Abstract
THE interest and importance of the subject at the present time are sufficiently obvious. In outlining some of the origins of chemical industry in Germany, the lecturer pointed out how the royal house of Prussia had been frequently associated with chemical enterprise. The Markgrave John was actually surnamed “the Alchemist,” the Great Elector was a patron of chemistry and provided a laboratory at Potsdam for the celebrated Kunkel, one of the first to discover phosphorus, and who also effected great advances in the manufacture of glass. Frederick the Great established the Royal Berlin porcelain factory, which still occupies some of the original premises. In the same reign also the chemist Marggraf made those classical investigations on the occurrence of sugar in the vegetable kingdom which later led to the foundation of the beet-sugar industry, which was initially subsidised by Frederick William III., the founder of the University of Berlin in 1809. (In 1914, the Berlin University had 12,585 students, and received an annual grant from the State of more than 200,000l.)
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The Chemical Industries of Germany 1 . Nature 95, 47–49 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/095047a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/095047a0