The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-27
OUR ARMY OF SCIENTISTS S-By Frank G. Carpenter

JNOS1O NJ O 0N1 O were making those disks here and at the end of two months we were turning them out cheaper than Germany. It is the same with photographic glass and pho tographic developers and almost every thing under the sun along the line of chemical products
 As to the new inventions of chemicals and other wonders accomplished by un- cle Sam's army of scientists since the war began, their story would fill many columns of this newspaper. Almost every industry is based upon chemical work. Every bit of fine steel Is tested by the chemist It is his researches that keeps our steel rails from breaking, and the motor car from going to pieces as it flies over the road. The leather for our shoes is now tanned by chemical process and the manufactured foods we eat, the clothes we wear and our heat and light are based upon the same foundation.
 At the time they went into the war the Germans thought that they had monopoly of this branch of science, They had stolen the discoveries of the Brit ish. the French and the Swedes; ana they claimed them as their own. The truth is that the greatest of chemical discoveries did not come from Germany. Some one has counted up the famous scientists of the last 300 years. Of those of ths seventeenth century only three were Germans and the same is true of the eighteenth, while most of those ot the nineteenth got their training outside of Germany Leibig, the most noted Of the German chemists, was educated in France.
 Tska the matter of gases, through which the Germans hoped to drown their enemies in the present war. The discovery of oxygen was made by an English person of Birmingha who af- terward came to America and was closely associated with Benjamin Franklin. This was Priestly, who eS- perimented with the bubbles that came up in the fermentation of beer in brewery near where he lived ant as q result gave the world it's knowl edge of oxygen. This was the most important chemical discovery ever made. About the same time Scheele, i a druggist of Stockholm, discovered l chlorine one of the chief gases used ! in the present war and Lavoisier, | Frenchman, did much to develop the part that oxygen plays in combustion. | Priestley. Scheele and I4avoisier may l be called the founders of modern chem l istry, and not one of them was Ger | man. Hydrogen was discovered by Cavendish, and Englishman, and sod
 ium by Davy of London. It Is claimed 1 that no element in air water or salt
 has been discovered by Germans and | that this Is true of all the clements l found in 75.00o different substances, 1 including all the synthetic compounds | used in the worlds trads. Coal gas I for lighting was brought forth by Will | liam Murdock in 1792, and coal tar
 was first distilled by Clayton in 1858. | Both were Englishrpen. Napthalene and benzol were English discoveries. Toluene and picric acid, the coal-tar bases of the high explosives we are
 using today, originated in the labora-
 tories of London, and the coal-tar dyes l which Germany claims as her own | were first made in England and then | smuggled into Germany
 1 Most of the explosives which the
 scientists of the Kaiser are adapting 1 to guns, hand grenades and shells of various kinds came from foreign
 sources. Dynamite was discovered by 1 Noble. a Swede; fulinate of mercury | by Howard. an Englishman, and
 smokeless powder by Veille. a French
 man. Chlorine gas was largely dis
 covered by Cellini. an Italian, and Dr. 1 Charles E. Monroe, our well known specialist on explosives says that the <
 plosives have been Abel of England 1 and Bertholet of France.
 l It is the same with scientific work
 along industrial lines. Most of tho
 new discoveries are made by the Bri,-
 ish. French and Americans The Ger mans watch the scientific work of the rest of the world. and are quick to
 take advantage of everything new.
 They steal the chemical secrets of other nations and use them in their
 every trick of trade to monopolize the l results
 This has been especially so as to dyestuffs. of which at the time tha
 war broke out Germany was making
 four-fifths or more of all used upon | earth We were then employing some think like 900 artificial dyes or dye
 stuffs. and most of them came from | Germany. The processes of making
 them were looked upon as secrets,
 and most people thought they were
 the discoveries of the German chem l ists. The bulk came from coal-tar
 products, and practically no one else made such colors for export The truth is Great Britain originated the
 coal-tar dye. and British parson. Dr Clayton, dean of the Kildare. who lived about the same time as Prestley. the ' Unitarian preacher of Birmingham was the first to distill coal and get
 therefrom coke, tar and gas. Fifty years after that a Scotch nobleman took out patent for extracting coal
 tar. and later other Britishers used
 napthalene. benzol and toluene in the
 making of dyes.
 Benzol the father of the most I'm. portant dyestuffs. was discovered b,
 Farady in 1915. He found it In illuml-
 mating gas. Anthracene. which is largel,