So6 



NATURE 



[February 28, 19 18 



energ-y, decision, promptitude, discernment " — this 

 is the judgment of the Under-Secretarry for Scot- 

 land. Sir James Miller Dodds. 



The Nile is unique irt its interest for the geo- 

 grapher, the man of science, and the engineer. India 

 and other semi-arid countries have some rainfall, 

 however scanty. In Egypt there is none : the Nile 

 compensates for the deficiency. The floods of the 

 great river, carrying down alluvial detritus from 

 the mountain slopes of Abyssinia, and mud from 

 the marshy tracts of Central Africa, sweep over 

 the fields of Lower Egypt and saturate them with 

 fecundity. So soaked is the soil that, as soon as 

 sown, wheat and barley spring up to maturity 

 without a single drop of further moisture. To a 

 natural endowment, so profuse and plentiful, there 

 is only one drawback — its intermission. It fell to 

 Sir Colin 's lot to regulate and control, to distribute 

 and allocate the precious waters, and he discharged 

 the duty thoroughly and well. 



Of his operations of a similar nature in India, 

 scarcely less importaiit in scope, though perhaps 

 not so notable in execution, there is not room here 

 to speak. Both it and the other outstanding events 

 of an eminently useful and busy life will be found 

 recorded in the biography, edited by his niece, the 

 perusal of which has been full of interest. In the 

 strict sense of the word Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff 

 was, perhaps, not a great engineer, but he was 

 undoubtedly a great administrator, having a won- 

 derful capacity for organisation, rare tact, and un- 

 limited patience. Could anyone desire a better 

 epitaph than the simple words of Lord Milner 

 which conclude the volume : "He leaves a fine 

 record of work, and will be remembered as one of 

 the best beloA'ed of men"? 



Bryssox Cunningham. 



.4 KEW BRITISH OIL INDUSTRY. . 

 HTHE strenuous and anxious times through 



■■- which this country is now passing have been 

 fruitful in many lessons which, it is earnestly to 

 be hoped, will have a profound and permanent 

 influence upon its national character and habits. 

 Now that we are in one of the most critical epochs 

 in our history, we have become painfully con- 

 scious to what an extent our negligence and short- 

 sightedness in the past have contributed to our 

 present jeopardy. We see plainly enough now 

 that if we had only paid greater heed to many 

 things that affect our national well-being, our 

 resources in the contest and our confidence in its 

 outcome might have been enormously strength- 

 ened. The struggle has been prolonged in large 

 measure by the. fact that we were unprepared for 

 it, and we are constrained to admit that the lack 

 ot preparation has not been creditable to us as a 

 prudent, well-ordered, and right-thinking com- 

 munity. ♦ 



We see the evidences of this at almost everv turn, 

 and nowhere is it more apparent than in the 

 manner in which we waste our natural resources, 

 or at least imperfectly utilise them. The present 

 condition of our food supply is, of course, the 

 NO. 2522, VOL. 100] 



greatest and most outstanding instance of our 

 neglect of an industry which is at the basis of our 

 welfare, and even of our very existence as a nation. 

 But there are other, even if less important, matters 

 in which we have shown ourselves negligent of our 

 opportunities and to which we have, at length, 

 been awakened partly by the insidious dealings of 

 our enemies, and partly by our recognition of their 

 greater energy and alertness in the application of 

 science and .scientific method to industry and the 

 pi-actical affairs of life. Thus we have been so 

 wrapped up in the production of iron and steel 

 that we have paid little heed to the non-ferrous 

 metals, although by a little more energv and enter- 

 prise we could just as readily as Germanv have 

 contributed our fair share to the world's require- 

 ments. So, too, in the manufacture and utilisation 

 of the by-products in the coking of coal, there 

 can be no question that the manner in which we 

 have squandered our greatest natural asset in 

 the past has been nothing short of a national 

 scandal. 



It has needed the pressure of our present emer- 

 gency to induce us to quicken our attempts to 

 remedy a condition of things which should never 

 have bcQn allowed to arise. Our immediate short- 

 age of mineral oils as illuminants and as fuel is a 

 further instance of our neglect of the potential 

 sources of supply existing in our own country, and 

 it is only the submarine menace that is, apparently, 

 impelling us to exploit them. The attempts to 

 utilise the Kimmeridge shales of Dorset and Nor- 

 foll:. have as yet led to no practical result; there 

 arc diflficulties with the Treasury and the Legisla- 

 ture ; it may be also that the technical difficulties 

 of desulphurisation have proved to be almost as 

 insurmountable. But there are other oil-shales 

 than those of Kimmeridge, and also cannels and 

 torbanites, as well as blackband ironstones and 

 lignites, which might be turned to account as indi- 

 genous sources of mineral oils. Some of these are, 

 of course, worked by the Scottish shale-oil com- 

 panies, which, after a long struggle with adverse 

 conditions, are now, in the special circum- 

 stances of the time, exceedingly prosperous. But 

 there is still room for a considerable extension of 

 the industry, as the production of these com- 

 panies, not only in oil, but also in the by-products 

 of sulphate of ammonia and paraffin-wax, falls far 

 short of the country's needs. 



In a series of papers communicated to the In- 

 stitution of Petroleum Technologists on February 

 19 attention was directed to certain sources of 

 supply of oil which have hitherto been entirelv 

 neglected; these are the deposits of cannels, tor- 

 banites, and blackband ironstones — -many of them 

 cheaply and easily obtained and readily worked. 

 Mr. Cunningham Craig described the charac- 

 teristics and mode of occurrence of these "kero- 

 geiious " or petroliferous materials, and ex- 

 plained how their petrographic analysis serves to 

 reveal the nature of the products of their distilla- 

 tion. He pointed out how wasteful has been the 

 method of treating the blackband ironstones, 

 wherebv all the valuable volatile contents of the 



