1901.] on the Aims of the National Physical Laboratory. 659 



The floor space available is much less than that of the Reichs- 

 anstalt. But size alone is not an unmixed advantage ; there is much 

 to be said in favour of gradual growth and development, provided the 

 conditions are such as to favour growth. Personally I should prefer 

 to begin in a small way if only I felt sure I was in a position to do 

 the work thoroughly: but there is danger of starvation. Even with 

 all the help we get in freedom from rent and taxes, outside repairs 

 and maintenance, the sum at the disposal of the committee is too 

 small. 



Science is not yet regarded as a commercial factor in England. 

 Is there no one who realises the importance of the alliance, who will 

 come forward with more ample funds to start us on our course with 

 a fair prospect of success ? One candid friend has recently told us 

 in print that the new institution is on such a microscopic scale that 

 its utility in the present struggle is more than doubtful. Is there 

 no statesman who can grasp the position and see that with, say, 

 double the income the chances of our doing a great work would be 

 increased a hundredfold ? 



The problems we have to solve are hard enough : give us means to 

 employ the best men and we will answer them ; starve us and then 

 quote our failure as showing the uselessness of science applied to 

 industry ! 



There is some justice in the criticism of one of our technical 

 papers. I have recently been advertising for assistants, and a paper 

 in whose columns the advertisement appears writes, " The scale of 

 pay is certainly not extravagant. It is, however, possible that the 

 duties will be correspondingly light." 



Now let me illustrate these aims by a more detailed account of 

 some of the problems of industry which have been solved by the 

 application of science, and then of some others which remain un- 

 solved and which the Laboratory hopes to attack. The story of the 

 Jena Glass Works is most interesting ; I will take it first. 



An exhibition of scientific apparatus took place in London in 

 1876. Among the visitors to this was Professor Abbe, of Jena, and 

 in a report he wrote on the optical apparatus he called attention to 

 the need for progress in the art of glass making if the microscope 

 were to advance, and to the necessity for obtaining glasses having a 

 different relation between dispersion and refractive index than that 

 found in the material at the disposal of opticians. Stokes and 

 Harcourt had already made attempts in this direction, but with no 

 marked success. 



In 1881 Abbe and Schott, at Jena, started their work. Their 

 undertaking, they write five years later in the first catalogue of 

 their factory, arose out of a scientific investigation into the connec- 

 tion between the optical properties of solid amorphous fluxes and 

 their chemical constitution. When they began their work, some six 

 elements only entered into the composition of glass. By 1888 it 

 had been found possible to combine with these, in quantities up to 



2x2 



