CxOLD IN SCIENCE AND IN INDUSTRY." 



By G. T. Beilby, F. R. S., President of Chemical Section of the British Asso- 



ciatiou.6 



In scanning the list of the elements with which we are thoughtfully 

 supplied every year by the international connnittee on atomic 

 weights, the direction in which our thoughts are led will depend on 

 tlie i)articular aspect of chemical study which happens to interest 

 us at the time. Putting from our minds on the present occasion the 

 attractive speculations on atomic constitution and disiutegration with 

 which we have all become at least superficially familiar during the 

 past few years, let us try to scan this list from the point of view of the 

 "• plain man " rather than from that of the expert chemist. Even 

 a rudimentary knowledge will be sufficient to enable our " plain 

 man " to divide the elements broadly into two groups — the actually 

 useful and the doubtfully useful or useless. Without going into 

 detail we may take it that about two-thirds w^ould be admitted into 

 the first group and one-third into the second. It must, I think, be 

 regarded as a very remarkable fact that of the 80 elements which 

 have had the intrinsic stability to enable them to survive the prodi- 

 gious forces which must have been concerned in the evolution of the 

 physical imiverse, so large a proportion are endowed with char- 

 acteristic properties which could ill have been spared either from the 

 laboratories of nature or from those of the arts and sciences. Even 

 if one-third of the elements are to be regarded as waste products or 

 failures, there is here no counterpart to the reckless prodigality of 

 n.'iture in the ]3rocesses of organic evolution. 



If we exclude those elements which participate directly and indi- 

 rectly in the structure and functions of the organic w^orld, there are 



a Address to the Chemical Section of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, South Africa, 1905. 



6 Reprinted, by permission, from The Chemical News, Ijondon, vol. 02, Xo. 

 2.SS7. AuiTust 25, 1905. The illustrations referred to were not reproduced in 

 the printed address. 



215 



