NOTES 295 



Wales, whose 1919 ratio has the value 73 per cent. — a pronounced drop, 

 but still well above the pre-war level. 



Mr. John Murray has published, for the Imperial Institute, a Monograph 

 by Mr. R. H. Rastall, M.A., F.G.S., and Mr. W. H. Wilcockson, M.A., F.G.S., 

 on the world's resources of Tungsten Ores with special reference to the British 

 Empire (price 3s. 6d. net). From this it appears that the chief producing 

 countries are the United States and Burma, which between them accounted 

 for more than 50 per cent, of the world's supply in 1917. The British Empire 

 as a whole has very large resources — more than enough to supply its own 

 needs ; and in other parts of the world, for example in China, there still appear 

 to be vast supplies, sufficient to meet all demands for many years to come. 

 The chief ores are iron tungstate (ferberite), manganese tungstate (hiibnerite), 

 wolframite, which commonly contains a mixture of the first two and calcium 

 tungstate known as scheelite, which usually shows, on analysis, 2 or 3 per cent. 

 of molybdenum . During the war the price was fixed by the British Government 

 at about ;^I40 per ton — roughly twice the pre-war value. In the United 

 States it was not controlled and rose to ten times this figure. The metal 

 is used for the manufacture of high speed steels (which contain from 13 to 

 30 per cent, of tungsten), for electric lamps and X-ray bulbs, and as substitute 

 for platinum — for example, in spark coil contacts and the manufacture of 

 acid-resisting alloys. The output from the United Kingdom is quite small — 

 about 300 tons per annum ; and that from Germany and Austria combined is 

 estimated to be even less. The chief producing countries, in addition to Burma 

 (4,500 tons) and the United States (5,000), are Portugal (1,600), Japan 

 (1,500), China (1,200), Argentine (1,000), Bolivia (1,600), and Peru (1,000), 

 the figures referring to the estimated output in 191 7. In England tungsten 

 ores are mined in various parts of Devon and Cornwall, and at Carrock Fell in 

 Cumberland. 



We have received a most interesting paper on " The Nature, Scope, and 

 Dlf&culties of Industrial Research," prepared for the Tenth International 

 Cotton Congress, at Zurich (June 1920), by Dr. W. Lawrence Balls, Chairman 

 of the Joint Standing Committee of the British Cotton Research Association 

 and the Eqipire Cotton Growing Committee. Discussing the need for research 

 in the qptton industry, the author remarks that no new appliance has been 

 invented for handling cotton, during the spinning process, for over a century, 

 excepting only Heilmann'sComber, which was devised nearly seventy years ago. 

 While there is no doubt much forgotten knowledge buried under conventional 

 practice, yet the business of the cotton-spinner is a thing in itself ; scarcely 

 related to general physical knowledge at all. In fact. Dr. Balls considers the 

 present position such that the first ten years of scientific work will have to 

 be spent merely in defining what the spinner knows I He says: " We begin 

 an attempt to connect the properties of raw cotton with the properties of yarn, 

 only to find that no one possesses any definable knowledge of the properties 

 of yam, except its breaking strain in the lea test ; and when we take this as 

 a more modest starting-point, we find that no one knows what the lea-break 

 means." The whole industry seems to be permeated with " last-my-timers " 

 content to leave improvement to posterity. This is fatal to successful 

 scientific work, and in order that benefit may be obtained from the research 

 now commencing, it will be necessary for all classes to develop a faculty of 

 curiosity, to exercise imagination, and to take up a critical attitude towards 

 supposed perfection of things as they happen to be. 



The most interesting part of the paper deals with the question of publi- 

 cation. How to reconcile the publicity without which research can make but 

 slow progress with the secrecy which the business man considers an essential 

 factor for his success. As a compromise, it is suggested that the publication 

 of any discoveries should be deferred for five years. One thing is quite certain : 

 if industrial research involves scientific obscurity, a very valuable stimulus 



