1919] Liquid Oxygen in Warfare 591 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, January 17, 1919. 



Colonel E. H. (Irove-Hills, C.M.G. O.B.E. D.Sc. F.R.S.,, 

 Secretary and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Sir James Dbwar, M.A. LL.D. D.Sc. F.R.S. M.R.I., 



Fullerian Professor of Chemistry. 



Liquid Oxygen in Warfare. 



By a resokition of the Managers of the Royal Institution on July 5,. 

 1915, it was decided that the Professoriate and Staff should be at the 

 disposal of the Government, so far as they could usefully direct their 

 attention to help in the prosecution of the war. Some of the work 

 described is a result of this Resolution : all costs being borne by the- 

 Royal Institution. 



When comparing the general aspect of the growth of chemical 

 industry in England and in Germany in the Presidential address 

 delivered to the British Association at Belfast in 1902, it was pointed 

 out that, notwithstanding the immense range of industries in the 

 United Kingdom and the abundance of raw material at our disposal, 

 we could not, at that time, show more than one-third of the pro- 

 fessional staff employed in Germany. The appalling fact was not 

 that Germany had seized one or tw^o Chemical Industries, but that 

 the Germans had reached a point of general training and specialised 

 equipment that would take us two generations of hard educational 

 work to attain.'"' 



PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF LOW TEMPERATURE RESEARCH. 



Tlie liquefaction of oxygen by previous compression at the- 

 temperature of liquid ethylene in the Laboratories of the Royal 

 Institution in 1884 f was followed by the introduction of commercial 

 methods of producing liquid atmospheric air from which oxygen 

 was obtained by fractional distillation. Of the total production of 

 about 120 tons of liquid air per day in this country, 53 per cent, 

 was used in the oxy-acetylene l)lowpipe for cutting armour plates and 

 for welding. Some photographs were exhibited illustrating how these- 

 operations were carried out by the British Oxygen Company. 



* Note, 1922. — The Lecturer has lived to see one generation pass and 

 we are now only beginning our labours. — J. D. 

 t Proc. Roy. Inst., xi. 148. 



Vol. XXII. (No. 113) 2 s 



