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 some day will discover something that will make the world independent of wheat and meat. Berthelot believed in the possibility of wheat-growing and cattle-raising being superseded by the discovery of artificial substitutes for the necessaries of life. It may seem to the uninitiated a mere dream, but to the chemists this vision of the future is quite within the bounds of possibility. Chemistry in the past sixty years has done more to make mankind independent of Nature than all the other agencies in the world since the beginning of time. This is a big statement, but it is literally true. Chemistry, by its application to agriculture this past half-century, has doubled the world's producing power, has, in fact, put Nature in harness and made her do double work by the stimulation of growth.

It is only within the past sixty years that synthetic chemistry has come to take its proper place in the scientific world: what a powerful instrument of research it has proved; and this is due to the original stimulus given to it by Berthelot. Berthelot's idea of the synthesis of substances that will take the place of wheat and meat is the most audacious flight of fancy that scientific imagination has ever yet taken, but it need not, because of that, be classed among the impossibilities. Berthelot was justified by accomplished facts in stating that applied science has done more for mankind in the last three-quarters of a century than all the progress in