November 29, 191 7] 



NATURE 



245 



few hundred hectares, and estimates of the quan- 

 tities of ore available are given as follows : — 



French Lorraine 3100 million tons 



German Lorraine 1841 „ „ 



Luxemburg 250 „ „ 



Total 5 191 million tons 



It may be added that the Briey basin alone, by 

 far the most important of the French ore-fields, is 

 estimated here to contain 2000 million tons, or 

 more than the whole of the German deposits, and 

 it is this particular basin that, as shown above, is 

 the main objective of German rapacity. 



There is, however, more in the question than 

 appears even from the above figures of quantity 

 of Minette ; it is also a question of quality. The 

 German writer of the article referred to admits 

 that the Briey ore is at least 4 per cent, richer 

 in iron than the Minette on the German side of 

 the frontier, whilst other authorities put the dif- 

 ference at 6 per cent., averaging the German ore 

 at 29 per cent, and the Briey ore at 35 per cent, 

 of metallic iron. No ironmaster will need to be 

 told that the advantage in favour of the French 

 ore is of immense importance, and the German 

 writer shows very clearly how great is the fear of 

 French competition. " From the point of view of 

 the domestic Minette-mining industry," he writes, 

 '' it would be a matter for sincere regret if in the 

 German customs area \i.e, Germany proper and 

 Luxemburg] the import of French ore were to 

 increase more and more, thus displacing Minette 

 of German origin." 



The fear of French competition grew year by 

 year, and in 1913 the same paper, Stahl und Eisen, 

 pointed out that owing to the increasing produc- 

 tion of the richer French ore, large portions of 

 the Minette of German Lorraine would necessarily 

 have to remain unworked. The anxiety of the 

 plutocratic German ironmasters was becoming 

 evident ; they were gradually, by their methods of 

 "peaceful penetration," getting a considerable 

 financial control over the Briey ore-field, but these 

 methods were too slow and too costly for their 

 measureless greed, and they did not hesitate to 

 sacrifice millions of human lives in order to effect 

 their policy of rapine. So recently as October last 

 a Pan-Germanist Leipzig paper was maintaining 

 that Germany must not only keep Alsace-Lorraine, 

 but must also annex the ore-fields of Longwy. It 

 says : — 



Before the war France produced annually twenty-two 

 million tons of ore, of which nine-tenths came from 

 the Longwy basin, and Germany extracted annually 

 from Lorraine twentj^-one million tons, or, say, 

 three-fourths of its entire output. If therefore Ger- 

 many keeps the mines of France and of Lorraine, she 

 would have available fifty million tons of iron ore 

 yearly. She would then possess the monopoly of iron 

 ore in Europe, which would furthermore assure con- 

 tinuous work and prosperity to the German working 

 classes. 



All this mass of evidence drives home the con- 

 tention of the writer in the Fortnightly Review, 

 and shows clearly how important the German iron- 

 masters consider the ores of the Briey basin to be 

 to them. The present war would have been 

 NO. 2509, VOL. 100] 



I impossible had not two British inventors, Messrs. 



' Gilchrist and Thomas, shown how to convert 

 phosphoric iron ores into good steel, incidentally 



j also producing at the same time a slag of a high 



\ manurial value ; having applied this process, 

 which, by the way, was not discovered until after 



I 1870, to the Minette in the portion of Lorraine 

 already annexed,,. German ironmasters now want 

 to grasp the rest of this valuable iron-ore deposit, 

 the importance of which has been rendered evi- 

 dent through the basic steel process. 



H. Louis. 



I SCIENCE, INDUSTRY, AND COMMERCE IN 

 I INDIA. 



LITTLE more than ten years have come and 

 gone since the suggestion was first made that 

 lack of co-ordination, in the scientific departments 

 of India, had often resulted in needless duplication, 

 in useless departmental jealousies, and in the 

 divorce of what may be called economic research 

 from commerce and industry. Under Lord Cur- 

 zon's enlightened guidance this impasse led to the 

 formation of the Board of Scientific Advice for 

 j India. Since 1902 each year has witnessed im- 

 portant advances of a gratifying nature, so that it 

 I may be said that the annual reports of the Board, 

 i of which that for the year 191 5-16 is before us, 

 I epitomise certain aspects of the scientific work 

 j accomplished in India. 



The Government of India had previously tried 

 the experiment of subsidising societies and institu- 

 tions (both in India and England) with the view of 

 delegating to them its responsibility in the matter 

 I of science research. This had the effect, not of 

 j encouraging the growth of science, but of degrad- 

 ing local scientific men into specimen collectors. 

 The linking together, therefore, within India Itself, 

 of the chief scientific departments gave the strength 

 of unity and the courage of public recognition. But 

 has this very necessary reform been carried to its 

 rational conclusion? The chief officers of the fol- 

 lowing departments constitute the Board : the 

 Secretary of the Department of Revenue and 

 Agriculture {ex-officio President of the Board), 

 the Directors of Observatories, of Zoology, and of 

 Surveys, the Principal of the Veterinary College, 

 the Inspector-General of Forests, the Agricultural 

 Adviser, the Directors of the Geological and Medi- 

 cal Services, the Secretary in the Public Works, 

 and the Directors of the Indian Institute of Science 

 and of the Botanical Survey. 



But why is education not more directly and fully 

 represented ? Surely the utilisation of the chemical 

 and physical laboratories of the universities, and 

 of the services of the professors in charge oi these, 

 are obvious directions of economy and utility. So, 

 again, one is tempted to ask. Why has statistics 

 been overlooked? Still again. Why has the Direc- 

 tor-General of Commercial Intelligence no seat on 

 the Board? To the non-official mind the Depart- 

 ment of Commerce and Industry should very 

 possibly have a co-equal share with the Department 

 of Revenue and Agriculture (and certainly a 



