Annual Report of the Council. xxxix 



a short time he went to Holland in charge of a Le Blanc soda 

 works, and it was at this period he examined and convinced 

 himself of the possibilities of the ammonia-soda process of the 

 brothers Solvay. Returning to England he persuaded Mr. J, T. 

 Brunner to enter into partnership with him to carrry out the 

 Solvay process. After a few years of engineering and experi- 

 mental difficulties the commercial success of the Winnington 

 works was triumphantly established, and it has since become 

 one of the largest alkali works in the world. 



Dr. Mond's endeavours to recover the chlorine, run to waste 

 in the Solvay process, led to great improvements in the Weldon- 

 Pechiney "magnesia" method, and incidentally to the discovery 

 of nickei-carbonyl — a discovery which Mond elaborated into a 

 commercial process for the extraction of nickel from its ores 

 now carried out by the Mond Nickel Company at Swansea. 



Another industry we owe to Dr. Mond is the production of a 

 cheap power-gas from coal, so effected that the nitrogen of the 

 coal is largely made available as ammonia. 



Those who had the pleasure of Dr. Mond's friendship knew 

 him as a man of artistic tastes, of broad-minded and enlightened 

 views, and of a generous hospitality. His house near the Regent's 

 Park in London — adorned with splendid paintings by early 

 Italian masters — was a rendezvous for British and foreign men of 

 science. There are many in the ranks of pure chemistry, and of 

 chemical industry who owe their position to timely help given 

 them by Dr. Mond ; and his aid and encouragement were given 

 to many scientific institutions and laboratories, among which 

 may specifically be mentioned the laboratory erected in the Owens 

 College as a memorial to his friend. Professor Schorlemmer. But 

 the two benefactions which stand out as remarkable even among 

 Dr. Mond's generous gifts to science are the Davy-Faraday 

 Research Laboratory, which he equipped and endowed, and the 

 fund for completing the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific 

 Papers. Dr. Mond never sought for honours, though he accepted 

 the distinctions awarded him by Universities and Scientific 

 Societies. Some years ago he was pressed to accept the 



