October ii, 191;] 



NATURE 



III 



^ isf the work of someone who does know how to do 

 ;!ie job seems to have been at the bottom of a great 

 many of our misfortunes in the past. In 1915 the 

 1 lovernment applied the same method to re-establish 

 he coal-tar industry in this country. An organisation 

 u as established in which all the people in control were 

 HUM! who knew nothing of chemistry or science, and,' 

 naturally enough, the Government organisation*' has 

 proved a failure. Organisation apparently was to do 

 everything that was necessary, and consequently pri- 

 \ ate effort was to a considerable extent hampered. 

 Such prevalent, but entirely mistaken, activity arises. 

 Prof. Pope claimed, from a lack of education. If it 

 were generally demanded that no person should be 

 • < i^arded as reasonably educated who had not ipastered 

 I he rudimentary principles of natural science and of 

 scientific method, this mistaken policy in connection 

 with the coal-tar colour question would have been 

 impossible. 



On the invitation of the British Engineering 

 Standards Committee, the American Institute of Elec- 

 trical Engineers has sent over Mr. H. M. Hobart to 

 represent the institute at a conference to be held with 

 Sir Richard Glazebrook's Panel Committee on Stan- 

 dardisation Rules for Electrical Machinery. Mr. 

 Hobart is the author of several standard treatises on 

 electrical machinery, and was for many years a lec- 

 turer at Faraday House Engineering College before 

 he returned to America about ten years ago. He is 

 decidedly persona grata to the engineers in this 

 irountry, and a happier or more tacttul choice could 

 not have been made. The standardisation rules of 

 the American and English electrical engineers are in 

 substantial agreement, and we see no reason why com- 

 plete agreement should not be obtained. The Amer- 

 icans have had far greater experience with pressures 

 exceeding 50,000 volts than we have had, and they 

 are fully aware that testing apparatus with very higti 

 voltages may permanently weaken the insulation, 

 although the apparatus may survive the test. The 

 -exact way of taking the temperature measurements of 

 machines under load and the methods of testing the 

 dielectric have been discussed at previous conferences. 

 Electricians are practically unanimously in favour of 

 the metric and decimal systems, but the standard pres- 

 sure for lighting in this country seems to be anything 

 between 220 and 240 volts. It is to be hoped that the 

 lead which the Glasgow Corporation gave to the 

 country many years ago, by fixing 250 as the standard 

 voltage for lighting, will be generally adopted. 



The recent air raids have provoked much discussion 

 as to our future air policy, and as to possible improve- 

 ments in aircraft design. The question of reprisals 

 is more a moral than a technical one, as there is no 

 doubt of our ability to carry out effective raids on 

 German towns. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, in a 

 letter to the Tiimes, points out that the air-raid casual- 

 ties are really small, and fewer than those due to 

 London traffic. This is poor consolation, and should 

 not prevent the utmost efforts to secure an effective 

 means of defence. At a meeting " in support of an 

 increased air service," held at the Central Hall, West- 

 minster, on October 4, Mr. Joynson Hicks criticised 

 the Government very severely, stating that warnings 

 had been neglected and that progress was consequently 

 slow. He spoke of the improvement in aircraft during 

 the last few years, and said that in his opinion another 

 year would see machines flying at 250 miles an hour 

 instead of 150. He implied that the Government knows 

 that such machines are possible, but is not preparing 

 for them. Such a statement as the above shows a 

 lack of knowledge of the principles governing flight. 

 A machine must be able to land at a reasonably low 



NO. 2502, VOL. 100] 



speed, as well as to fly at a high speed, and the land- 

 ing speed at once imposes a limit on the top speed. 

 Thus, with a landing speed of forty miles per hour 

 a machine of good design, weighing one ton, needs 

 200 horse-power to fly at 100 miles per hour, and 

 would require 1700 horse-power to fly at 200 miles per 

 hour. If the landing speed is raised to eighty miles per 

 hour — a very high value in practice — 90 horse-power 

 will be required at 100 miles per hour, and 400 horse- 

 power at 200 miles per hour. Mr. Joynson Hicks's 

 25o-mik'-an-hour machine would require 800 horse- 

 power to fly it, even with a prohibitive landing speed 

 of eighty miles per hour. Such a machine is obviously 

 impracticable with present-day engines, and with any 

 engine likely to be evolved in the near future. The 

 engine alone would weigh one ton, which is the total 

 weight of the machine for which the above calculation 

 was made. Our best present-day machines are near 

 the limit of practicability with existing engines, and 

 every possible effort is being made to improve their 

 performance by careful scientific attention to details of 

 design. 



Dr. Addison, the Minister of Reconstruction, speak- 

 ing on October 3 at the annual meeting of the Library 

 Association, said that one of the features of the pro- 

 gramme which appealed to him was the movement, 

 which was apparently making considerable progress, 

 for the formation of technical and commercial libraries 

 and for the setting up of research libraries to suit the 

 particular needs and industries of various districts. If 

 we are to pay for the war — and it is not necessary to 

 put the matter on a higher plane than that — we want 

 the different trades and industries of the country to 

 organise more and more for the production and dis- 

 semination of useful and necessary information. A 

 working relationship between higher educational autho- 

 rities and the business community is absolutely essen- 

 tial to our industrial welfare, and public libraries can 

 do a valuable work by placing information useful to 

 industry at the disposal of the community. Certain 

 recommendations were made at the meeting. The 

 council of the association is of opinion that it is of 

 urgent national importance to increase the supply of 

 scientific and technical books and periodicals, the exist- 

 ing supply being quite inadequate for higher research, 

 and, in many places, insufficient for the requirements 

 of the student and the artisan. To this end it was 

 strongly urged (a) that local authorities should afford 

 more generous support to public libraries for the pro- 

 vision of scientific and technical literature ; (b) that 

 municipal and other library authorities and institutions 

 should co-operate in issuing union catalogues of tech- 

 nical books, and adopt such other co-operative methods 

 as will make their resources available over wider areas ; 

 (c) that a State scientific or technical library should 

 publish periodically a descriptive list of selected books 

 in science and technology; (d) that a closer union 

 should be arranged between State and copyriglit libra- 

 ries on one hand, and municipal libraries on the other, 

 so that the resources of the former may directly or 

 indirectly be made available for scientific and technical 

 students in the great industrial areas of the provinces ; 

 and (e) that funds should be provided for some State- 

 supported library, such as the Science Library of South 

 Kensington, or a library controlled by the Department 

 of Scientific and Industrial Research, to purchase books 

 required for research, and to make them available for 

 loan to public libraries. All the recommendations were 

 adopted unanimously. 



A GENERAF- discussion on pyrometers and pyrometr\- 

 will be held by the Faraday Society at the Royal Society 

 of Arts on Wednesday, November 7. Sir Robert Had- 

 field, president of the society, will preside over the 



