A KNIGHT OF INDUSTRY by The Christian Advocate

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Mar 20, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 12.

A KNIGHT OF INDUSTRY.

By The Christian Advocate

A NEW sort of a notable has been the honored guest of American scientists this fall in the person of Sir William Henry Perkin, the English chemist. In 1856, young Perkin, then but eighteen years of age, was an enthusiastic analytical chemist. While seeking to produce a certain drug from coal-tar by chemical means, he stumbled upon a new coloring substance called anilin purple, afterward named "Perkin's violet," and now best known as "mauve." From this initial discovery was developed the entire series of coal-tar dyes or anilin colors, now used thruout the industrial world, from the calico-printers of Fall River and Manchester to the Moqui basket-makers and Navajo blanket-weavers, and, alas! at the rug-looms of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Last July the king knighted this captain of industry, and British and European scientists celebrated the jubilee of his discovery. Now America, which has reaped its full share of the fruits of the coal-tar color industry, offers its token of esteem. Germany, which was one of the first countries to pursue the line of research indicated by the discovery of mauve, now exports coal-tar by-products in the form of colors, perfumes, drugs, etc., to the value of $100,000,000 annually.—The Christian Advocate.