Feb., I914
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profited through the assistance of chemistry. We have thought i t better, however, to omit such illustrations, but hope that during the coming year we shall have many papers practically demonstrating that what we have presented in the abstract is concretely true. When we speak of chemistry as affecting the profitableness of industry, we must bear in mind that, while all chemical knowledge may be said to come from the chemist, such knowledge is often made use of with profit by those who are not chemists. This is something t h a t is unavoidable, and it seems to me no attempt should be made t o make it avoidable. The benefits which chemists derive from the more general diffusion of chemical knowledge are very much greater than would be the case if chemists were successful in an attempt to
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make their profession esoteric. The progress of humanity cannot be accomplished by making the study of chemistry and the benefits t h a t come from it profitable only to the chemist. It is proper that the chemist should seek t o obtain profit from his knowledge and ability, but he cannot hope t o do this except in some few cases, unless he is willing to give to others a t least a portion of the knowledge that he possesses. All industries and occupations are interdependent. All industry depends upon the chemist and the chemist depends upon all industry. The more this interdependence is recognized, the greater the profit accruing to industry, and the greater the return to the chemist. 129 Y O R E ST., BROOKLYN
PERKIN MEDAL AWARD The Perkin Medal was conferred on John Wesley Hyatt for his distinguished services in the field of q p l i e d chemistry and engineering a t the regular meeting of the New York Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, held at The Chemists’ Club, on January 2 3 , 1914. The meeting was opened with a n address by Dr. G. W. Thompson, Chairman of the Section, and the presentation address was made by Professor Chas. F. Chandler, Senior American PastPresident of the Society of Chemical Industry. The acceptance by bIr. H y a t t was followed by a n address by Dr. Frank Vanderpoel. The inventive genius of the medalist together with an intimate description of the history of his developments was ably treated by the various speakers, and the addresses are printed in full in ] the following pages. [I~DITOR. ~~
CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS By OUSTAVEW. THOMPSON
At this meeting of the New York Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, it becomes the pleasant duty, through established methods, to award the Perkin medal t o the person selected as most worthy for valuable work done in applied chemistry. It seems hardly necessary t h a t a statement be made as to the origin and history of the annual presentation of this medal further than to sap t h a t the medal was founded in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the coal tar color industry, the cornerstone of which was work done by the man whose name is attached t o the medal. There are, however, certain features which are forced upon our attention annually in the selection of the persontowhomthismedalshouldbe awarded, which i t may be desirable to consider in opening this meeting. -4s stated above, the medal is awarded for valuable work in applied chemistry. Whatever the future may have as interpreting the grounds for merit, in the past it has generally been considered t h a t this work should be in the nature of original or inventive work which has proved of great public value. The questions I would propound to you to-night are: What is the mental faculty which has made the recipients of the Perkin medal what they are? I n what respect, which has enabled them to be so successful in the application of chemistry to the arts, do these men differ from their fellow chemists? I have given considerable thought to these questions, and I wish t o submit my conclusions for your consideration, believing that they may be of some suggestive value. In 1870, Tyndall delivered his famous discourse on the “Scientific Use of the Imagination.” I n this discourse, he showed the value of the imagination properly made use of in solving some of the most difficult problems of physics. Tyndall has shown us how the imaginative mind, seeing resemblances in things, can supply the missing parts in such resemblances, those missing parts being hidden from the senses. It was this power of the imagination which enabled Kekul6 to form the
basis for the working out of the structure of many complex organic compounds; that work has been of incalculable benefit t o chemical science and industry. Thousands of instances could be given showing t h a t practically all of the progress made in the science of chemistry has been due to this proper use of the imagination. Considering the work done in applied chemistry, we see clearly that i t was the imagination of Herreshoff t h a t enabled him to develop the metallurgy of copper; and of Behr in his work on the separation of the oil contained in the germs of corn; and of Acheson, who saw in his imagination that, if flocculating agents existed, there were probably also de-flocculating agents; and of Hall, who believed t h a t somewhere there was a solvent for alumina from which aluminum could be obtained electrolytically; and of Frasch, who saw in the oil and salt wells the suggestion of the possibility of recovering sulfur from the bowels of the earth; and of Gayley, who saw the possibility of the dry blast in increasing the output and decreasing the cost of the of Hyatt, who saw in the drop blast furnace; and of dried collodion the possibility of producing a plastic mass, which was finally obtained in celluloid. I t was Tyndall who emphasized the extreme value of the two little words “as if” when used by the scientific mind, showing how, from things seen, a scientific imagination can lay bare things unseen and make possible discoveries of great value. Discoveries often come by accident, but it is the imaginative mind that sees in these discoveries future possibilities. It is the imaginative mind which, following our discoveries so made, is led into unlimited fields of usefulness. ITe must not think, however, of imagination as being the sole factor, although it is probably the principal factor, in the production of valuable materials. There must be energy, concentration, and persistence, which will carry such a mind across the Jordan into the promised land. Nevertheless, the imagination is the most important factor here, because, without it, there would be no promised land. As we look around about us upon those with whom we are intimate, we see this imaginative faculty in all degrees of developnent, and I have this word of suggestion to offer-those of us here who are educators, in whose hands are being moulded the minds of future chemists-should we not ask them whether the work which they are doing tends t o develop this imaginative faculty, or whether it is indeed possible for them to sow in the minds of their students the seeds of imagination if they do not already exist there? It seems t o me t h a t there is no better place, no better occasion, than this place and this occasion, when we are honoring, by the presentation of the Perkin medal, a man in whom the imaginative faculty was highly developed, to put before you the need of the imaginative faculty in as emphatic a manner as possible and to urge t h a t in our educational institutions this faculty should be developed to the highest de~
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gree. For, if we are honoring Alr. Hyatt on account of his possession of this faculty, should we not seek to increase the number of those who possess the faculty in a high degree? I s not the real purpose of the Perkin medal something more than the honoring of its recip’ents-great as that purpose is-is it not all done for the purpose of encouraging those faculties on which the presentation of this medal rests?
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His attention having been called to the character of the solid nitrocellulose left by the evaporation of liquid collodion, or artificial skin as it was called when collodion was first put upon the market, for covering cuts and other wounds, he turned his attention to the subject of nitrocellulose as a suitable meterial for producing plastics. It should be remembered t h a t gun cotton or nitrocellulose was first discovered by Schoenbein in 1845. I n 1847 Maynard announced the discovery that while PRESENTATION ADDRESS nitrocellulose is not soluble either in alcohol or ether alone, it is By CHARLESF. CHANDLER soluble in a mixture of the two and he gave the name collodion MR. CHAIRMAN, DISTINGUISHED GUESTA N D BROTHER CHEMISTS : to the solution, which has since found its way very extensively It is my very pleasant privilege as the senior Past-President into medical use. It also served t o solve the problem of prod u c i n g photographic of thesociety of Chempictures, either positives ical Industry, residing or negatives, upon glass, in this country, to prepractically sounding a sent to John Wesley death knell for the Hyatt the eighth imbeautiful though expenpression of the Perkin sive daguerreotype progold medal, in recogcess. The wet collodion nition of his most valuprocess was introduced able work in applied by Scott Archer in I 8.5 I . chemistry. Hyatt was entirely Mr. Hyatt was born ignorant of the v a r o u s at Starkey, P a t e s efforts which had been County, New York, in made by Parks, Spill November, 1837. H e and others t o utilize was educated in the pubsoluble nitrocellulose or lic school and later in pyroxyline for the manuthe Eddytown Seminary f a c t u r e of p l a s t i c where he excelled in materials, and consemathematics. quently he started out I n his early boyhood without any hints or heacquireda strong taste suggestions as t o how for mechanical affairs in he should proceed. His his father’s blacksmith first success resulted in shop. I n his sixteenth t h e manufacture o f year he went to Illinois billiard balls by first and learned the printing making a solid core of business, working a t this another plastic material trade for the following and covering the same ten years. During this period he made his first with nitrocellulose dissolved usually in ether invention, a family knife sharpener w h i c h inand alcohol. The process was so successful cluded a new method for that a good business was making solid emery established in I 870 which wheels. continued for several H e then went t o years. Albany and worked as a I n the m e a n t i m e journeyman printer for Hyatt invented celluloid about two years. Seeing a $10,000 offer for a and began the manufacture of celluloid and substitute for ivory for billiard balls by Phelan bone dust billiard and JOHN WESLEY HYATT, P E R K I N MEDALIST, 1914 81 Collander of New pool balls. At this time York, he began experihis brother, Isaiah S. menting nights and Sundays in the hope of gaining the Hyatt, joined him and they worked together until the brother reward. He made a number of useful plastic composi- died in March, 1885. I do not propose to give a detailed history of the progress tions, none of them however good enough for billiard balls, but he started t o make checkers and dominoes of pressed wood and made by Mr. H y a t t and his brother in establishing the celluloid with his two brothers established in Albany, New York, what industry. I shall merely remark that Hyatt’s patent 88,633, is now the Embossing Company which has been a highly suc- dated April 6, 1869, was for a molding composition t o imitate cessful concern for more than 40 years, under the mechanical ivory and other substances composed of fibrous material a n d gum shellac or other solid fusible adhesive gum. His patent management of Mr. Hyatt’s younger brother, C. AI. Hyatt. In 1870 he invented and patented a machine for turning No. 88,634, dated April 6, 1869, was for an improved method of coating billiard balls, consisting in dipping the billiard balls billiard balls, by which an unskilled workman can do as much as a dozen skilled workmen could accomplish by former methods, made of some suitable composition into a solution of collodion which might be given any desired color beforehand. His securing a t the same time perfect accuracy.
