ROMANCE OF THE LABORATORY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 84, 7 January 1928, Page 19

ROMANCE OF THE LABORATORY

« It is impossible to follow in detail the progress of creative chemistry in the last few years, for the synthetic chemist has made rapid strides indeed. Nowadays he will fashion for you the silks and shoes and precious stones that adorn your person, the perfumes and flavours that give pleasure to your palate, and the colours that delight your eye. The making of sugar and starch presents no difficulty to him now, and indeed there is no doubt that soon the very food we eat will be made by his nrt. All this has been made possible by the chemist’s endless toil in less than a hundred years, and so vast, are the possibilities of the chemistry of to-mpr-row that they cannot be estimated J. F. St. B. Barclav in the Edinburgh “Weekly Scotsman”). Eyen now successful processes for 'obtaining oil from coal are being developed by out great British chemical industry, which means that henceforth the oil wells of America will rule us no more, and that lhe vast coalfields of Britain are vast oilfields of the future. The importance of this development is very great, especially as solo control throughout the British Empire will be held bv a great British chemical firm. But perhaps the most startling development of all in the realm of creative chemistry has been lycentlv prophesied by our famous scientists. It is said that even ns man has built up in the laboratory many of the organic compounds found in living organisms, so in the future he will be able to combine that work until he "evolves, brasses of protoplasm which exhibit vitality and manifest one of the forms of life, rhe creation of life itself by the chemist! ft is an awe-inspiring thought, and vet one that conies well witbin the bounds, of probability and reason. For the might of the synthetic chemist has slowly waxed throughout the vear«. and now his kingdom is at hand. The world of the future will no more be the world or Nature, the harsh and relentless, but the world of maii, flip chemist, and the omnipotent, who will remould it nearer to his heart’s desire.