MAt 1 6', 191^] 



NATURE' 



207 



||r6 creation 'of a department to act as an inter- 

 niediar'y between the scientific branches df the 

 kiniversities and technical colleges and the various 

 industries, for carrying out scientific and technical 

 researches that may be of value to the latter, and 

 the Union has issued an appeal to industries to 

 submit their problems and difficulties to it 

 for the purpose of having these investigated by 

 competent scientific authorities whom the above- 

 named department is in a position to select. It 

 is rather disquieting to find that the German 

 method of attacking the question is an individual- 

 istic one to the extent that it is the industries 

 themselves and the scientific and technical institu- 

 tions which propose to find the necessary funds 

 and to provide the means of solving their own diffi- 

 culties, whilst we in this country, who have 

 hitherto been proud of our individualistic principles, 

 which have ever formed the basis of Britain's in- 

 dustrial greatness, are content to sink our in- 

 dividualism and to ask a Government Department 

 to solve our industrial problems for us. 



The German Iron and Steel Institute has taken 

 a prominent part in the extension of ! the research 

 movement. This institute joined the above-men- 

 tioned Union of Technical Scientific Societies at 

 an early stage, and took an active . share in its ' 

 formation ; it has furthermore founded a re- 

 ■search institution of its own for the investigation 

 of problems connected with iron arid steel manu-, 

 facture. Here, again, it is characteristic of the 

 quite modern trend of German methods that the 

 iron and steel industry proposes to provide prac- 

 tically the wfiole of the important funds required 

 for such an institution, whilst the town in which 

 this is to be built wiir have to provide a suitable 

 building site and a contribution to the cost of 

 erecting the buildings. Although we in this, 

 country haye not been unmindful of the need for 

 applying scientific research to the numerous prob- 

 lems that arise in iron and steel' manufacture, . 

 we ha:ve attempted nothing on the scale of this 

 projected German institution to be devoted en- 

 tirely to this need. For example, the Alloys Re- 

 search Committee of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers had an excellent piece of work to its 

 credit. Thanks to the munificence of Mr. Andrew 

 Carnegie, our own Iron and Steel Institute, too, 

 has been enabled to assist and encourage research 

 for the past seventeen years; but this has been 

 done on quite different lines. The Carnegie Fund 

 enables scholarships to be awarded, the holders 

 conducting a specified research in the metallurgy 

 of iron and steel at any suitable university, tech- 

 nical school, or works, the results being com- 

 municated to the Iron and Steel Institute, and in 

 this way a great deal of useful and valuable work 

 has been done. It is unquestionable that an institu- 

 tion equipped and maintained for such researches 

 in any of our great metallurgical centres could do 

 even better work than is possible to workers widely 

 scattered, not provided with the best possible 

 equipment, arid each probably in ijgnorance, pf 

 what the' others are doing. It c^rinot ]^,,sugf- 

 gested that our irprx and .steel, ini^^stry i^- ^less 



NO. 2533, VOL. roil ' 



capable of providing the requisite funds, and, 

 seeing that every single important ' invention in 

 iron and steel manufacture has emanated from 

 this country, it cannot be supposed that British 

 metallurgists are less capable of conducting such 

 researches or of applying their results ; there 

 is therefore no reason whatever why we Ccinnot 

 do here what the Germans are proposing to do, 

 and do it at least as efficiently. 



The other movement, too, for a more intimate 

 union and a closer co-operation amongst the lead- 

 ing technical societies, is one that deserves equally 

 to be imitated in this country. The first step 

 ought to be joint action amongst our technical 

 societies, above all between those connected with 

 the mining, metallurgical, and allied industries, 

 the key industries of our national prosperity ; they 

 ought to have a joint building in which they could 

 all be housed, forming a common meeting place 

 for all, with suitable laboratories, and, in particu- 

 lar, one common library in which the whole of the 

 world's technological literature could be found 

 readily accessible to every student or inquirer. 

 Such a library alone would save as much time 

 and money, merely by avoiding the vast duplica- 

 tion of efforts that is now going on, as would 

 give an adequate return upon its cost, not to 

 mention the new vistas of study that it would open 

 up. A buildingof this kind already exists in New 

 York, where some" of the most important of the 

 technical and engineering societies are housed 

 under one roof, to their very. great mutual advan- 

 tage. If we had such a building in London It 

 might very beneficially shelter also the new Im- 

 perial Bureau of Mineral Resources, which would 

 become immensely more useful if it were thus in 

 close and constant touch with the chief technical 

 societies and through them with the . industries 

 themselves. The technical societies, on the other 

 hand, would gain by being able to communicate 

 directly with the Government Department wiih 

 which they would be chiefly concerned, and could 

 work with it whilst at' the same time preserving 

 their independence, thus gaining the advantage 

 of Government support without the risk of being 

 strangled by administrative red-tape. H. L. 



CONFERENCE OF UNIVERSITIES. 

 AN important conference which met at the 

 ^^ Imperial Institute on May 10 was attended 

 by about seventy representatives of the universities 

 of the United Kingdom and also by Mr. Joynt, 

 representing New Zealand, Prof. Bragg, represent- 

 ing the universities of Australia, President Tory, 

 representing the universities of Canada, and Prof. 

 Gilbert Murray, Acting-Director for the Board of 

 Eklucation of Special Inquiries and Reports. Sir 

 Donald Macalister was voted to the chair. 



Matters arising out of a private and preliminar}' 

 conference at the Foreign Office were considered. 

 A committee was appointed to advise the Goverij- 

 ment with regard to representatives of Britjsh 

 universities, to take part in Mr. Balfour'^s Mission. 

 tQ the ,L(nited States, The ,vice-)chancellor or 

 principal 9^ e^ch uniyer^ty,.prja, deputy appointed 



