476 



NATURE 



[December 9, 1920 



upon cultivation, to a reduction in the cost of 

 production. The importance of the matter to an 

 industry consuming \\ million tons of fuel in a 

 year can be readily appreciated. 



It is obvious, therefore, that a very wide field 

 lies before the British Portland Cement Research 

 Association, and the scope both for scientific and 

 for industrial research is ample warrant for the 

 existence of the association for some years to 

 come. 



The British I^ortland Cement Research Associa- 

 tion was incorporated in November, 1918, and had 

 the advantag-e of being founded upon the research 

 department of the two largest cement manufac- 

 turers in the country. This research department 

 had been in existence for five years, and had 

 gathered together an experienced staff and a valu- 

 able equipment of scientific apparatus, while the 

 large amount of spade-work that had been done 

 has proved of great value to the association. 

 Both staff and equipment were taken over 

 entire, so that no time had to be spent in 

 organisation, and research was in progress 

 from the first day of the association's existence. 



The council of the association has addressed 

 itself in the first instance mainly to the industrial 

 side of research, and the chief activity, has been 

 the investigation of the thermal efficiency of rotary 

 kilns. The basis of this investigation has been 

 the fact that the consumption of fuel in an ideal 

 kiln for cement calcination would be no more than 

 15 per cent., compared with the 30 to 40 per cent, 

 consumptions which are prevalent in actual prac- 

 tice to-day. 



Another prominent subject of investigation has 

 been the mechanics of pulverising and grinding, 

 and the importance of this will be realised when 

 it is stated that, as a rule, the production of Fort- 

 land cement involves reducing to powder three 

 materials with a total weight three times that 

 of the final product, the power so absorbed rang- 

 ing from 60 to 150 h. p. -hours per ton of cement. 



A feature of investigations of this nature has 

 been the commercial scale upon which they have 

 been undertaken, involving the presence of the 

 research staff of engineers and chemists upon the 

 factories of one or other of the members of the 

 association, and this intimate corinection with the 

 practical side of the industry has been of value in 

 preventing research becoming too academic and 

 too far removed from practical issues. 



The purely scientific side, however, has not 

 been neglected, and in the laboratories of the 

 association at Greenhithe researches upon the 

 setting of cement, the influence of raw materials 

 upon cement, and other chemical subjects are in 

 progress, while an experimental grinding mill 

 has also been set up in the laboratory. 



.The aim of the association may be briefly sum- 

 marised as an attempt to cheapen the production 

 and to improve the quality of cement, and the 

 achievement of this aim cannot fail to benefit the 

 consumer while tending to stabilise the British 

 industry. 



The hearty co-operation of British manu- 

 facturers in this enterprise is shown by the fact 

 that more than 90 per cent, of their number are 

 members of the association. 



Obituary. 



Sir William Abnev, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



ANOTHER of the conspicuous leaders of 

 liritish science who rendered the latter part 

 of the nineteenth century and the commencement 

 of the twentieth so famous as a time of remark- 

 able progress, and whose name was almost a 

 household word throughout the land, passed away 

 on December 2 in the charming and unique per- 

 sonality of Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney. Sir 

 William Crookes, Sir Norman Lockyer, and now 

 Sir William Abney — the recent months have in- 

 deed been heavy with fate for that glorious band 

 of scientific workers, and the only consolation that 

 these severe losses in the front rank leave with 

 us is the knowledge that their great work was 

 done, that their last paper, was written with all 

 their full mental powers, and that they passed 

 away, at a ripe age truly, but before anv failure 

 of their great master minds became evident to the 

 world at large. 



Sir William Abney will ever be remembered, 

 especially under his better-known earlier designa- 

 tion as Capt. Abney, for four things in par- 

 ticular : for his great services to the nation and to 

 the cause of science in the Department of Science 

 and Art at South Kensington ; for his researches 

 NO. 2667, VOL. 106] 



on the infrrf-red of the spectrum, leading on to his 

 masterly use of the spectrum in regard to colour 

 vision and colour measurement ; for his develop- 

 ment of photography into an exact science ; and 

 for his studies of the forms of ice and snow in 

 the high Alps. Those of us who had the great 

 privilege of attending his lectures on colour and 

 its measurement at the Royal College of Science, 

 where for many years he was occasional lecturer 

 in physics, will ever regard those hours as among 

 the most delightful and thoroughly enjoyable ever 

 spent in a lecture-room. They were brilliant, not 

 for what was said so much as for what was done, 

 for the experiments were ever most elegant, beau- 

 tiful, and even exquisite as regards the pheno- 

 mena exhibited, and marked by an originality 

 which was the direct outcome of a most original 

 mind. It was a still greater privilege to be able 

 to follow him into his research laboratory, and to 

 see something of the most fascinating experimental 

 work going on there, with the aid of his devoted 

 assistant, Mr. Walter Bradfield, and which at fre- 

 quent intervals resulted in a paper to the Royal 

 Society, of w-hich Sir William was elected a fellow 

 so early as the year 1876. 



Yet perhaps the most charming side of Sir 



