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another example of a miracle
Here we have another example of a miracle of chemistry. Years ago the black, messy, sticky, ill-smelling tar was an expensive nuisance. A young man named Perkin, in 1856, spent his Easter vacation puttering around a laboratory with some of this tar. To his surprise he made a beautiful mauve dye. This discovery opened the door to the development of modern coal tar products, such as explosives, antiseptics, dyes, perfumes, aspirin, photographic materials, carbolic acid, and roofing tar.
ex Paul McCorkle, Survey of Physical Science for College Students (1938) : 130 : link (snippet only)
but entire, via archive.org : link