New Britain herald., 1916-05-17
AniZine Dye Mdustry
 Only Slxty Years Okd

Washington, D. C., May 17.-"A vir- tually forgotten industry is being re- ViVed with frantic haste as a result of the discOntinuance of Germany's world commerce in aniline or coal tar dyes according to a bulletin is- sued by the National Geographic so- ciety from it's headquarters in Wash ingtOn.
 ''The United States, like many other countries, is looking lOngingly once more to Avignon's madder root for it's 'Turkey-red, to Indias indigo for it's blues, to MexicO's cOchineal for it's scarlets, to Central Americas haywood for it's blacks and browns, to our own oak forests for their quercitrcn yellow and-no, not to the peculiar Mediter- ranean seashell for it's purple, for the manufacture of the Tyrian shade be- loved by emporers is one of the so- called lost arts.
 But these ancient vegetable dyes, some of which were in use when the mummy cloths were being made for the pyramid builders of Egypt, can never replace the coal tar dyes, which, during the sixty years since they were accidentally discovered, have revolu- tionized the art of adding color to our clothes, our houses, our inks, our shoes, our wall paper our hats. and our book-hindings. n fact, anillne dyes furnish almost all of the mod ern tints for which man is respons1- ble.
 Tt was in 1856 that a young Eng fish chemist, while trying to produce artificial Quinine, distilled from coal tar a substance which had beauti- ful mauve tint. This was the first of the aniline dyes, dyes which have now been produced in nearly a thousand commercial shades, 400 of which are widely used. This young chemist William Henry Perkin, secured capital from his father and began the manu- fracture of dyes, as a result of when he was knighted and amaSsed tor- tune His discovery immediately at tracted the attention of German man. ufacturers who, aided by far-s1ghted bankers, employed university chemists and esta blished dye plants on the Rhine and Main rivers, inaugUrating an industry which has enjoyed phe- nomenal success. At the outbreak of the present great war twenty-one manufacturing establishments, most of them within an area of 130 square miles, had a practical world monopoly of the aniline dye trade.
 Tt is not a coincidence that twelve of Germany's biggest dye factories are located at Essen, adajcent to the lead ing munition plants of the Teutonlc empire The same coal tar which produces dyestuffs also furnishes the essential ingredient of the hlgh eX- plosives used in the shells of the l6- inch guns which battered down the forts of Liege and which fill the head of the deadly submarine torpedo.
 Up to the time of Perkins epoch- making discovery, coal tar was the despised by-product when coal was burned to produce coke and illumln- ating gas. Today the once rejected third produce has become, as It were, the keystone in the manufacture not only of dyestuffs and high explosives but of many perfumes photograph de- velopers and innumerable n1cdlcI2al compounds known as coal-tar prepar- atiOns.
 "At the outbreak of the world war the Tinted States was importing an- l nuallv from Germany about S15,OO0,- l 900 worth of aniline dyes. The dis | continuance of these dye shipments has l