1 8 president's address. 



The electrical energ^^ is obtained from water-power. It is re- 

 markable that in the United States, where there is much water- 

 power available, there was not a single factory of the above 

 type when America entered the war. South Africa has many 

 rivers furnishing waterfalls of no mean size, but none of these 

 has hitherto been utilised in this direction. 



The other commercial method for the fixation of nitrogen 

 is also dei)sndent upon electrical action. Water is decom43osed 

 into its constituent elements by electrolysis, and under great 

 pressure at high temperature the hydrogen is made to combine, 

 in the presence of a catalyst, with nitrogen produced by the frac- 

 tional distillation of liquid air, and thus forms ammonia. To 

 the practical operation of this process is largely due the fact 

 that Germany has still the means of manufacturing explosives. 

 The ammonia produced as above is converted into nitric acid, 

 also by catalytic agency in the presence of atmospheric air, and 

 nitric acid is the chemical basis of all explosives. 



Before the introduction of these methods the far greater 

 power-consuming process of Birkeland and Eyde, first commer- 

 cially practised in the neighbourhood of the Niagara Falls, and 

 subsequently developed in Scandinavia, played a great part in 

 bringing within Germany's reach the potentiality of producing 

 enormous quantities of nitric acid, and it was to the perception 

 of this potentiality by Germany that the present war was due, 

 for then began to be Jaid the foundations of the scheme of 

 munition production which in turn made it possible for Ger- 

 many to embark on a definite war policy. 



That this was actually the position is now thoroughly well 

 recognised amongst chemists all the world over. The President 

 of the Ohio Academy of Science put the facts in a nutshell at 

 the Columbus meeting- a year ago, when he said, in the course 

 of an address on " The relation of war to chemistry," that, with 

 British control of the seas, German armies with all their num- 

 bers, thorough equipment, and solendid military power, would 

 have been impotent in a few weeks or months without the chem- 

 ical ability to get nitric acid from atmospheric nitrogen instead 

 of from Chilean nitrate, for without nitric acid high explosives, 

 and even smokeless powder, are impossible.* 



The class of investigation that finds most favour amongst 

 Governments and populace in Britain and her dependencies to- 

 day is that which is commonly known by the name of " Indus- 

 trial Research." The reason of this is of course quite plain : 

 both officials and public are capable of grasping the direct benefits 

 of applied science and technologv. and hence technological inves- 

 tigation is frequently favoured in quarters where pure scientific 

 research is despised. 



Obviously we cannot make any real advance in scientific 

 investigation or research unless we have adequate facilities, 

 qualified workers, well-equipped laboratories. Naturally all this 



* Ohio Joiinil. of Science. (igiS). 18 [3], 70. 



