to palm off as facts that which is fiction, degrades himself, insults his readers, and outrages his profession. Tacitus has said that the "chief office of history is to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them." Then let us have the facts, and only the facts, in history.

It may be some time before the truth about the "Mormon" people shall be accepted in the world, but that time is bound to come; prejudice and falsehood shall give way, for truth must and will prevail.

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.

NOTES CONTRIBUTED FOR THE "IMPROVEMENT ERA" BY THE
FACULTY OF SCIENCE, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY,

AND EDITED BY DR. JOHN A. WIDTSOE.

The Jubilee of the Coal Tar Color Industry.

On the 6th of October last, a great banquet was given in New York City in honor of Sir William Henry Perkin, who fifty years ago made the discovery which lies at the foundation of the present coal tar color industry.

The power of mind over matter is probably nowhere better illustrated than in the history of a formation of a multitude of brilliant colors and important drugs from the black tar which remains in gas works after the purification of coal gas. Fifty years ago the colors used by dyers were obtained from various vegetable substances. Indigo, for instance, was obtained from the indigo root, turkey red came from the madder root, and thousands of people in the various countries were employed in cultivating and gathering the plants from which these and other important coloring materials were extracted.

In 1858, Mr. Perkin, then a youth of eighteen, was assistant to a professor of chemistry in London. It occurred to him that it would be a most interesting thing to be able, by artificial means, to make quinine, the important drug used in so many human ailments. Instead of obtaining quinine from his experiment, a reddish brown, mud-like mass resulted. Nevertheless the young man continued his investigation, and among other things used in his experiments one of the ingredients of coal tar, known as aniline. By the use of this substance an even more black and unpromising mass was obtained, than from the earlier experiments. Upon fur

ther examination, however, it was discovered that this black, dirtylooking material in reality contained a most beautiful purple coloring matter, which, when isolated and purified, was found to be capable of dyeing silk, wool, and other materials. In fact, this substance, thus discovered fifty years ago, was the now well-known coloring material known as mauve. With considerable difficulty the young man succeeded in interesting sufficient capital to build a small factory for the manufacture of this artificial dyestuff. After fifteen years of manufacturing this and other colors, Mr. Perkin retired, and since 1873 has devoted himself to the study of pure chemistry, having always in mind the application of science for the benefit of mankind. He is still a hale and hearty gentleman sixty-eight years old, and has received during this year recognition for his epoch-making discovery from nearly all the civilized nations on the earth.

Some of the results which have come from this discovery will illustrate its far-reaching importance. As soon as it was learned that such an important and beautiful dyestuff had been made artificially, numerous other chemists followed Mr. Perkin's lead. The various constituents of coal tar, which had hitherto been thrown away, were carefully investigated, and by repeated combinations, new dyeing material, even more beautiful and wonderful than mauve were obtained. At the present time about two thousand dyestuffs are known, almost entirely made from the prodducts of coal tar. These cover the whole range of the rainbow, and in some respects they are more brilliant than the colors of nature themselves. Most of them may be made to cling to silk, wool, cotton and other materials with a firmness which cannot be overcome by time, light or chemicals. It seems at the present time that no matter what kind or quality of color fashion demands, it may be supplied by the skillful chemists working with the substances contained in the uninviting, black and sticky coal tar.

Perhaps the greatest triumphs of dye chemistry have been the artificial production of indigo and turkey red. Perkin himself assisted other chemists in preparing artificially the coloring matter known as turkey red, which is so commonly used in all kinds of materials. Professor von Baeyer, of Munich, devoted a large part of a lifetime to the discovery of the artificial production of indigo.

Both are now made in any desired quantity in large factories. The thousands of men and women who formerly grew the indigo and madder roots have been obliged to seek other fields of activity, for practically all of the indigo and turkey red now used by the world is made in chemical factories.

Not only did the discovery of fifty years ago lead to the multiplication and artificial production of dyestuffs, but it was the beginning of the development of many other branches of science. By means of the delicate colors obtained from coal tar, it was made possible to observe bacteria, such, for instance, as those of consumption, and to inaugurate the battle against infectious diseases. Likewise, the microscopic nerves of the body, with their attendant phenomena, have been brought within the vision of man by the use of the aniline dye colors. The chief drugs now used in combating various diseases, such as cancer, rheumatism and fevers of various kinds, have all been obtained as a direct result of the original experiment on the formation of mauve from coal tar.

At the the time Dr. Perkin discovered mauve, nearly all the flavoring extracts and perfumes were made directly from vegetable materials. Today, most flavoring extracts and perfumes are made artificially in the chemist's laboratory. The odors of musk, violets, roses, heliotrope, wintergreen and numerous others, are products of coal tar. The flavoring principles of lemon, vanilla, orange, apples, bananas, and many other fruits are likewise obtained by artificial chemical methods.

Photography has likewise received a wonderful stimulus. through the discovery of numerous coal tar derivatives that have a peculiar effect upon the sensitive photographic plate. The only successful method of color photography, of the present time, depends upon the existence of aniline dyes made from coal tar.

Not only has this wonderful discovery of fifty years ago resulted in a tremendous increase in the number of artificial chemical substances made from coal, tar, but many other branches of human industry have been benefited thereby. For instance, when it became known that coal tar could be used to such great advantage, the methods for the manufacturing of coal gas from which coal tar is obtained, were greatly improved, and by that means other by-products of gas-making were obtained. Thus the

manufacture of amonia with all its train of derivatives was stimulated. Potassium cyanide was obtained in large quantities from the by-products of the gas factories. This substance is now used in immense quantities for the extraction of gold from low grade ore. In a sense, therefore, the successful operation of many of the gold mines of Utah and the surrounding states is an outcome of the discovery of the eighteen-year-old boy, working quietly and unknown to the world in a little London laboratory.

Libraries have been written upon the discoveries resulting from the original production of mauve. The aspect of the world has been changed by the work of this patient boy. Many of the ERA readers, as they dip into the science of chemistry, will learn more concerning this extraordinary chapter in the history of human development.

The spirit of the man who laid the foundation of this great work may best be illustrated by the closing words in an address that he delivered to the great men who assembled last October in New York to do him honor. He said: "It is very gratifying to me to receive all the generous and kindly expressions of feeling that you are manifesting, and I thank you heartily; but what have I that I have not received? It is not, therefore, for me to boast. (And I also feel that I have but imperfectly used my opportunities). I therefore can only say in reference to the success which has attended my efforts, 'Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but unto thy great name be all the praise.'”—John A. Widtsoe, Ph. D.

Energy.

"Not only around our infancy doth heaven and all its splendors lie." When we focus our attention upon an apparently trifling process with other thoughts than the care of self and the petty human greed for gain, desiring, (however vainly) to see it as it is, with its infinite connections and relations in space and in time to all other things and motions and changes, we get glimpses through the veil with startling clearness and reality of another busy, surging, rushing existence, primeval, vast and unformed-a spacefilling, world-power and world-stuff, some of whose briefest and tiniest undulations are called the destinies of living creatures and of men.