610 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



In other directions the character of the two diverged some- 

 what. Roscoe was in one way or another somewhat of a public 

 man, both in his capacity as an educational reformer and as a 

 member of Parliament; Meldola, on the other hand, was of a 

 rather more retiring disposition, and after he had relinquished 

 his technical posts in order to accept the Professorship of 

 Chemistry at the City and Guilds College, his tendency was 

 rather to keep to his scientific studies, though he also was not 

 averse to making himself heard by the larger audience outside 

 his lecture-room if he thought the occasion demanded it. In 

 any case it is much to be regretted that owing to the short- 

 sightedness and ignorance of chemical manufacturers in this 

 country, Meldola decided to relinquish his technical career, 

 and confine himself to the more academic branches of his sub- 

 ject ; on this point Lord Moulton in his preface expresses him- 

 self clearly : 



" To my mind it was little less than a calamity that Prof. 

 Meldola in the prime of his life left industrial chemistry to 

 become Professor of Chemistry at the Finsbury Technical 

 College. But in heart he remained an industrial chemist to 

 the end of his life. And in truth he had no choice. Industrial 

 chemists of his type were a drug on the market. No career 

 was open to them, and perforce they had to take to teaching." 



Both Sir Henry Roscoe and Prof. Meldola, though not 

 strictly speaking technical chemists, continued, however, during 

 their lives to take the greatest interest in the application of 

 chemistry in the arts and, so far as lay in their powers, en- 

 deavoured to assist the retarded development of chemical 

 industry in this country : indeed the slightest study of the lives 

 and activities of these two eminent representatives of chemical 

 science is indissolubly bound up with the history of chemical 

 industry ; both endeavoured unceasingly to call attention to 

 the grave public dangers attendant on our national neglect 

 of science, particularly chemical science, and both lived to see 

 their worst fears realised when the outbreak of the present war 

 found this mighty empire almost without dyes or drugs, without 

 high explosives or sufficient supplies of acids or coal-tar products 

 for their manufacture, minus tungsten for high-speed steel 

 (with which to make the tools for preparing the much-needed 

 shells and munitions) or thorium for our gas-mantles, without 



