DURING the past hundred and fifty years or less, scientific method in general and chemical research in particular have gradually invaded the industrial arena. Some of the results of this invasion are patent even to the least initiated, whilst others are accepted without a thought of their origin. Popular interest in scientific research is a thing of recent development; it is only in quite recent years that science, even industrial science, has been ‘news’, but there is now no lack at least of lip service to the part which it plays in industrial prosperity, as well as in providing the minor needs and newer comforts of everyday life. A few casual preparations excepted, chemical manufacture scarcely existed at the close of the eighteenth century; fifty years ago it was still but an apprentice in the world's workshop. Now it is one of the great fundamental businesses of the civilised world, and one which plays a large part in the maintenance of Britain's industrial, and therefore political, equilibrium. The industry is peculiarly one which depends for its very existence on discovery and invention; it is born in the test tube and nurtured on the laboratory bench in universities and in the research departments maintained by the State and by industrial concerns. It is an industry which demands continuous improvement in its methods, and offers unlimited opportunities of development and expansion; it cannot stand still, but must ever move forward along the paths mapped for it by an army of trained investigators.