The Romance of Modern Chemistry

HOW MAN COMPETES WITH NATURE Why not accept her gifts gratefully, and cease worrying about “ synthesis ” ? Now in at least one case which has already been men- tioned, the reply to these questions is quite simple. The value of nitrate of soda as a nitrogenous manure has been emphasised, and at present the beds of this material in Chili are largely requisitioned for the purpose. But this is a case where Nature’s stores are limited, and the prospect that in thirty or forty years the supply from this source will come to an end has stimulated the discovery of some method of utilising the vast stock of nitrogen in the atmosphere. The way in which this is being effected has already been described, and it is sufficient to point out that the artificial production of nitrate, regarded as an attempt to imitate Nature, has a very practical object However it may be now, there is no doubt that in the earlier stages of synthetic chemistry, the work was under- taken and carried out purely in a spirit of scientific in- vestigation, without any reference to utility and without the expectation of favours to come, in the shape of hard cash returns. Innumerable chemists have spent their years in unremitting toil, striving only to let the light into many an obscure corner; their labours may have led in after years to applications of great commercial value, but all that these early pioneers had was the love of their work, the honour and the glory ! Nowadays the com- mercial side of chemistry is very much in evidence, and the laboratory is in many cases a necessary part of the factory—its brains, in fact. Investigation and research carried out with the definite object of making money is a little less romantic than heroic attempts to win Nature’s secrets for the sake of knowledge alone, but the former is 249