Chemical Industry

There was one department, however, in which the superiority and pioneering work of French industry were plainly to be seen; and that department is at the same time one where we have an opportunity to study the positive side of the Continental System, the side that promoted progress. This is the chemical industry, or, to put it better, all processes where the results of chemical studies could benefit production.

The fact that the course of development took this direction in France rather than elsewhere, it is true, was fundamentally due to something quite different from politics, namely, the fact that Lavoisier, through his work during the two decades immediately preceding the French Revolution, had laid the foundation of the whole of modern chemistry and had made it immediately applicable to a number of practical tasks. Moreover, he had had a number of eminent pupils whose work, to a still higher degree, was directly beneficial to industry; their results, too, were to a large extent apparent before or about the outbreak of the Revolution, when the external pressure had not yet begun to make itself felt. In certain cases, also, they had become economically usable before the Continental System and consequently had great importance for industrial development during its sway. In this connexion the first place should be given to Berthollet's theory, based on the discovery of the Swede, Scheele, for the production of chlorine, which became of very great importance for the whole of the weaving industry owing to the fact that as early as 1785 chlorine bleaching took the place of sun bleaching. James Watt almost immediately brought about the transference of the new method to England, which undoubtedly here followed in the wake of French progress instead of taking the lead. Another chemical method of still more central importance—which also had come into use during the years before the outbreak of the Revolution—was the production of sulphuric acid, which became the starting-point for a whole series of other branches of production.

In this connexion, however, it is evidently not the chemical advances of this kind that possess the greatest interest, but rather such as were first helped on their way by the great self-blockade, the importance of which for the process of development was—if the expression may be allowed—maieutic. It may be laid down as a general rule, indeed, that the economic service rendered by a war or by a blockade consists mainly in breaking down the barriers which impede the use of new inventions rather than in evoking those new inventions or discoveries themselves. So far the dictum to the effect that 'necessity is the mother of invention'would hit the point better if it were rephrased 'necessity is the nurse of invention'. In a war situation, indeed, public feeling is so unnerved, as a rule, that there is seldom sufficient calm for profound scientific work; and even if there were calm, time is lacking, for everything has to be done on the spur of the moment, and science seldom allows herself to be commandeered. What is done in war and in case of blockade, therefore, is rather to seize violently upon inventions which have been already or almost completed—that is, in a purely technical sense—but which have previously been devoid of economic importance. When a country is suddenly cut off from the old sources of supply, processes that previously lacked economic importance may become the best or even the only expedient. This is largely the explanation of the 'development of the great industrial marvels', of which Chaptal and others of that period speak. Afterwards, when the exceptional situation disappeared, the marvels also vanished, for they had done their work. They fell back under the threshold of consciousness, so to speak, and became once more potential instead of actual; and this is the only proper thing, if we wish to keep the economic position of the people at its highest level. In this way is explained without difficulty the general débâcle which overwhelmed the industrial creations of the Napoleonic age at the dawn of peace. In certain happy cases, however, the blockade has given rise to a new production that has only needed such a help to strike root; and in those cases it has really carried economic development onward and proved itself a genuine protectress.

In the sphere of chemical industry proper the great example here is the production of soda from sea salt. This discovery had been made by Leblanc as early as some time about 1789—statements as to the year vary somewhat, as is usually, and quite naturally, the case in the matter of inventions and discoveries. The efforts of the great French chemist during the whole of the revolutionary age to make his work bear fruit had come completely to grief, however, and he was ruined several years before his death in 1806. Then came the severance of intercourse with Spain, whence soda had previously been obtained, and this gave a hitherto undreamt of importance to the production of soda, which now proved itself to be, even economically, thoroughly justified, inasmuch as it was developed to such an extent that the price could be reduced from 80-100 francs to 10 francs per 100 kgs. A similar development attended the manufacture of another product, which in the fullness of time was one day to become the basic material for a substitute of Leblanc soda, namely, ammonia; and the production of alum and camphor by chemical methods may perhaps be mentioned here, and possibly, too, the advances made in the important production of nitric acid.

These fundamental discoveries led afterwards to a great many others, as has always been the case in the sphere of chemistry, owing to the many different products that are obtained by a synthesis. But it would fall far beyond the writer's competence to give a detailed account of all this. Yet one might venture the assertion that the French chemical industry during this period, on the basis of the first great advances of modern chemistry, went through, and caused the world to go through, a development of somewhat the same kind as did the chemical industry of Germany after 1870, chiefly on the basis of the derivatives of coal-tar. To mention only one or two more examples, the supply of soda formed the foundation for the manufacture of soap, while the hydrochloric acid obtained as a by-product of sea salt in recovering soda became, in its turn, the basis for the manufacture of chlorine. Of special importance also in the development of the textile industry were the new possibilities in the manufacture of dyes and the printing of them on different kinds of material, which were brought about by the increased knowledge of chemistry. Most famous in the former respect was the manufacture of 'Berlin blue'—also called 'Raymond blue', after its inventor—and the use of 'Adrianople red' in calicoprinting, where a member of the famous textile firm of Koechlin (Mülhausen) made advances in 1810 and 1811 which far exceeded what had been achieved in England.