The two most common disposal practices for coal tar, dumping it into open pits or waterways, were obviously unsavory. Burning it produced hazardous black smoke, and burying it killed any nearby vegetation. But undistilled coal tar was not a very good sealant and was noxious, too, and thus very difficult to get rid of. Both coal gas and coke were derived from burning coal at high temperatures in the absence of oxygen, a process that left behind a thick, smelly brown liquid that was called coal tar because it resembled the pine tar used to waterproof wooden ships. By the mid-1800s, coal gas and solid coke had replaced candles, animal oils, and wood as the most important sources of light, heat, and cooking fuel in many European and American cities.

It was, arguably, the first large-scale industrial waste. No one in the world knew more about the chemical properties of coal tar than Hofmann, and coal tar was a very important compound to know about. It was Easter vacation, and Perkin was using the time off to work on some coal tar experiments suggested by his mentor at the Royal College of Chemistry, August Wilhelm von Hofmann. The very big idea that would transform Toms River and reshape the global economy was born in 1856 in the attic laboratory of a precocious eighteen-year-old chemistry student named William Henry Perkin, who lived with his family in London’s East End. Copyright © March 19, 2013, Bantam Books. Excerpted from Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, by Dan Fagin.

Toms river by dan fagin