The fatty constituent decided, they cast around for another staple which was indispensable to the process they had definitely resolved to perfect. For this they required protein, the governing principle being the perfection of a cereal soap, the nitrogenous compounds of which should be turned to cleansing duty. Proteins were available in infinite variety, but here again it was realized that it would be wanton waste to use an article likely to be in request to serve as food for man or beast. Then they discovered that there were ample quantities of protein running to waste from commercial neglect. Accordingly, they decided to utilize these materials. The third constituent was the soda which must enter into the composition of any and every soap, but this did not occasion the slightest anxiety. Equipped with these three materials they set to work. Experiment was tedious, and progress was slow, due to the fact that research was being conducted in quite a new and unknown field, absolutely deficient of any previous experience to serve as a guide. The first success recorded was the preparation of a soap in the form of a meal or powder coinciding with their ideas. This was submitted to the most rigorous tests, and the results obtained were quite in accordance with expectations. When this soap is introduced into the water no coagulation of the fat with the lime occurs. In this way the lime soap enemy was completely vanquished. As a supreme test sea-water was tried, with which it was found to lather as readily and as easily as when employed with distilled water. The discovery represented a sensational achievement. It proved that something was awry with the existing theories pertaining to the chemistry of soap. Technical tests were undertaken, and they proved just as startling, because effects diametrically opposed to standard theories were observed. Whereas ordinary soap is insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol, the cereal soap, so-called because of the starch which enters into its composition, is soluble in water, but absolutely insoluble in alcohol. The position is reversed. A new era in soap manufacture was thus ushered in. The discovery came as a bomb-shell to the soap-making world, and, because it could not be explained through prevailing long-accepted chemical laws pertaining to this subject, it was ridiculed in certain quarters. To aggravate the situation chemists, who set out to fathom the secret of the new process by rigorous analysis, found themselves baffled. They could not determine the bases employed owing to the chemical reaction which had taken place during the preparation of the article, and from the circumstance that it belongs to colloidal chemistry. To indicate how completely the trade was baulked it may be mentioned that the chemist attached to one soap manufacturer in this country, and who had been requested to analyse a sample, contemptuously dismissed the product not as a soap, but as a filler!