free carbon he can best get it by charring wood in a kiln or digging up that which has been charred in nature’s kiln during the Carboniferous Era.  But there is no reason why he should want to go back to elemental carbon when he can have it already combined with hydrogen in the remains of modern or fossil vegetation.  The synthetic products on which modern chemistry prides itself, such as vanillin, camphor and rubber, are not built up out of their elements, C, H and O, although they might be as a laboratory stunt.  Instead of that the raw material of the organic chemist is chiefly cellulose, or the products of its recent or remote destructive distillation, tar and oil.

It is unnecessary to tell the reader what cellulose is since he now holds a specimen of it in his hand, pretty pure cellulose except for the sizing and the specks of carbon that mar the whiteness of its surface.  This utilization of cellulose is the chief cause of the difference between the modern world and the ancient, for what is called the invention of printing is essentially the inventing of paper.  The Romans made type to stamp their coins and lead pipes with and if they had had paper to print upon the world might have escaped the Dark Ages.  But the clay tablets of the Babylonians were cumbersome; the wax tablets of the Greeks were perishable; the papyrus of the Egyptians was fragile; parchment was expensive and penning was slow, so it was not until literature was put on a paper basis that democratic education became possible.  At the present time sheepskin is only used for diplomas, treaties and other antiquated documents.  And even if your diploma is written in Latin it is likely to be made of sulfated cellulose.

The textile industry has followed the same law of development that I have indicated in the other industries.  Here again we find the three stages of progress, (1) utilization of natural products, (2) cultivation of natural products, (3) manufacture of artificial products.  The ancients were dependent upon plants, animals and insects for their fibers.  China used silk, Greece and Rome used wool, Egypt used flax and India used cotton.  In the course of cultivation for three thousand years the animal and vegetable fibers were lengthened and strengthened and cheapened.  But at last man has risen to the level of the worm and can spin threads to suit himself.  He can now rival the wasp in the making of paper.  He is no longer dependent upon the flax and the cotton plant, but grinds up trees to get his cellulose.  A New York newspaper uses up nearly 2000 acres of forest a year.  The United States grinds up about five million cords of wood a year in the manufacture of pulp for paper and other purposes.