114 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF CHEMICAL I NVESTICATION. 



not misunderstand me: the mere aimless accumulation of data 

 will probably be expensive and lead to nothing, but where routine 

 work is in any case essential, the safeguarding and husbanding 

 of its results may prove so valuable that it will be unwise and 

 improvident to leave them where they can never be made use 

 of for the general benefit. Let us not think, in our anxiety to 

 get on with the superstructure, that we are wasting time on 

 the foundations, because they are under the surface and out 

 of sight, and so do not glint in the sunshine : they constitute a 

 part of the building that we cannot afford to treat cavalierly 

 'because we wish to make a show with our granite and marble 

 above. A single plant that has developed upon its own roots 

 has a better prospect of enduring than a whole collection of cut 

 flowers which for mere show are tied to sticks loosely stuck in 

 the ground. Even foundations and roots, though underground, 

 must be admitted to be of value, and it was because I wished 

 to demonstrate something of that value and to illus- 

 trate how easily commonplace or routine work in chemical 

 analyses — all the more if it be pioneer work in an unexplored 

 country — directly connect with and point the way to investi- 

 gations which appeal to the popular imagination with greater 

 force that I was led to record these few phases of our work 

 during the last quarter century. 



International Congress of Applied Chemistry. — The 

 eighth International Congress of Applied Chemistry will be held 

 in Washington and New York from the 4th to the 13th Sep- 

 tember, 191 2, under the patronage of the President of the 

 United States. The Congress will be presided over by Dr. 

 W. H. Nicholls. The Secretary is Dr. B. C. Hesse. 25, Broad 

 Street. New York City, and the Secretary of the British Or- 

 ganising Committee is Mr. C. G. Cresswell. Society of Chemical 

 Industry. Palace Chambers, Westminster, London, S.W.. from 

 whom a preliminary pamphlet may be obtained. The Congress 

 will ibe divided into the following sections and suibsections : 

 Analytical Chemistry. Inorganic Chemistry. ^letallurgy and 

 Mining. Explosives, Silicate Industries, Organic Chemistry, Coal- 

 tar colours and dye-stuffs, Industry and Chemistry of sugar, 

 Indiarubber and other plastics. Fviels and asphalt. Eats, fatty 

 oils and soaps. Paints, drying oils and varnishes. Starch, cellulose 

 and paper, Eermentation. Agricultural Chemistry, Hygiene, 

 Phannaceutical Chemistry, Bromatology and Pharmacology. 

 Photo-chemistry, Electro-chemistry. Physical Chemistry. Law and 

 legislation affecting Chemrcal industry. Political economy and 

 conservation of natural resources. Papers will be accepted for 

 reading and discussion in all these sections, preference being- 

 given to those specially adapted for international discussion ; 

 these must be sent in not later than July ist. igi2. It is under- 

 stood that the Government of the Union of South Africa has 

 ibeen approached with a view to a delegate being sent to attend 

 the Congress. 



