The name of this is sodium ditolyl-disazo-beta-naphthylamine-
6-sulfonic-beta-naphthylamine-3.6-disulfonate.

These chemical names of organic compounds are discouraging to the
beginner and amusing to the layman, but that is because neither of them
realizes that they are not really words but formulas. They are
hyphenated because they come from Germany. The name given above is no
more of a mouthful than "a-square-plus-two-a-b-plus-b-square" or "Third
Assistant Secretary of War to the President of the United States of
America." The trade name of this dye is Brilliant Congo, but while that
is handier to say it does not mean anything. Nobody but an expert in
dyes would know what it was, while from the formula name any chemist
familiar with such compounds could draw its picture, tell how it would
behave and what it was made from, or even make it. The old alchemist was
a secretive and pretentious person and used to invent queer names for
the purpose of mystifying and awing the ignorant. But the chemist in
dropping the al- has dropped the idea of secrecy and his names, though
equally appalling to the layman, are designed to reveal and not to
conceal.

From this brief explanation the reader who has not studied chemistry
will, I think, be able to get some idea of how these very intricate
compounds are built up step by step. A completed house is hard to
understand, but when we see the mason laying one brick on top of another
it does not seem so difficult, although if we tried to do it we should
not find it so easy as we think. Anyhow, let me give you a hint. If you
want to make a good impression on a chemist don't tell him that he
seems to you a sort of magician, master of a black art, and all that
nonsense. The chemist has been trying for three hundred years to live