The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-06-29

remembered that in laboratory expert
ments they had stumbled upon the
same reaction and had found the same
color. But they were not looking for
that, and they had not the practical
dye house bent of mind to develop and
utilize what they had seen. They were
testing to obtain some quite different
bic commercially. only annoyed them
at the time.
Where German Chemists Excel.
In the concoction of medicinal rem
edies, perfumes and flavoring extracts,
as we'll as in the development of col
oring substances from coal tar deriva-
tives. however, German chemists lead
the world. Prof. Pellew. of the chemi-
cal department of Columbia university,
attributes this not only to the high
standard of the German schools, but to
the fact that the proprietors of large
manufactures habitually recruit their
we'll equipped laboratories rom the pu-
pills graduated with the very highest
honors in chemistry. The salaries paid
to these young men frequently are not
large, but these German manufacture
ers have a system which puts a high
premium upon individual research and
stimulates the best original effort of
their staff Of chemists.
At the end of the year these young
knights of the laboratory receive their
honorariums from the proprietor. If
n or them has been so fortunate as
to perfect a successful dye of a new
and attractive color or to concoct a
new remedy or a new perfume of dis
ttnct commercial merit, it is not un-
usual for him to receive a. check for
$4,000 from his employers. Less sue
cessful competitors receive proportion
ately smaller recognition, and the
youth who does not get more than $50
regards that as a substantial hint that
he is wasting his time with the con-
Germ and might as well seek emolu-
ment and employment elsewhere.
Under this kind of stimulus German
chemists have developed a very large
proportion of the popular remedies
delicate extracts made from coal
tar products. Their EMPLOYERS then
promptly protect themselves by patent
rights and reap the more or less fucra-
tive reward.
Bleaching Powder Evolved.
Necessity is ever the mother OF in
vention. Years ago the French used
TO get their soda by the tedious pro-
cess OF dredging it from the seaWeed
OF the Mediterranean. Then came the
French Revolution. British ships were
patrolling the Mediterranean, so the
story goes, and dredging seaweed be-
came an unpopular occupation. France
had to have her quota of soda, so the
authorities Of the first republic called
upon their loyal citizen chemists and
offered a reward for some solution Of
the problem.
One LIE Blanc, who, by the way, died
a pauper, discovered that soda could
be made by treating common salt with
sulphur1c acid. Hundreds of chemists
took up the business and the country
brlstled with the chimneys of the soda
mills. But, unfortunately, every CHM
ney vomited forth vast clouds of hy-
~drochloric gas, which smote with it's
destroying breath all the surrounding
vegetation. Crops shriveled and died
and the trees were denuded of their
foliage. Nothing could live and grow
in the pestilential atmosphere. The
farmers and peasants protested to the
government, and again it was decided
that something nus be- done to check
the nuisance.
Again science was equal to the task.
mere We're more experiments, and one
one OF them found that by converting the
pern1clous fumes into chlorine gas and
then passing it over lime a capital bleach
ing powder could be produced. 1t happen
eo mat a practical bleaching powder was
a commodity much in demand up to that
time. Nobody had found it before, and
vast tracts Of arabic land. which might
otherwise have been under cultivation.
were DEVOTED to the purpose of spreading
out in the sun the fabrics that had to
be bIeached by along and tedious process.
All this was now done away, with. Again
the nox1ous product supposed to be a
necessary evil OF the making of soda had
been metamorphosed intos9the lucrative
basis of a new industry.
Similarly, the. FOUL gases discharged
from the me of blast %urnaces used