494 



NATURE 



[August 22, 19 18 



owing to the closing of enemy countries is remarkably 

 small, but the cultivation of drug-yielding plants 

 should be prosecuted in this country to the utmost, and 

 the resources of our Colonies should be developed to 

 an increasing extent for the supply of vegetable drugs 

 which cannot be grown in this country. In dealing 

 with fine chemicals Mr. Bennett said that quinine, 

 morphine, and strychnine, three of the most im.portant 

 of the vegetable alkaloids, and ether and chloroform, 

 the two most important anaesthetics, have all along 

 been British products, while the production of many 

 other alkaloids, such as atropine, hyoscine, eserine, 

 and emetine, and very many synthetic organic 

 chemicals, has been stimulated during the war. In 

 19 14 the manufacture of salicylates was practically a 

 German monopoly, but in 19 18 it is an established 

 British industry. So far, during the war, whenever a 

 particular substance has been required for a par- 

 ticular purpose, whether it be for_ medidnal, 

 technical, or war purposes, British chemical science, 

 flus British chemical industry, have not failed 

 to produce it in requisite amount and of requisite 

 purity within a reasonable time. Mr. Bennett 

 next ' reminded his audience that for analytical and 

 research purposes chemical reagents are required to be 

 of a very high degree of purity. Previous to the war 

 such chemicals were to a large extent, though not 

 exch\sively, imported from a few well-known German 

 manufacturers, but several British firms have success- 

 fully undertaken the manufacture of these chemicals, 

 so that the supplv of analytical reagents has not failed. 

 The lecturer next showed a series of dyes used as 

 microscopic reagents. These dyes were from two to 

 four times the strength of the microscopic reagents 

 by German manufacturers. Mr. Bennett said that if the 

 fi'ne chemical industry is to be developed in this country 

 on a scale anything like commensurate with its im- 

 portance — and it must be borne in mind that it is a 

 key industrv, and therefore of paramount importance 

 to' the general development of national industrv— 

 Government assistance at the conclusion of hostiUties 

 will for a time be absolutely essential. , ^ 1 • 



Mr- Edmund White, managing director of Hopkin 

 and Williams, Ltd., lectured on the_ nionazite and 

 thorium Industries as key products, pointing out their 

 importance In relation to the gas-mantle Industry. 



Before the war the German ring had secured almost 

 complete control of monazite, not only In Brazil, but 

 also In Travancore— a protected native State in our 

 Indian Empire. During the vear preceding the out- 

 break of war this trust was endeavouring to bring 

 about a virtual monopoly of the gas-mantle business, 

 and had called In Berlin a meeting of the chief manu- 

 facturers of the world. Thorium nitrate is the one 

 essential constituent of gas mantles, without which 

 thev cannot be made, and the trust notified these manu- 

 facturers to join the combination under threats to 

 withhold supplies of thorium nitrate If they refused to 

 do so. This would mean closing down the business ot 

 any manufacturer who would not come Into the ar- 

 rangement. A further proposal was to add id. on the 

 price of each mantle sold, of which two-thirds of a 

 penny should be taken bv the German trust, and one- 

 third of a penny retained bv the manufacturer. Ihe 

 world's consumption of gas mantles Is estimated at 

 400,000,000 per annum, and the two-thirds of a penny 

 to be abstracted from the public on each mantle meant 

 an additional profit of about i,ooo,oool. sterling per 

 annum for the German ring. In September, 1914. Mr- 

 White, thinking the time propitious, proceeded to India 

 and succeeded In obtaining concessions to work mon- 

 azite sand In private lands outside the territorial limits 

 controlled by the Travancore Minerals Co., which was 



NO. 2547, VOL. lOl] 



under contract to dispose of the whole of its sand to 

 the Berlin Auer Co. The Travancore Minerals Co. 

 had been financed from Berlin, although It was 

 nominally an English company registered in London. 

 Messrs. Hopldn and Williams, Ltd., have now estab- 

 lished their works in Travancore, and have also 

 founded a thorium nitrate factory in England, which 

 Is actually working to-day and producing thorium 

 nitrate of unquestionable quality at an Increasing rate. 

 Mr. White exhibited a series of lantern-slides showing 

 the different stages In obtaining monazite in Travan- 

 core, and finally stated that this country was now 

 absolutely independent of Germany In these important 

 branches' of Industry. He also stated that his firm 

 was quite able to hold Its own with the Germans in 

 the markets of the world, even though our post-war 

 arrangements gave them no assistance. If the 

 Government so desired, arrangements could easily be 

 made by which Germany should receive for its gas- 

 mantle Industry a quantity of raw material in the form 

 of monazite sand or thorium nitrate under the control 

 of ourselves and our present Allies, thus reversing the 

 conditions which existed before the war. 



Prof. A. Keith lectured on Monday, August ig, on 

 the value of science to medicine. He remarked . that 

 It was not the medical men In hospitals who dis- 

 covered the scientific principles on which their instru- 

 ments were based, but the physicists and other 

 workers In laboratories. Beginning with a case just 

 brought from the field of battle into the operating- 

 theatre of a London hospital, he pointed out that the 

 Iodine with which the inflamed limb was painted was 

 discovered by a chemist; that Davy, who was one 

 of the first to study the element closely, was the dis- 

 coverer of the nitrous oxide used as the anaesthetic 

 for the operation ; that It was by microscopic ob- 

 servations of a frog's tongue that the method of 

 formation of new nerve-fibres when an Injured part 

 has been cut away was found ; and that the valuable 

 X-ray bulb was the outcome of purely scientific in- 

 vestigations bv Sir William Crookes and others. 

 Finally, Prof. 'Keith pleaded for more generous pro- 

 vision of laboratories for scientific research carried 

 on solelv with the Intention of Increasing natural 

 knowledge. If used to be said that wars were won 

 on the playing-fields of Eton, but in future they would 

 be won in the laboratories of the country. 



Dr. F. Moll wo Perkin, lecturing on the sarne day 

 on oil from mineral sources, took a broad view of 

 his subject, and referred to oils produced by the dis- 

 tillation of bituminous materials as well as to oils pro- 

 duced directly from the earth. He described the 

 various methods employed for obtaining oil from bitu- 

 minous materials, and dwelt at length on the means 

 of obtaining these from gas-works retorts. Experi- 

 ments had been made by the Admiralty with the object 

 of carbonising cannel-coal In vertical gas retorts and 

 producing the fuel-oil. Under the conditions of carry- 

 ing out these operations It had been found that low- 

 temperature products could be obtained and a good 

 yield of gas produced, together with a rapid through- 

 put, if a large amount of steam were passed through 

 the Incandescent coke at the bottom of the retort and 

 then through the descending coal mass. Another 

 source from which low-temperature oils are obtained 

 Is producer-gas plant tar. The chief difficulty met 

 with, according to Dr. Perkin. Is to design a retort 

 which will carbonise at a low temperature, and at 

 the same time give a rapid throughput of. coal— that 

 Is, a unit which will pass a large tonnage of coal 

 through In twenty-four hours and at the same time 

 give a maximum yield of oil. 



