In a word, then, despite its repellent name, the society in question has to do with affairs that are of the utmost importance to the man in the street. Though its members may sometimes deal in occult formulas and abstruse calculations, yet the final goal of their studies has to do not with abstractions but with practicalities,--with the saving of fuel, the smelting of metals, the manufacture of commodities. But theory in the main must precede practice--the child creeps before it walks. "The later developments of industrial chemistry," says Sir William Ramsey, "owe their success entirely to the growth of chemical theory; and it is obvious," he adds significantly, "that that nation which possesses the most competent chemists, theoretical and practical, is destined to succeed in the competition with other nations for commercial supremacy and all its concomitant advantages." Fortunately this interdependence of science and industry is not a mere matter of prophecy--for the future tense is never quite so satisfying as the present. Vastly important changes have already been accomplished; old industries have been revolutionized, and new industries created. The commercial world of to-day owes vast debts to the new science. Professor Chandler outlined the character of one or two of these in the address just referred to. He cited in some detail, for example, the difference between old methods and new in such an industry as the manufacture of caustic soda. He painted a vivid word picture of the distressing conditions under which soda was produced in the old-time factories. Salt and sulphuric acid were combined to produce sulphate of soda, which was mixed with lime and coal and heated in a reverberatory furnace. Each phase of the process was laborious. The workmen operating the furnaces sweltered all day long in an almost unbearable atmosphere--stripped to the waist, dripping with perspiration, sometimes overcome with heat. Their task was one of the most trying to which a man could be subjected. But to-day, in such establishments as the soda manufactories at Niagara Falls, all this is changed. A salt solution circulates continuously in retorts where it can be acted upon by electricity supplied from dynamos operated by the waters of the Niagara River. The workmen, comfortably dressed and moving about in a normal temperature, have really nothing to do but refill the retorts now and then and remove the finished product. "It almost seems," Professor Chandler added with a smile, "as if workmen ought to be glad to pay for the privilege of participating in so pleasant an occupation. At all events it is, in all seriousness, a pleasure for the visitor who knows nothing of old practices to witness this triumph of a modern scientific method."