348 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



happened that on one occasion when experiments were 

 being made in his laboratory the escaping gas was led 

 into the flame of a burner so as to set fire to it, a necessary 

 precaution as the gas is highly poisonous; it was noticed that 

 instead of burning as usual with a non-luminous smokeless 

 flame it burnt with a slightly luminous flame. This strange 

 circumstance led to inquiry being made, and it was event- 

 ually ascertained that the metal nickel under certain con- 

 ditions combined with the gas carbonic oxide, forming a 

 very volatile colourless liquid, and thus one of the most 

 remarkable discoveries of modern times was made. The 

 discovery was communicated to the Chemical Society in 

 1890 by Mr. Mond in conjunction with his assistants, Drs. 

 Langer and Quincke. Having observed that the compound 

 was very readily broken up into carbonic oxide and nickel, 

 Mr. Mond at once set to work to devise a practical method 

 of preparing nickel on the large scale from its ores through 

 the agency of the new compound, and after spending not 

 only much time and labour, and I believe also a very great 

 deal of money on his quest, was successful in devising a 

 process which he has carried out on the large scale during 

 several months past, and which has enabled him to produce 

 over a ton of metallic nickel of almost absolute purity per 

 week — perhaps the greatest achievement in metallurgy on 

 record. Such action on the part of a native-born English 

 manufacturer is " unthinkable," at least I know of no pre- 

 cedent which would justify us in regarding it as possible 

 under present conditions. I only recently heard of a firm 

 who are doing work of a most important and critical char- 

 acter, involving the expenditure of a very large amount of 

 money, who, having asked an expert whether it would not 

 be well to carefully observe the temperature at which their 

 operations were conducted, on being advised that it was 

 most important to do so, objected that an instrument for 

 the purpose, costing ^25, was too expensive to use. The 

 foreign worker would seek to know what happens at any cost. 

 If the English nation is to do even its fair share of the 

 work of the world in the future, its attitude must be entirely 

 changed — it must realise that steam and electricity have 



