lO 



NATURE 



[March 4, 1920 



production of this glass is a very remarkable 

 achievement. 



" Pyrex " glass and the Empire bulb-blowing 

 machine were only two of the many interesting 

 developments which I was shown at Corning. 

 When I was there, Dr. A. L. Day, who has long 

 been connected with the works, was acting as 

 vice-president of the company ; and Dr. E. C. Sulli- 

 van and Dr. W. C. Taylor, assisted by a con- 

 siderable scientific staff, were in charge of the 

 technical side of the work. Dr. Taylor told me 

 that they had been carrying out a systematic 

 survey of possible combinations in glasses, and 

 that as each glass was made experimentally its 

 properties were investigated and recorded. In the 

 Steuben Works, which are under the same 

 management, and only a few hundred yards 

 distant, Dr. J. C. Hochstetter was collaborating 

 with Mr. F. C. Carder in the investigation of 

 problems relating to coloured glasses. 



Scientific glassware was also being manufac- 

 tured at the H. C. Fry Glass Works, where I 

 spent a day with Dr. Scholes and his staff, and 

 at the Macbeth Evans Glass Co. 's plant, also near 

 Pittsburgh, Pa., over which I was shown by Dr. 

 Macbeth and Prof. Hower, who is consultant to 

 the firm. I found quite a numerous scientific staff 

 working in excellent laboratories. 



In the bottle-making branch of the industry the 

 engineer predominates. I believe that the first 

 bottle machine was English, and one would like 

 to know why it is that the development of bottle 

 machinery has been practically wholly American. 

 The Owens machine, the Hartford-Fairmont flow 

 feed, the Westlake machine, and the Empire 

 machine are purely American, and they are 

 American because Americans understand the value 

 of science organised in the service of industry, and 

 are willing to give good brains a fair chance and to 

 back them with good money. Developments in this 

 direction are entirely a matter of private enter- 

 prise, in which consumers as well as manufacturers 

 are often financially interested. 



To no branch of the glass industry has science 



been of greater service than to that of the electric 

 lamp industry. I was able to spend two days in 

 the research laboratories attached to the great 

 plant of the General Electric Co, at Schenectady, 

 in company with Drs. Whitney, Langmuir, Cool- 

 idge, and Hull, whose names are as well known in 

 Europe as in America. The staff of the laboratory 

 is said to number more than 150 members, and 

 the work carried on is in some cases purely scien- 

 tific, and in others highly technical, processes 

 being actually worked in the laboratory until the 

 demand for the goods or material produced justi- 

 fies the erection of separate factories. While I was 

 at Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. W\ M. Clark, the chief 

 chemist of the National Lamp Association, was 

 good enough to show me over the whole plant of 

 his firm. Here a physical laboratory dedicated to 

 investigations connected with illumination, but 

 only indirectly with artificial lighting, has been 

 established in recognition of the services of science 

 to the industry. 



In several of the universities research is being 

 carried out in connection with glass, and I had 

 the good fortune to meet both Prof. Washburn, of 

 Illinois University, and Prof. Silverman, of Pitts- 

 burgh University, and to discuss with them their 

 work on the chemistry and physics of glass. 



A short article permits me to deal only with 

 isolated incidents in my tour, but the impression 

 which I brought away with me and wish to convey 

 to others is that there are a great many men of 

 high scientific ability engaged in the American 

 glass industry, which has learned, as the German 

 glass industry learned, to our undoing, that indus- 

 trial progress implies the co-operation of science 

 and industry. American industry is not securing 

 the co-operation of science for sentimental reasons, 

 but with a view to competition with us in the 

 markets of the world. To this movement science, 

 through the National Research Council, organised 

 by the National Academy of Sciences, in co-opera- 

 tion with the national scientific and technical 

 societies of the United States, is giving its hearti- 

 est support. 



The Circulating Blood in 



By Prof. W. 



nPHE system of vessels in which the blood is 

 -■- contained must be conceived of as a closed 

 system. But the walls are distensible and elastic ; 

 they can therefore stretch and collapse to accom- 

 modate varying amounts of liquid. This is pos- 

 sible, however, only to a limited extent. Although 

 the veins have thinner walls than the arteries, 

 and appear to be less supported by surrounding 

 structures than are the capillaries, it is remark- 

 able that they oppose a greater resistance to a 

 bursting pressure than do the arteries. Veins, 

 moreover, have a muscular coat which is in a 



1 Discourse on " The Volume of the Blood ard its Significance," delivered 

 the Royal Institution on Friday, February 13. 



Relation to Wound-Shock, i 



M. Bavliss, F.R.S. 



more or less contracted state during life. Hence 

 the introduction of more fluid into the system 

 must encounter a certain resistance and raise the 

 internal pressure, unless the muscular coat 

 actively relaxes to accommodate the fluid intro- 

 duced. 



This closed system contains, under normal con- 

 ditions, about four litres of blood in man. It 

 consists, as is generally known, of the heart, of 

 branching tubes (arteries), leading from the heart 

 to the tissues, where they break up into a net- 

 work of much finer tubes, the capillaries, which 

 unite again to form the veins, and so lead the 

 blood back to the heart. Consider the distribution 

 of the blood at the tinie when the heart is at rest. 



NO. 2627, VOL. 105] 



