1922] on The Internal Combustion Engine 593 



aid in money, apparatus, advice, and encouragement to any individual 

 worker who has ideas and is qualified to carry on a research alone or 

 under direction. This is a great national asset. But above 

 all, so far as the petrol engine is concerned, there is a powerful 

 organisation for Research within the Air Ministry itself, under the 

 supervision of Air-Marshal Sir Geoffrey Salmond (known as the 

 Director-General of Supply and Research), and under the immediate 

 direction of Brigadier-General Bagnall-Wild, officially known as the 

 Director of Research. The Air Ministry is advised by the Aero- 

 nautical Research Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Richard 

 Glazebrook. This Committee has grown from the old Aeronautical 

 Advisory Committee of the late Lord Raleigh. AVork of the highest 

 scientific value is now in progress at the National Physical Labora- 

 tory, at Farn borough, and at other places under the direction of the 

 Ministry. 



All I have done here is to hint at some of the work now going 

 on at the National Physical Laboratory ; it would take a whole 

 evening merely to epitomise the researches in progress at that institu- 

 tion. Farnborough is now entirely a research establishment in its 

 widest sense, for it is organised both for laboratory and for full-scale 

 work. Work on the internal combustion engine has reached a mag- 

 nitude and an intensity undreamt of before the war. The war has, 

 in fact, shown that the internal combustion engine from being merely 

 a convenient prime mover to put in our motor cars, to drive our 

 workshops, or even our ships, has become an engine vital to our very 

 existence. The Aeronautical Research Committee realises this, and so 

 does the Air Ministry. Let us hope that the nation will realise it too, 

 and that in the need and passion for economy our legislators will not 

 starve research on this nationallv vital prime mover. 



[W. E. D.] 



