February 2 



918] 



NATURE 



495 



nature, and consist of a series of beds and lenses of 

 pure sulphur at a depth of several hundred feet from 

 the surface. 



The discovery of the occurrence of sulphur of this 

 type was made so far back as 1865, in connection with 

 a well drilled for oil. All attempts at mining the 

 sulphur failed, however, until some fifteen years ago, 

 when a highly ingenious method was devised for win- 

 ning this substance without recourse to the ordinary 

 costly underground operations usually prosecuted in 

 mining. This process makes use of the fact that 

 sulphur melts at a relatively low temperature. By 

 drilling a well through the overlying rock until the 

 sulphur bed is tapped, and then sinking a series of 

 interpenetrating pipes through which superheated 

 steam is forced, the sulphur is melted and forced to the 

 surface as a hot liquid, where it is piped to large bins, 

 into which it pours and cools. This process, which is 

 known as the Frasch process after its inventor, has 

 been described as one of the triumphs of modern tech- 

 nology, and its successful application to the Gulf Coast 

 deposits has in the past fifteen years transferred the 

 centre of the world's sulphur industry from the island 

 of Sicilv to the United States, making the States abso- 

 lutely independent of the rest of the world in this 

 important particular. 



With the development of the world-war, the sulphur 

 deposits of the Gulf regions have, of course, assumed 

 special importance as supplying the sulphur needed in 

 the manufacture of gunpowder and other explosives. 

 But in addition to this, these deposits have quite un- 

 expectedly during the past few months been able to 

 meet and solve a critical resource problem arising out 

 of the submarine campaign. This problem concerned 

 the raw materials of the large and very vital sulphuric 

 acid industry, and arose from the fact that most of 

 the several million tons of sulphuric acid used in the 

 United States was made from sulphur-bearing 

 minerals called pyrites, brought as ballast in quantity 

 from large deposits in Spain. The restricted shipping 

 conditions resulting from recent events as a matter of 

 course seriously affected this source of supply, and 

 since sulphuric acid is a product nearly as funda- 

 mental to industry as iron or coal, the situation bade 

 fair to assume critical proportions. But it so happens 

 that crude sulphur can also be used in making sulphuric 

 acid, and accordingly the Gulf sulphur deposits have 

 come forward to tide over the dearth of Spanish pyrites 

 until the domestic supplies of pyrites, which are 

 adequate, but as yet only in part developed, can be 

 brought up to a suitable measure of productiveness. 



There are numerous lean deposits of sulphur in many 

 of the Western States, but these as yet have practically 

 no effect upon the output of the country. It is certain, 

 therefore, that without the Gulf deposits and the in- 

 genious method of making them available, the United 

 States would have scarcely been able to meet success- 

 fullv the war needs of sulphur and sulphuric acid, 

 which goes to show, of course, the pressing necessity 

 for widespread appreciation and understanding of the 

 importance of prcyper development of the mineral indus- 

 tries of the nation. 



SCIENCE AS A VEHICLE OF 

 EDUCATION.^ 



THE tendency of the modern school of political 

 thought is to attribute the majority of the great 

 historical events which have attended the various 

 phases of human development to the operation ^ of 

 unseen underlying economic forces. The recognition 

 of this fundamental truth represents a noteworthy 



1 By Prof. T. Brailsford Robertson. Reprinted from the University o/ 

 California Chronicle^ vol. xix., No. i. 



NO. 2521, VOL. 100] 



advance towards the completer understanding of the 

 factors underlying and determining the evolution of 

 man and of human institutions, but, admitted that 

 economic forces wholly or very largely determine the 

 political evolution of mankind, the question still re- 

 mains : To what in turn are we to attribute the inces- 

 sant fluctuations of the ever-urging economic forces? 

 It is not that one consistent economic pressure, inci- 

 dent everywhere and operating in a definite direction, 

 has continually urged mankind towards some undeviat- 

 ing goal; quite the contrary — the economic pressure 

 upon mankind has been fluctuating, variable both in 

 incidence and in direction, and not always advan- 

 tageous in its immediate outcome. 



Not infrequently attempts have been made to cor- 

 relate these economic forces with geographical condi- 

 tions, with the happy or unhappy conjunction, here or 

 there, of river, plain, and sea. But the ever-changing 

 aspects of political geography are not to be inter- 

 preted so easily. In relation to the brief life of 

 man, the geographic contour of the earth is well-nigh 

 eternal and immutable. Setting aside, without under- 

 rating their possible importance, the very few historical 

 instainces of decisive variation in geography and 

 climate, such as the desiccation of Central Asia and 

 the extraordinarily rapid shrinkage of at least one 

 great inland sea, ' Lake Tchad, it is evident that in 

 the long run, were geographical contour and climate 

 the sole factors underlying and determining the inci- 

 dence of economic forces, the political geography of the 

 world would ere this have become as static as its 

 physical geography, of which it would be the inevitable 

 and deducible outcome. The ceaseless ferment of in- 

 ternational politics, never more turbulent than now, 

 would then remain utterly inexplicable. 



To find any analogy corresponding with the bewilder- 

 ing intricacy and rapid fluctuations of political history 

 and geography, we must turn to the inward workings 

 of the human mind, of which economic forces are in 

 iiltimate analysis merely the outcome and expression, 

 deviated or constrained, but not created by the geo- 

 graphical, climatic, or biological environment in which 

 they find their outlet. Behind the economic forces 

 which have fashioned human destiny we must seek 

 again the more potent forces of human energy, 

 curiosity, and inventiveness. 



It is related that when recently the untutored 

 savages of a certain region of East Africa first saw 

 an aeroplane hovering over their heads they wor- 

 shipped it as a god, or the expression of a god-like 

 power. A group of high-school or university students 

 would have regarded that same aeroplane with mild 

 curiosity or supercilious indifference, so greatly has 

 education, or what passes for education, blinded our 

 eyes to underlying verities, to truths which are patent 

 to the savage ! For, if we regard it aright, every 

 automobile, every passing electric street-car, every 

 ray of light we cast into the darkness with the touch 

 of a finger, is a miracle and a monument to the 

 creative intellect of man. 



It is these things and such as these that determine 

 the economic forces which fashion the history of man. 

 The discovery of America was not an accident ; it was 

 the outcome of measurement and invention, directed 

 by an inspired curiosity regarding the structure of the 

 universe. The discovery of the steam-engine was not 

 an accident; it was the outcome of countless patient 

 investigations inspired by no thought of ulterior gain. 

 Electricity was not harnessed by financiers, but by the 

 monumental intellectual labours of Oersted, Ampere, 

 and Faradav. These things did not happen by chance ; 

 thev did not, like Athena, spring full-armed from the 

 brain of Zeus; they did not rain down uoon earth 

 from heaven, nor have they always been. They were 

 not fashioned in the market-place, nor yet achieved 



