The paper industry which is very highly developed will have a much better future on account of its possibilities in the line of improvement. To-day, in the iron-age, we speak of a paper-age, and for good reasons, because there hardly passes a year which does not bring new discoveries, showing the extraordinary adaptability of paper. One branch of the paper industry which to-day is considered as an especial part of the industry is the manufacture of colored paper, the origin of which, as far as our literature is able to state, extends as far back as the first part of the last century. From it springs the art of marbling, which in latter years was introduced into our trade. The manufacture of colored paper makes a second branch of industry indispensable and one which stands on as high a stage of development as the paper industry; this is the manufacture of colors, which deserve the greatest attention on our part on account of the marbling art. There is hardly a second branch of chemistry which is of such a great old age, historically proven, as the color industry. We hardly know of a nation on the whole globe which does not make use of color in some way. The use of color for the purpose of embellishment and adornment dates back to historical times. Nature itself, by the beauty of the colors of her flowers and minerals acted as a teacher in the artistic development of the human race. Egyptian wall paintings show richly developed forms and figures adorned with multi-colored fabrics. This is a proof that the Egyptians not only understood the art of the manufacture of colors but that they also knew the much higher art of fastening the color on textile fabrics, i. e., the art of dyeing. In olden times for the coloring of objects, mineral colors which occur in nature the result of a decomposition of metals and earths and had only to be put through a sieve and washed to adapt them to the painters use, were exclusively used. To alchemy, which was the origin of Chemistry of to-day, we owe a surprisingly large number of artificial mineral colors, for the reason that with predilection it brought metals, earths and mineral compounds within the sphere of its researches which were aimed at the production of gold, but which all were ineffective in this direction. But the time and labor, which were employed in these investigations, were not thrown away. By alchemy an immense number of chemical compounds became known, without which knowledge the chemistry of to-day would not have reached its exalted stage of perfection. Exclusive of mineral colors several organic colors came into use, the most being applied in the dyeing establishments as they were bodiless colors and at that time the art of binding them to metallic oxides was unknown.