The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-06-29
Modern Chemistry Makes
Profit of Waste Material

Chemistry is the modern alchemist.
1t transmutes the worlds dross into
gold.
Not long Ago., at a reception tender
ed to DR.. Ernest ]. Lederle, president
of the board of health. by his admiring
contemporaries in chemical research.
DR.. Lederle spoke of the wonderful
modern achievements of chemists in
utilizing in the arts and industries
substances which were formerly re-
garded as mere ~valueless waste
product.
He used this striking Illustration:
Coal tar for scores of years was re-
garded as a foul smelling, useless by
product of the gasmaking industry. 1t
was a vile compound, fit for nothing,
not available even for filling in low
ground. Wherever the proximity of
gas houses to bodies of water made it
possible, therefore, it became custom
airy to dump the col tar overheard and
so get rid of it.
Today the magic wand of chemistry
has TRANSMITTED the despised. coal tar
into a product so valuable that men are
actually dredging now to recover it
from the river bottoms where their less
enlightened predecessors dumped it
overheard years ago. This has been
done literally in the city of Philadel-
phia, where large quantities of coal
tar residues from the gas houses were
thrown away for years, and settled into
pockets at the bottom of the rivers.
Into these pockets dredgers are now
delving with all the aYidity of gold
miners or pearl divers. to recover for
m that self-same foul, greasy
stun, which. until a few years ago,
was regarded as a nuisance to be sup
pressed and hurried u of sight and
out of the range of smell as soon as
possible.
Obsolete Industries Kept Alive.
In simplifying the topic thus sug-
gested DR.. Lederle afterward said that
coal tar is only one Of scores hitherto
despised and neglected b~y-products
which the science of chemistry has
rendered so valuable that industries
which otherwise would have become
obsolete long ago, through the devel-
opment of newer methods are kept alive
and profitable largely because of value
of what was formerly regarded as a
mere b~y-product or a necessary evil
incident to the industry itself.
Water gas has superseded in a large
measure the old method of making
Illuminating gas by the heating Of
coal in retorts. Yet competent judges
say that today the old method of gas
making might be successfully conduct
ed n pay a dividend simply from
the value of the coal tar thus pro-
duced, apart from the sale of the
Illuminating gas generated. 1t is pref
ty we'll known that from these noisome
and unsightly residues are now dis
titled valuable ammonia liquors, that
the material left in the retorts yields
good coke, and that from coal tar we
get that useful and muc abused poi
son-carbolic acid.
But few persons not trained to
chemical science know thai coal tar
Is now used as the bases Of scores Of
the most exquisite perfumes and ex-
tracts, hat patchouli, altar of roses.
Verbena, heliothrope and most of the
other delicate extracts most favored
by dainty women in the boudoir are
successfully cOunterfeited by clever
chemists, who use the products of coal
tar as the basis of these seductive dis
citations.
Coal Tar in Soda Water.
Still fewer are those who know that
IN about nine cases out of ten when
they call for a glass of soda water and
the white aproned attendant pours
into the glass that beautifully coIored
fruit favoring extract" it is only a
cunningly cOntrived connection built
upon a basis of that same despised
coal tar. So the old gas house prod
uct that grimy faced urchins used to
dump into the rivers has now become