THE WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE^291the Polytechnic) in Zurich, which took its departure from
naphthalene, then an almost worthless by-product of the distillation
of coal tar. But this too posed practical and commercial problems
that took years to solve. BASF went one way; Hoechst, which was
entided to use their process, took another path, once again based on
research at the Zurich Poly. BASF got into production earlier (1897,
as against 1904), but the Hoechst technique proved the better. In
chemistry as in business, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Here as in so many other instances, the new technique spelled
disaster for older methods and the people who lived by them. Within
three years, BASF was producing as much indigo as could be got
from 250,000 acres. The big losers in this instance were the Indians
who grew and exported the natural product: 187,000 tons in
1895-96; 11,000 in 1913-14. The price of the dye had been
halved.^21
By World War I, Germany had left the rest of the world far behind
in modern chemistry—so far behind that even the confiscation of
German industrial patents during that war did not immediately
benefit competitors overseas. The biggest American firms, with the
best American chemical engineers, did not know what to do with
them or how to make them work. So in the twenties, they hired
away German chemists. Industrial espionage back in the saddle.