94 TWENTV-FIVE YEARS OF CHEMICAL INVESTIGATION. 



I have not been at all satisfied ; and so others, taking their cue 

 from my unconcealed dissatisfaction, have straightway raced 

 ahead and said in effect : " Yes, we have done too little research ; 

 let us push on and get to some practical results." Precisely ; 

 that is just where the fault lies. We are striving to approach 

 our problems from the standpoint of the art rather than from 

 that of the science. The old, exclusively utilitarian tendency is 

 still there, as strong as ever, 'but unless we are careful it is 

 merely going to masquerade in a dress labelled " Research " — 

 a dress showily ornamented so as to strike tlie popular eye, very 

 different in aspect from the sober hues by which true research 

 is characterised. 



In view, then of the false position that is being thus created, 

 and the misleading issues that have been raised, it is my inten- 

 tion, on this occasion, briefly to review some of the plodding 

 work that has been accomplished, step by step, along the line 

 of chemical investigation in the Cape Province, Before passing 

 on to this phase of my paper more definitely, let me einphasise 

 the fact that scientific investigation is of necessity always plod- 

 ding, whether, like Professor Hertz, we attempt to deflect electro- 

 magnetic waves by means of zinc sheets and so all unconsciously 

 pave the way for the wireless telegraphy of to-day, or whether, 

 in a country where nothing of the kind has ever been done 

 before, we do the despised, humdrum, and, as some call it, 

 routine work of chemically analysing one sample of water after 

 another, until afterwards, when we have thus accumulated many 

 thousands of such analyses from different localities and sources, 

 we collate our figures and find ourselves face to face with 

 numbers of interesting, important, and it may be even far- 

 reaching — yes, let me add that word — practical conclusions. In 

 this time of national organisation in South Africa I would say 

 with all deliberation, if we want real chemical investigation, 

 and not a sham that will merely catch the eye of the populace 

 and tickle the popular imagination, there is no branch of chemical 

 science that we can aft'ord to ignore. We should recognise the 

 cohesion that exists, and the solidarity, so to speak, of the whole 

 chemical body, in which the eye cannot do without the hand, 

 nor the hand without the foot. 



And now I shall pass on. To begin with, let me just give 

 some figures to show the extent of the work that has been done 

 in the Cape Laboratories from 1891, when they were placed 

 under my charge, up to the close of 19 10. The total number of 

 articles that were chemically analysed during that period is 

 37,982. Of these, 11,324 were milk, 1.820 were water, 1,849 

 were brandy, 1,573 wine, 1,146 soils, 1,347 vinegar, 883 were 

 rocks assayed for gold, 852 were samples of butter, 507 were 

 fertilisers, 267 were sheep and cattle dips, 331 were coal; there 

 were 159 cases of poisoning investigated; 114 specimens of sul- 

 phur imported for the treatment of oidium in vines and for 

 sheep-dips were examined, and 91 samples of common salt, the 

 produce of the Union. In addition to these, 15.719 other articles 



