instead of trying to find it somewhere. The new epoch has hardly dawned,
yet already a man may stay at home in New York or London and make his
own rubber and rubies, his own indigo and otto of roses. More than this,
he can make gems and colors and perfumes that never existed since time
began. The man of science has signed a declaration of independence of
the lower world and we are now in the midst of the revolution.

Our eyes are dazzled by the dawn of the new era. We know what the hunter
and the horticulturist have already done for man, but we cannot imagine
what the chemist can do. If we look ahead through the eyes of one of the
greatest of French chemists, Berthelot, this is what we shall see:

The problem of food is a chemical problem. Whenever energy can
be obtained economically we can begin to make all kinds of
aliment, with carbon borrowed from carbonic acid, hydrogen
taken from the water and oxygen and nitrogen drawn from the
air.... The day will come when each person will carry for his
nourishment his little nitrogenous tablet, his pat of fatty
matter, his package of starch or sugar, his vial of aromatic
spices suited to his personal taste; all manufactured
economically and in unlimited quantities; all independent of
irregular seasons, drought and rain, of the heat that withers
the plant and of the frost that blights the fruit; all free
from pathogenic microbes, the origin of epidemics and the
enemies of human life. On that day chemistry will have
accomplished a world-wide revolution that cannot be estimated.
There will no longer be hills covered with vineyards and fields
filled with cattle. Man will gain in gentleness and morality
because he will cease to live by the carnage and destruction of
living creatures.... The earth will be covered with grass,