476 



NATURE 



[December 30, 1915 



individuals who have acquired the pack habit. 

 Yet while we cannot but admire the instinct for 

 individual action thus displayed, it must be con- 

 fessed that success in modern conflicts — military 

 or industrial — is mostly commanded by disciplined 

 forces organised for co-operative effort against the 

 common enemy. 



At a meeting of the London Section of the 

 Society of Chemical Industry held during Novem- 

 ber, a long discussion took place on Dr. M. O. 

 Forster's suggestion that a chemical intelligence 

 department should be instituted by the Govern- 

 ment as a branch of the Board of Trade. 

 Although the majority of speakers agreed that 

 an organisation for chemical industry was neces- 

 sary, there appeared to be a disinclination to 

 entrust the Government with control of this de- 

 partment. A scheme for a co-operative organisa- 

 tion established by the chemical industry itself 

 had already been advocated in September by the 

 Chemical Trade Journal. This development, 

 although a consummation devoutly to be wished, 

 scarcely seems practicable in view of the separatist 

 tendencies which still manifest themselves from 

 time to time, both in the chemical profession and 

 among chemical industrialists. 



After the war much of the plant newly erected 

 for the manufacture of high explosives will be 

 available for the production of synthetic dyes and 

 other fine chemicals. The relationship between 

 these factories and the existing chemical works 

 will need to be dealt with sympathetically and 

 impartially by a competent authority, otherwise 

 much loss of capital and energy will ensue as 

 the result of competition between organisations 

 working on similar lines. The elimination of this 

 internal friction in our chemical industries would 

 be a useful function of the suggested chemical 

 intelligence department. 



Many reasons have been advanced to explain 

 our inability to develop the industries based on 

 chemical synthesis. Taken separately, these 

 factors are inadequate to account for the failure. 

 Collectively they are effects of a fundamental cause 

 discovered in early- Victorian times by Justus von 

 Liebig, who, after a visit to these islands, declared 

 roundly that "England ist nicht das Land des 

 Wissenschaftes." One may well ask what chance 

 have we of reforming in this respect? A gleam 

 of hope arises from the following consideration. 

 Formerly the advantages of a German university 

 training were confined to 185 1 Exhibitioners and 

 to a few of the more well-to-do among us. To-day 

 considerably more than a million of our fellow 

 NO. 2409, VOL. 96] 



countrymen, drawn at an impressionable age from 

 every station in life, are pursuing their scientific 

 studies at an open-air German university under 

 conditions which compel their undivided attention. 

 Many of them realise very forcibly that the ad- 

 vantages possessed by their enemy instructors are 

 due entirely to scientific organisation. When our 

 soldier-students return to civil life will they insist 

 upon scientific control of all national affairs? In 

 that possibility lies our strong hope. 



THE MOLECULAR VOLUMES OF 

 LIQUIDS. 

 The Molecular Volumes of Liquid Chemical Com- 

 pounds from the point of view of Kopp. By 

 G. Le Bas. Pp. xii + 275. (London: Long- 

 mans, Green and Co., 1915-) Price 75. 6d. net. 

 TO anyone interested in the progress and de- 

 velopment of science in this country, and 

 in the attitude of the general community towards 

 it, it is a significant and welcome sign that Eng- 

 lish publishers should now be found willing to 

 undertake the issue of highly specialised works of 

 the kind under review. For nothing would seem 

 more clearly to indicate the spirit which is gradu- 

 ally coming over the community than the fact 

 that there should be a demand, even if limited, for 

 such a book. No doubt this demand has been 

 stimulated by the influence of the more active and 

 progressive teachers in our universities and lead- 

 ing schools of science. This series of mono- 

 graphs on biochemistry, physics, and inorganic 

 and physical chemistry, comprising up to now 

 some three dozen volumes, each the work of an 

 eminent specialist, marks a new departure in the 

 scientific literature of this country. The books are 

 not text-books in the ordinary sense; that is, 

 they are not intended to be used in or to accom- 

 pany class-teaching. They are addressed mainly 

 to those who have already passed through lecture- 

 room courses, and who before embarking upon 

 the work of investigation in some particular 

 branch of experimental inquiry are desirous of 

 making themselves acquainted with the present 

 state of knowledge in that special department. 

 Their publication at the present time is most 

 opportune. 



The titles of some of the volumes may not, at 

 first sight, suggest that they have any practical 

 bearing upon the problems with which we are 

 more immediately confronted. But to disparage 

 them on this account is to take a very restricted 

 view of their utility. As they deal, for the 

 most part, with what may be called frontier — 

 or pioneering — work, they are of the very greatest 

 use to those who are bent upon exploratory 



