New-York tribune., 1918-07-14
The Marvels That Emerae
From Coal Tar

WAS Berkeley who called coal tar
the antidote for all diseases, be-
cause in it lies sunshine, "the spark of
life. the spirit or soul of the vegetable
world' from which tar water comes An
article in "The Saturday Review" list
ing some of the medicines of which coal
tar is component, does it's best to
prove Berkeley's contention. And then
the writer delves into the realms of tel
egraph poles and moths and dives and
explosives to indicate further what an
indispensable product coal tar really is.
You cannot make apples or pears out
of it, he comedies. but
"lt swcetens your tea as saxin the English
form of saccharine; it perfumes your hand
kerchief as Jockey Club and New Mown
Hay 1t cures your headaches as aspirin
and phenacetin and your rheumatism as
saicylic acid, it moderates your fever as
antipyrin. it cleanses your wounds AS the
anuseptc lysol, it heals your bruises as
vasoline. 1t drives your motors as benzol.
your internal combustion engines as creo-
sote ol-it preponderates in your sheep
dips and cattle washes. it havors your food
as vanilla. 1t develops your photographs as
hydroqulnone. From coal tar is derived
atoXyl. the cure for sleeping sickness, and
we look forward to its increasing efficacy as
acrifavine, the ideal antseptic
Coal tar is just a thick, dirty, common
place oily liquid rather heavier than water.
From the marriage of certain atoms in the
molecules varously present in coal ta we
get directly or indirectly carbolic acid for
dlslnfectlng; creosote for our telegraph
poles, railway sleepers hutments and mimi
ton sheds; distilled tar for our dusty
roads; Dicric acid and toluene for our INT
(trl-nltro- -toluene) and other explosives;
nanhtha for our coStermongers' barrows:
narhthallne to keep the moths from our
clothes; pitch for our fences, sheds and
boats-pitch kept little Moses drv in his
ark of bulrushes, and it was used on Aga
memnons fleet, just in Ne sons navy
ana our Yarmouth herring fishing boats of
to-day, and from coal tar come dyes for
everything We use and wear. The astonish
ing shades and harmonies of color which
we now enjoy have their beginning in this
richest OF Natures gifts to man; nor can
we 1oresee 1.-THE of~its uses, because over
looooo combinations and permutationr of
the compounds of carbon are known to or
game chemists, and every day some fresh
wonder emerges under the chemists eve.
SolHe lfeSH example OF SercnQlUitV
The Importance of the dye question can
only be appreciated when it is realized that
oelore the war the value Of the anline dyes
used annually in this country was G2.25O.-
600 OF which some 50 100000 worth camo
from Germany. These dyes were needed for
brltlsh-made finished goods to the annual
Vaiue OF t2oo 100000; without that e2250,-
oVo worth OF dyes 1000 900 work people
would nave been thrown out of employment
Ahc these were commercial products. not
munitions of war
The story Of anilne dyes (Sanskrit Mill
lndlgo) is one Of the romances of the world
INC natural dyes, cochnea that gave our
soidlers the name of redcoats; alizarin,
madoer. that gave us Turkey red-Madour
was Norfolk surname for a DIVER in the
days of Richard II; the Tyrian purple of
the anclents,. for which, whether in its
natlVH murex or aniline substitute. chemists
'e'' US there is now no demand: the woad
oi our ancestors, still grown in Lincoln
shlre' the indigo on which Indian factors
once grew rich; the ogwood, now the most
"'"ely used OF natural dyes for darkest
blues and blacks and linked to history bv
'"e south Sea Company, the Asiento treaty
ana ,he fort of Campeche, these sufficed
Us ''li last century The very use of for
elgn grown indigo, indeed, was unknown in
seventeenth
ce"'ur9' our own woad supplying all the
biue we used. What a history centres
roand these dyes and dyed fabrics, from the
days "hen Phpnician merchants brought
the productions of Eastern looms to the
ports and palaces of the West, to that
strange reversal when Norwich calimancoes
and 'satins brilliants, besides shawls car
RED the work of English looms into Ger
many, Siberia and India, yea. round the
great globe itself, till the sos of last CEN
tury. Now it is the synthetic dyes that
count, dyes constructed out of coal tar COM
pounds, sprnglng up year by year in their
many.hued radiance, and constructed like
no"'liaoalsse from multiplicity of in
sreo,enrs' from that mauve or Tyrian purple
which Sir William Perkin first created in
1856 and the magenta whose battle name