 per ton 1 
Sulphur at 40 “ 1 
Probably 100 
Soda crystals 
tons per w’k 
$qo per ton, 
Lime at 4 “ j 
of crystals & 
Soda asii $120 
Coal at 2 “ J 
soda ash. 
per ton. 
1861 
Fifty works in operation in Great 
5000 tons per 
Soda crystals 
Britain using Le Blanc’s process 
Raw material in Lancashire costing 
week. 
$22 per ton, 
Soda ash $40 
Common salt $ 2 00 per ton 
Sulphur from pyrites2o 00 “ 
Limestone 2 00 “ 
Fuel 1 50 “ 
per ton. 
1861 
Annual value of produce $10,000,000. 
Number of workmen employed in 
the manufactories 10,000, exclu- 
sive of those engaged in mining 
for pyrites, limestone, and coal; 
also those employed in navigation 
and other means of transport. 
The important bearing of the soda industry is the 
only excuse I have for so lengthy a reference to it, and 
I can only venture to touch upon two or three additional 
points in connection with it; the first is the recovery 
of the sulphur from what is known as the soda waste, 
thus making this agent to renew its function again and 
again in the production of soda. At present hundreds 
of tons of sulphur are recovered by processes well known 
to most chemists. 
Another fact I must not omit is the employment of a 
large quantity of a mineral from Greenland called cryo- 
lite for the pi’oduction of soda, and yet more recently 
the perfecting of what is known as the bicarbonate of 
ammonia process, by Salvay & Co., of Belgium, who in 
1873 produced by this process 5000 tons of soda, em- 
ploying 110 workmen. *5 
Potash and its Salts. 
Much of what has been said in relation to soda, is 
equally applicable to potash. This article, that was 
procured by the destruction of our forest, is now fur- 
nished in vast quantities and at a much lower rate from 
mineral resources. 
The first one resorted to was the sea water, or rather 
the residual water after crystallizing out common salt 
for consumption in domestic economy and the arts. And 
one of the best methods of conducting the separation 
was devised by Balard, and is carried on to a consider- 
able extent in France. But the great future source of 
potash is from the minerals sylvite, carnallite, kainite, 
and polyhalite, now discovered in great abundance in 
the salt mines of the Stassfurt, and other salt mines in 
the world. 
The chemist converts the potash-chloride found in 
those minerals into the carbonate in the same manner 
as he makes the carbonate of soda from common salt. 
This cheapening of potash of course gives new im- 
petus to chemical industry dependent upon this alkali, 
among them the manufacture of cyanide of potassium, 
of which the most advanced chemistry is the manufac- 
ture of the cyanogen from its elements, although the 
practical application on a large scale still meets with 
considerable difficulty. 
Cyanide of Potassium. 
Oxalic Acid. 
Another recent industry, sprung up from the applies 
tion of potash in the caustic state, is the formation of 
oxalic acid by heating sawdust with it, there being 
usually employed with it a certain quantity of caustic 
soda, which latter alkali will not produce the required 
effect alone, although potash will, and the reason of the 
admixture with soda is to make the process more eco- 
nomical. 
Soluble Silicates. 
Cheap soda and potash have enabled the chemist to 
make on a commercial scale soluble glass. As an in- 16 
dustry, it was started as early as 1825 by Fuchs, of 
Munich. But it has only been in latter years that its 
application has been extensive, and we are all now fa- 
miliar with its use in hardening and preserving stone, 
preparing artificial stone, cement, etc. 
Stearinery. 
The next industry that demands our notice is that of 
stearinery and soap-making, and all that is important 
in connection with it belongs to the latter half of the 
past hundred years, and dates from the labors of Bra- 
connot in 1817 in separating oleine and stearine, and 
were specially developed by the remarkable scientific 
researches of M. Chevreul. 
That these labors deserve to be ranked so high, arises 
from the fact that they were made at the birth of organic 
chemistry, and on a most difficult class of bodies, about 
the nature of which there was no correct conception, 
and when the analysis of organic substances had been 
but just commenced. Still more, M. Chevreul did not 
give to the world the results of his labors as a mass of 
isolated facts, but he systematized and classified new 
acids, new bases, and left to us the chemical history of 
facts almost as fully made out as they are at the present 
time ; and these have contributed as much, if not more 
than any class of researches to give direction and growth 
to organic chemistry. The decomposition of the fats 
and formation of the fatty acids developed the fact that, 
when melted and allowed to cool slowly, the more solid 
acids crystallized, so as to allow of easy separation of 
the solid from the liquid part, which fact soon suggested 
a practical application. 
In 1823 a complete account of the labors of Chevreul 
was published ; at this period fruitless efforts were made 
to manufacture stearic acid. 
Importance of the Stearic Acid Industry. 
It is difficult to render an exact account of the im- 
portance of the stearic acid industry; nevertheless it 
can be stated with certainty that the annual production 
for France is 50,000,000 of pounds, and approximately 17 
for the remainder of Europe is 200,000,000 pounds, and 
for America 20,000,000 pounds. 
The largest candle factory in the world is that known 
as the Price Company, having its principal establish- 
ments at Liverpool and London, with a capital of 
$5,000,000. The great steps in the progress of this 
industry were first made by Gay-Lussac and Chevreul in 
1825, who first thought of applying the fatty acids for 
illumination, forming them first by saponifying the fats 
by alkalies or the alkaline earths, decomposing by acid, 
and separating the solid and liquid acids by pressure. 
It will be seen that this process is deduced directly 
from the theoretical researches of Chevreul, with the 
important exception in relation to saponifying under 
high pressure. 
The process of Chevreul and Gay-Lussac was not 
considered at the time capable of being brought into 
practice in the arts from their using potash and soda, 
thus making the product a very expensive one. 
Besides the above difficulty in the original develop- 
ment of stearic industry, another arose in the very com- 
mencement, viz., that when candles were made with 
the ordinary wick, they burnt very imperfectly, and the 
inventors above referred to devised wicks of peculiar 
description that answered the purpose more or less per- 
fectly. But prior to them J. L. Cambaceres devised 
similar ones, and subsequently improved upon them, 
and finally settled upon the plaited wick now in com- 
mon use in all stearic acid factories. 
The next important step rendering the stearic acid 
industry a success, was also made by M. Cambaceres, 
viz., the separation of the oleic acid by powerful pres- 
sure, first on the mixed acids cold, and subsequently 
warmed ; and he established a factory in Paris to carry 
out his process, but this soon failed, from the inferior 
nature of candle-stock produced, and the expense of its 
production, potash being employed by him as the agent 
for decomposing fats. 
For several years this industry was abandoned, as 
being a difficult and unprofitable one, when in 1829, two 
young physicians, De Hilly and Motard, took the sub- 18 
ject up, and after two years of laborious and persistent 
study of it, accomplished the problem of the successful 
manufacture of candles from the fatty acids. It is only 
simple justice to say that the names of Chevreul and 
De Milly go side by side in this industry, and the first 
in his theoretical discoveries, and the latter in his inge- 
nious and successful devices in the accomplishment of 
great practical results. 
A second advance in this industry was the use of 
sulphuric acid to decompose the fats, which originated 
also with Chevreul and Gay-Lussac, but was not suc- 
cessfully carried out until combined with the distilla- 
tion of the fatty acid after the decomposition—a method 
first executed by Dubrunfaut, and successfully carried 
out by Coley, Jones & Wilson, and subsequently per- 
fected by Gwinne & Jones. 
The next step made in stearinery was the decompo- 
sition of the fats by water. The conception of this 
method, in common with all the methods of saponifica- 
tion of fatty bodies, is to be referred back to the author 
of the discovery of the true nature of fats, M. Chevreul, 
for in his original researches he pointed out the perfect 
analogy between the fats and the compound ethers, the 
latter class of bodies being decomposed into their two 
constituents, in the presence of water heated in close 
vessels under pressure; a reasonable deduction from 
which was, that fats would undergo an analogous de- 
composition. This, however, was not undertaken at the 
time, but, by an accident about the time of Chevreul’s 
researches, it was observed to take place by Faraday 
when his attention was drawn to some changes in oils 
used by Perkins in his curious steam engine that em- 
ployed very hot water. 
No attempt was then made to draw any practical re- 
sults from these observations, and we find no further 
notice taken of the subject until early in the year 1854, 
by R. A. Tilghmann, of Philadelphia, when patents 
were taken out by him for decomposing fats mixed with 
water, and superheated in vessels of a certain descrip- 
tion. The method of Tilghmann, as originally pat- 
ented, was never introduced into practice; since then. with change in the manner of operating, and in the 
nature of the boiler, it has been successfully conducted 
in many factories. 
In the latter part of the same year that Tilghmann’s 
process was patented, M. Melsens, of Belgium, took 
out a patent very analogous, using fats mixed with 
water in the proportion of twenty to one hundred per 
cent, of the latter ; the water might be acidulated with 
from one to ten per cent, of sulphuric acid, or the addition 
of salt would suffice ; the whole was heated from 1800 to 
2000 0., for several hours. The success of Melsens’s 
process was immediate, and it was put into operation 
on a large scale in Antwerp, in vessels holding one ton 
of tallow, to which was added fifty per cent, of water, 
and in six hours the decomposition was complete at a 
temperature of 1800 C. (ten atmospheres). The fatty 
acids thus made were of a very satisfactory quality, 
quite as much so as those obtained by other methods of 
saponification. 
But I would here say that this method, by super- 
heated water, is now supplanted by a mixed method of 
using one or two per cent, of lime with the superheated 
water, which addition facilitates and hastens the reac- 
tion in a manner not yet understood by chemists. 
19 
Glycerine. 
This new art of stearinery assumed such dimensions, 
that the chemist sought to utilize all by-products con- 
nected with it. The oleic acid or red oil, as is well 
known, is used for various purposes, principally for 
forming soap. 
The candle-makers at first allowed the glycerine pro- 
duced, to run to waste. This sweet principle of the fat 
was first discovered by Scheele in 1873, and afterwards 
studied by Chevreul in 1819, and its true nature ascer- 
tained, as a.triatomic alcohol of the radical glyceryle, 
now having a well-defined place in organic chemistry. 
But, like everything connected with the art of which we 
are speaking, some minds were directed to examining 
and purifying it, and when presented to the world 
abundantly in its pure form, some application was 20 
sought for it, and its use became extended day by day. 
The principal features connected with the improvement 
in its manufacture, relate to its distillation, and still 
later to its purification by crystallization by Sarg, and 
in 1871 he purified in this way twenty-five tons. As 
for its application it is more varied than that of any 
other substance springing from the chemical arts. It 
is used in wine-making, beer-making, confectionery, 
liquors, in cloth-making, in calico-making, in preparing 
leather so as to remain supple and durable, in the tobacco 
factory, for lubricating delicate machines and firearms, 
etc., preserving organic matter, filling gas meters to 
prevent the effect of cold, for making rollers for print- 
ing presses, in the art of perfumery, in medicines, etc. 
Nitro-glycerine. 
But of all the applications of glycerine, the most 
curious one is that of making an explosive compound 
for blasting rocks, etc., of which there are now not less 
than seventy or eighty tons consumed annually. 
In 1847 an Italian chemist named Sobrero, working 
in the laboratory of Pelouze, discovered that the action 
of concentrated nitric acid or a mixture of nitric and 
sulphuric acid upon glycerine produced a peculiar oily 
liquid, having among other properties that of exploding 
when struck by a hard body, or when heated. At first 
it was only regarded as one of the many curious com- 
pounds that are born every day in the chemical labo- 
ratory. Any practical application was not thought of, 
for the glycerine then was too expensive a substance to 
enter into competition with other substances used in 
making explosive compounds. It was reserved for a 
Swedish chemist named Nobel to make an application 
of this oily compound called nitro-glycerine, and by im- 
provement in the process of its manufacture, and the 
consequent impulse it gave to the separation and puri- 
fication of glycerine, it is now a substance of every-day 
use by those engaged in mining and in large engineer- 
ing -works, requiring the removal of large bodies of 
rocks; and, notwithstanding it is an extremely danger- 
ous substance to handle, and many lives and much 21 
property have been destroyed by it, contractors on 
large works say that they prefer using it to gunpowder, 
with all its attendant risks. 
Gun-cotton is another of those curious chemical 
triumphs of the past few years of chemistry. It was 
never imagined that this well-known and useful vege- 
table fibre called cotton, could be so easily converted 
into one of the most powerful explosive compounds 
known, and would serve as an article of offensive and 
defensive warfare. The first announcement of its dis- 
covery was in 1845 by Prof. Schonbein, of Basle, and 
almost at the same time by Bottger, of Frankfort. Its 
powerful explosive nature was made very manifest early 
in the establishment of its industry, by two very disas- 
trous explosions, one in 1847 in the gunpowder factory 
of Messrs. Hall Brothers, where they were making gun- 
cotton, and the other in July, 1848, where 3500 pounds 
of this substance exploded at Bouchet near Paris. 
These and other accidents so alarmed the public that 
its manufacture was suspended, especially as some of 
them appeared to arise from spontaneous decomposition 
of the gun-cotton. But as it is a part of the code of 
chemical ethics not to be frightened at anything, es- 
pecially at a creature of its own creation, they went to 
work at once to discover causes and remedies, in which 
as usual they succeeded, so much so that at the present 
time a number of batteries of artillery in the Austrian 
service use gun-cotton. It is employed largely by the 
English government in their military service, under the 
efficient direction of Prof. Abel. It is also used for 
blasting in quarries. 
The most recent development, however, in connection 
with it, is that it can be exploded efficiently when wet, 
by the aid of a fulminating fuse, which fact, if properly 
borne out by sufficient experience, will increase its value, 
in so far as it increases its safety of transportation, etc. 
I must here refer to a curious property of gun-cotton, 
viz.: its solubility in ether, or a mixture of alcohol and 
ether, producing a solution called collodion, which is the 
Gun-cotton. menstruum used by photographers for placing the chemi- 
cal materials on the surface of the glass to receive the 
action of the light in the preparation of what are known 
as negatives. It was first uftd for this purpose by an 
English photographer named Archer, although the col- 
lodion had been prepared some time before by Dr. 
Bigelow, of Boston, and used in the surgical treatment 
of wrouuded surfaces. The value of gun-cotton as a 
photographic agent cannot be overrated, when we re- 
member the ramifications of this art in social life and 
scientific pursuits; in this latter direction it is especially 
valuable to the astronomer. 
In strict justice I should class the art of photography 
as one of the chemical industries created during the 
past hundred years, for every step in its invention, ap- 
plication, and future development depends on chemistry; 
but we must be satisfied with a simple mention of it. 
22 
Chemical Industry of Coal. 
I will not delay calling the attention of my audience 
to a chemical industry pre-eminently one of this century, 
and, curious enough, it does not owe its origin to either 
chemistry or to a chemist, yet in its developments some 
of the ablest chemical talent in the world has been and 
is still engaged. I allude to the chemical industry of 
coal. 
It was started by two individuals of practical mind, 
Murdock in England and Le Bon in France, who sought 
to control the gaseous products emanating from burning 
coal in such manner as to be useful for illuminating pur- 
poses, and from the year 1800 to the present time it has 
been used successfully for that purpose, and all the 
large cities of Europe and America, and numerous 
small towns, give evidence every night of the univer- 
sality of its use, dispensing comfort all around. 
Its direct effect is to convert night into day, to make 
the short and obscure winter days equal to those of 
summer, giving more time to those occupied with in- 
door pursuits, and enabling them to conduct their labors 
with less fatigue to the eye and with more certainty of 
execution. In this aspect alone the immense wealth 
that has been added to the industrial arts is incalculable. 23 
In its indirect effects, the use of coal-gas has benefited 
society by saving vast tracts of land for other agricul- 
tural purposes that would have to be devoted to the 
cultivation of plants furnishing oil and fatty matters, to 
be used for illumination, and, besides, there have been 
saved for other purposes hundreds of ships and thou- 
sands of seamen that would be required for the whale 
and other fisheries carried on simply for the purpose of 
procuring oily matter to be used for furnishing light. 
Regarded as a luxury, its benefits are not to be de- 
spised, for it has cheapened many of them to such a 
degree that both rich and poor are equal participants 
of them. Our brilliantly lighted streets are evidence 
of this fact, so that the people traverse our cities with 
the same ease and security at night as in daytime. And 
here we may again allude to another fact in connection 
with the manufacture of coal-gas, namely, that the of- 
fensive residues which are the natural results of gas- 
making have been made to give rise to most important 
industrial pursuits, employing a large amount of capital 
and labor and accumulating much wealth. 
But it has been left for the more recent developments 
of chemistry to extract from the residues of gas-making, 
by processes more or less indirect, beautiful crystallized 
compounds used in giving to silk, wool, and cotton 
colors that rival in brilliancy the hues of the rainbow ; 
and this discovery in its turn reacts on the manufacturers 
of the various textile fabrics. 
In the making of gas from coal three great residual 
products are formed, consisting of coke, ammoniacal 
liquor, and tar, the last two of which were cast away as 
refuse, but now, under the directing mind and skill of 
the chemist, they have been converted into most useful 
products, the ammonia being collected and condensed 
in such form as to be made serviceable for all purposes 
in the arts and agriculture, which latter industry now 
depends very much upon it in giving the requisite nitro- 
gen elements to artificial manures. 
But it is from the coal-tar that the chemists, during 
the past fifteen years, have reaped a harvest of wonder 24 
ful chemical results; from it they have extracted not 
less than seven acids, fourteen alkaline substances, and 
ten neutral bodies, and with many of these they have 
wrought such wonderful metamorphoses that chemists 
themselves, accustomed though they be to strange 
transformations, are amazed at the results of their own 
investigations 
As much as we might desire, we have not time to 
dwell upon progressive discoveries that led to the first 
aniline color in 1856, by Hofmann and Perkins, and 
will only state that in the short period which has elapsed 
since then, the chemist does with the tar of gas-works 
what the rain drop does with white rays of the sun, viz., 
unfolds all the beautiful colors of the spectrum, red, 
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet; first 
came the man vine and rose aniline in 1856, then the 
aniline red in 1859, then the aniline blue in i860, then 
the aniline green in 1863, after that the violets of me- 
thylic and ethylic rosaniline, and aniline black. 
And now our beautiful dyes are no longer brought 
from the tropics and the Indies, but Europe sends to 
China, Japan, and the Indies dye-stuffs, and sends arti- 
sans to show to those nations how to apply those dyes; 
the moneyed value of the present product being about 
$10,000,000. Is this no triumph for the industrial 
chemistry of the nineteenth century? Nor have we 
arrived at the end of this matter of the chemical indus- 
try of coal. That most valuable substance, alizarine, 
the coloring principle of madder, had defied the chemist’s 
skill to imitate and produce by artificial means. With 
the chemist, to accomplish it was only a matter of time, 
and about five years ago we had the first announcement 
of the production of alizarine from one of the coal-tar 
products (but little known and of no commercial value 
up to 1870). So rapidly has this branch of industry 
grown, that, during the last year there was put into 
commerce 1000 tons of artificial alizarine dye, with a 
standard of 10 per cent, of alizarine, worth upwards of 
four millions of dollars, one-half of which was produced 
in Germany. So that now the agriculturist engaged in 
madder cultivation is fearing the supplanting of madder 25 
altogether by this new chemical industry, which fur- 
nishes to-day nearly oue-half the alizarine dyes. 
Phosphorus and its Applications. 
Jn phosphorus and its applications we have a chem- 
istry of small things, but an industry of great magni- 
tude. In the words of another, “ Phosphorus is a sin- 
gular instance of an article, discovered one or two cen- 
turies ago, which, until recently, possessed very little 
interest but to the professional chemist, and more rarely 
to the physician; but which, by an application dating 
back little more than thirty years, rapidly became an 
object of large manufacture, and is now, in the every- 
where indispensable lucifer-match, carried not merely 
over the civilized world, but to every land which pos- 
sesses any commercial intercourse. 
“The Dutch chemists, who laboriously first drew it 
forth in minute quantities, and by a tedious process 
from urine, little thought that this substance, so distin- 
guishable from its self-inflaming qualities, would, in 
after time, be manufactured by hundreds of tons, and 
be not only found in every household, but made the 
kindling spark of all hearths in every civilized country. 
One of the largest manufacturers of phosphorus, when 
he underwent training, only knew phosphorus by a small 
stick two inches long that was in the laboratory in which 
he studied. He now draws it out by machinery in a 
cord many miles in length, and sends it off by tons to 
all parts of the world.” The improvements in the 
method of manufacture, and the amount of consump- 
tion, are best realized when you are told that upon the 
introduction of its use in the manufacture of lucifer- 
matches, its price in England was $20 per pound, while 
the price now does not exceed 75 cents to $1 per pound; 
this economy of production being brought about by 
improved chemical processes, and by operating upon 
cheap and accessible material. There now exists some 
twelve or fifteen large factories, one-half of them in 
Germany, from which most of the phosphorus used in 
this country is imported. 
The quantity produced is not less than a half million 26 
of pounds, nearly the whole of which is consumed in the 
manufacture of matches, one-half the above quantity 
being consumed in Germany for that purpose. In the 
chemistry of phosphorus, the most remarkable triumph 
is that of Schrotter, about fifteen years ago, in produc- 
ing what is called amorphous phosphorus, w'hich is now 
well known to all chemists, and is used extensively in 
the art of match-making; this wonderful change in 
phosphorus being produced on a large scale, and its in- 
flammability so altered as to allow of its being handled 
with impunity. 
It is not volatile or subject to slow combustion, and 
does not poison the atmosphere in which the makers of 
matches are obliged to operate, and does not produce 
that peculiar and painful disease of the jaw, which ulti- 
mately produces caries of the bone, to such an extent, 
in some cases, as to necessitate the removal of a large 
proportion of the jaw; showing that the aim of chem- 
istry is not only to increase and improve the materials 
for the use of society, but to present them in such form 
as not to injure the health. 
Iodine and Bromine. 
Of iodine and bromine I have but little to say, 
although both their discovery, and their chemical in- 
dustry have been the growth of the past fifty or sixty 
years. This neglect does not arise from their lack of 
importance, for they both rank as articles of prime ne- 
cessity in several of the most important arts, as well as 
important curative agents in disease. There has been 
much improvement in the art of extracting both iodine 
and bromine from their raw materials, and coal naphtha 
has become an important agent in facilitating the sepa- 
ration of the iodine, or rather in collecting the iodine 
once separated by chemical agency. Also the Peru- 
vian nitre has now become an important source of this 
substance. As for bromine, its production is increasing 
every year both in this country and in Europe. 
Sodium, Aluminium, and Magnesium. 
While sodium, aluminium, and magnesium do not 
perform as yet very important functions in the arts, they 2 7 
are produced on no inconsiderable scale, and are con- 
spicuous examples of how mere laboratory methods may 
be rapidly developed into industrial processes when di- 
rected by the skill and ingenuity of able chemists. In 
this particular instance we are indebted to M. St. Clair 
Deville, than whom there is no more ingenious chemist 
in working out difficult problems in the metallurgy of 
the rarer metals. 
The production of these metals in quantity has given 
new agents to the arts, and sodium amalgam is now 
well known in metallurgic operations on gold. Alumi- 
nium and aluminium bronze have found their use for 
many valuable purposes, and magnesium is much valued 
for signal and rocket purposes. 
Medicines. 
But of all the benefits derived from the growth of mere 
laboratory processes into grand manufactural opera- 
tions, none can claim more than the art of medicine, for 
she has received her full share, as we all well know, and 
as is every day shown by the operation upon cargoes of 
Peruvian bark to extract that valuable medicine quinine, 
and the elimination of thousands of pounds of morphine 
from opium ; and, still more recently, the unfolding of 
the hidden treasures of the chemist has brought to light 
chloroform and chloral, the earlier specimens of which 
he valued as gold or silver, while now they are thrown 
upon commerce by thousands of pounds, alleviating an 
untold amount of suffering; and these great blessings 
are afforded mankind as a free-will offering of the skill 
and industry of the chemist, for he invokes no patent 
laws to make money from these precious gifts of God, 
wdiose high priest he is in one sense, having been 
favored by the divine dispenser of all good to make 
known these things to man. 
The review just given of the chemical industry of the 
past hundred years, is but a notice of the salient points 
in connection wfith its history and progress. No men- 
tion is made of the art in connection with the working 
of iron, copper, and other metals, for that now takes 
rank almost as an independent art, called metallurgy, 28 
but it is none the less chemical in its character, and, as 
chemistry progresses, so will this art. The same may 
be said in regard to glass-making, photography, electro- 
typing and gilding, and numerous other arts which must 
have presented themselves to your minds during this 
discourse. 
But I must not detain you longer, and shall conclude 
by congratulating you that we are living in an age in 
which an industry requires but a few years for its cre- 
ation or development. 
“ In our days a useful discovery is scarcely made, or 
a happy application of one found out, before it is pub- 
lished, described in the scientific journals, or other 
technical periodicals, and especially in the specifications 
of patents. It then becomes the starting-point of a 
thousand researches and new experiments, entered into 
by the philosopher in the hope of advancing scientific 
progress, and by the manufacturer with the expectation 
of reaping a material benefit. From these multiplied 
and diverse efforts—these incessant labors of an army 
of workers—arises an industry which has no sooner 
sprung into existence than it becomes important and 
prosperous.” 
So then let us, American chemists, bend all our ener- 
gies to do full share of this work. Up to the present 
epoch our short existence as a nation, and some other 
causes, have forced us to be the recipients of the nume- 
rous discoveries of our European co-laborers without an 
adequate return on our part; but there will be no such 
excuse for the future if we do not stand side by side 
with them in the developments of industrial chemistry.