18 69. J Practical Scient/fie Research. 47 



carried out unless they are insured in some way by the action 

 and at the cost of the general community. The exact line of this 

 practical distinction will, in all probability, be found to be settled by 

 the need for expensive apphances, permanently appropriated build- 

 ings, and continuous action steadily sustained through long periods. 

 These are the conditions which private enterprise cannot and, 

 excepting in the rarest instances, will not provide, and which will 

 not be furnished unless they are suppHed on the urgent call of an 

 enlightened community sensible of their need. To take as one 

 prominent instance of the field that has to be occupied by system 

 and organization : How numerous are the sustained investigations 

 that are required into the properties of the various materials em- 

 ployed in the useful arts ! Who can yet explain the thousand 

 ■forms which are assumed by iron, and the thousand changes the 

 metal undergoes under the slightest variety of handling? all of 

 which have direct bearings upon the economies, and, in these recent 

 days of multiplied marvels, even upon the safety of human life. The 

 ordinary alloys of the mechanic — brass, gun-metal, bell-metal, and 

 their congeners, — are all universally cast by the rule of thumb. 

 Upon a recent occasion, when it was found to be highly desirable 

 to introduce large castings of aluminium bronze into the frames of 

 the large theodolites prepared to bear the strain of central stations 

 of observation in the Indian Geodetical Survey, this was done to a 

 considerable degree with the most promising etfect, but it was found 

 to be absolutely impracticable to carry the princij^le out to the 

 desired extent, on account of the want of all appliances for dealing 

 with such masses of a new alloy. In yet higher branches of the 

 application of science, man is still more in the dark. The most 

 intelligent mechanics at this moment know literally nothing as 

 to what is the best material for the construction of the linear 

 measures, on the truthfulness of which all the value of geodetical 

 measures depends ; neither can they say whether any material that 

 can be employed for this purpose mil retain its dimensions and 

 co-efficient of expansion unaltered through long intervals of time. 

 This one investigation alone requires a special building devoted to 

 the task, and long years of close, continuous, and systematic obser- 

 vation. If there were such a thing as a building properly devised 

 and prejjared for investigating generally the properties of the 

 metals, fresh work and useful results would never fail it, so long as 

 metals are used by man. The course that has been taken by the 

 Prussians in forming the Hoffmann Laboratory at Berlin is cer- 

 tainly one which may be accepted as an example of one way in 

 which the forward movement of science may be quickened without 

 entaihng any risk of doing harm as well as good. If buildings 

 designed for special work were placed not in, but accessibly near, 

 to the largest and most important towns of the kingdom, combining 



