February i8, 191 5] 



NATURE 



679 



The absolutely fresh flesh is used to form whale 

 meat meal, a nutritious and wholesome food-stuff, 

 containing- 17^^ per cent, proteid, largely used for 

 feeding cattle. From the remaining- flesh and 

 about a third of the bones whale guano is made ; 

 and from bones alone, bone meal. 



The modern whaling operations were started 

 by Captain C. A. Larsen in 1904 ; and his satis- 

 factory results led to the formation of a large 

 number of companies, which now carry on, in 

 the dependencies of the Falkland Islands, the 

 largest whaling- business in the world. The season 

 from November i, 1912, until the end of April, 

 191 3, yielded, at South Georgia, about 5000 whales 

 (52 per cent, humpbacks, about 42 per cent, 

 finners, and about 6 per cent, blue whales). These 

 produced about 200,000 barrels of oil and about 

 8000 tons of guano. At the South Shetlands and 

 Graham Land the much shorter season yielded 

 also about 5000 whales ; at the South Orkneys the 

 still shorter season yielded about 800 whales ; at 

 the Falkland Islands only 87 whales were brought 

 in. The total production was about 430,000 

 barrels of oil — more than half the world's output 

 for that season — and 8375 tons of guano, the gross 

 value being about 1,350,000?. sterling-. The 

 industry gives employment to about 3500 men. 

 The report is a business-like document, very 

 lucidly presented by one who evidently knows 

 what he is talking about. No indication is given 

 of the probabilities of continuance. We hope 

 that the shortness of the season will suffice to 

 give the finners a chance for many a year to 



CHEMISTRY AND IXDUSTRY. 



WE live in an age of specialisation ; in no era 

 has the statement that " monomania is the 

 secret of success " approached more closely to 

 the truth. Business is an instinct, chemistry a 

 science, and although it is conceivable that it is 

 of advantage for the chemist to possess some 

 business instinct, and for the business man to 

 have some knowledge of chemistry, the combina- 

 tion in one person of acute business instinct and 

 scientific genius is so rare as to be negligible. 

 Both these great qualities are needed for the solu- 

 tion of our industrial problems — the nation lacks 

 neither the one nor the other, but they reside in 

 different individuals who possess entirely different 

 types of mind. Co-ordination is the sole solution. 



It has been stated that the German chemical 

 industries have been built up by men who possess 

 both business acumen and scientific ability. This 

 is not the case. Men of science, such as Caro, 

 Bernthsen, Glaser, and Graebe, and business men 

 such as Briinck, have collaborated, and the col- 

 laboration has been successful. 



Again, it is remarkable that this country should 

 have adopted the view that there is some essential 

 difference between the scientific chemist and the 

 technologist; the former is dubbed "theorist," 

 and is ignored; the latter is the "practical man," 



NO. 2364, VOL. 94] 



and is belauded. One of the chief reasons for 

 German success lies in the fact that they have 

 realised that the terms man of science and tech- 

 nologist are complementary, that the one must 

 discover while the other adapts. 



No chemical process, unless it is based on mere 

 rule of thumb, can be discovered without the aid 

 of the knowledge and exjjerience which can only 

 be gained by many years of scientific training. 

 Such discoveries have to be made and worked 

 out, in the first instance, on the laboratory- scale, 

 and this is the province of the scientific chemist- 

 The discovery having been made, and the con- 

 ditions for production, dictated by considerations 

 of economy, having been determined, it is then 

 the business of the technologist to adapt the 

 process to commercial conditions. It is the lack 

 of a true appreciation of these matters which has 

 hampered the development of scientific industry in 

 this country, especially in those directions in which 

 highly trained specialised knowledge is required. 



At the present time many potentially useful 

 discoveries are made in the chemical laboratories 

 of our universities, university colleges, and tech- 

 nical schools, and there are isolated instances in 

 which enlightened manufacturers have made use 

 of them, but in the majority of cases the scientific 

 worker has found by sad experience that little 

 financial profit accrues to him even though he 

 goes to the trouble of obtaining patent protection. 

 He is so rarely a man of business that, if he co- 

 operates with a manufacturing firm, his elimina- 

 tion, from a financial point of view, is usually an 

 easy matter. In consequence, the greater number 

 of scientific chemists, to whom the joy of dis- 

 covery is everything, and the adaptation of minor 

 importance, prefer to publish their discoveries in 

 the scientific periodicals, where they serve as useful 

 suggestions to others both at home and abroad. 



This unfortunate and wasteful condition of 

 affairs can be altered if some body in authority 

 would undertake to organise the scientific ability 

 which is available in our educational institutions. 

 The function of this organising body would be to 

 receive from and to make suggestions to manu- 

 facturing firms, and to allot the problems to the 

 scientific laboratories. The scheme would in no 

 way affect the works laboratory, which would still 

 fulfil its proper function of adapting the scientific 

 details to commercial conditions. Moreover, the 

 works laboratory could be recruited from the 

 scientific laboratory, as is the case in Germany, 

 by the enrolment of those men who show them- 

 selves fitted by temperament for such work. 



It must not be imagined that this article is in 

 any way a plea for the curtailment of research 

 in pure science, which means research of a purely 

 abstract kind, having for its object the discovery 

 of the natural laws underlying the science, and 

 which is, of course, absolutely indispensable. It 

 is merely stupid to decry this form of research or 

 to speak of its apparent lack of utility ; if the 

 laws of organic chemistry had not been determined 

 by abstract research there would have been no 

 coal-tar industry. 



