I04 



NATURE 



[March 25, 1920 



expected to find this plea condemned by a reviewer in 

 the columns of Nature. 



Nevertheless, Sir George Watt makes a legitimate 

 criticism when he says that our proposals " do not 

 seem to resolve themselves into the promulgation of 

 a concrete scheme of increased and improved pro- 

 duction." I would like to explain why we deliberately 

 avoided advancing such a scheme in this report. 



The consideration of actual steps to be taken in 

 cotton production is the next stage in the Committee's 

 work, to which it has already settled down. When 

 this report was issued we were penniless, and could 

 not with any utility consider how money should be 

 spent until we were assured of : — (a) Annual financial 

 support from Lancashire, {h) Regular financial sup- 

 port froin H.M. Government, (c) Approval of policy 

 from the (-iovernments of the Dominions, Colonies, 

 and Protectorates. 



Since our report was issued (a) the home industry 

 has agreed to make a voluntary annual levy on itself ; 

 (b) our maintenance charges are assured, so that our 

 executive can be built up, while the question of further 

 support is under consideration ; and official informa- 

 tion as to (c) is awaited. A large income is already 

 in sight, and the way is becoming clear for practical 

 planning and guidance as distinguished from the 

 enunciation of principles. It should be noted that the 

 capital required actually to grow the cotton which this 

 country now purchrses outside the Empire is of the 

 order of 250,000,000?., being more than a thousand- 

 fold the sum asked for in our report. 



But those principles had to be settled first, and I 

 for one regret that Sir George Watt should have 

 missed their significance through misunderstanding 

 the oresent stage of our development and our inability 

 to be anything else hitherto but a " committee." if 

 we were to represent the native peoples abroad as 

 well as the operatives at home, with all the inter- 

 vening stages of industry, of administration, and of 

 knowledge. W. Lawrencf. Balls. 



Edale, Derbyshire, March 8. 



I AM obliged for the opportunity given me to read 

 Dr. Lawrence Balls 's reply to my review in Nature 

 of February 26 of the report issued by the Committee 

 on Cotton-Growing, within the British Empire, ap- 

 pointed by the Board of Trade. Dr. Balls seems to 

 me, in the main, to admit my contention, namely, 

 that the Committee's report, as it stands, does not 

 resolve itself into a concrete scheme of increased and 

 improved production of cotton. In fact, it may be 

 said to be unfortunate that the Committee did not 

 anticipate such criticisms as mine by giving the public 

 some hint of the possible future stages of its opera- 

 tions. The public were anxiously awaiting a full 

 scheme, and one that would give distinct prospect of 

 success, but in place of getting such we are now told 

 we have only seen (as it were) the first instalment, 

 and must look for better results in the future. 



But, turning to some of Dr. Balls's observations 

 on my review, I do not find that I have stated that 

 the report contemplates the staffing of the central 

 research institution by committees of voluntary 

 workers. It is surelv self-evident that there would 

 have to be permanent officials appointed to the cen- 

 tral research institution, as also to the branch institu- 

 tions. But what I did object to was that these 

 officials should be put under a panorama of six com- 

 mittees, as seemed contemplated by the authors of 

 the report. I am old enough to recollect the great 

 Cotton Commission in India. Indeed, mv official 

 connection with that country might be said to have 

 commenced with having to try to pick up the dis- 

 hevelled .threads of that futile expenditure of public 



NO. 2630, VOL. I05I 



money. The late Mr. C. B. Clarke, in the preface 

 to his edition of Roxburgh's "Flora of India," 

 alludes to the issue of one of the Commission's 

 reports as follows : — "'We have had plenty of Govern- 

 ment and other reports, some very large and expen- 

 sive ones, it is true, but we have very little economic 

 work by persons competent as botanists ; and with 

 reference to one large and expensive report lately 

 issued on an Indian economic plant it was discovered 

 after it was printed that the Commission never learnt 

 what the plant was." 



The result of the great Cotton Commission of India 

 was officialism. Cotton Frauds Acts, and other such 

 futilities. It is the knowledge of past failures having 

 very largely proceeded from officialism that makes me 

 urge with all the earnestness I possess that the staff 

 of the central and branch research institutions should 

 be as free and independent as the professors of a 

 university. They need no supervision more than is 

 exercised bv Departmental control in the allocation 

 of funds and in the laying down of general rules and 

 political instructions. Official control should be with 

 the principal or principals of the college or colleges 

 of cotton, but with no one else. 



I am at a loss to understand Dr. Balls when he 

 says I have missed "our main thesis, concerning the 

 need for knowledge, based on pure science, as the 

 essential to progress in this matter." The Com- 

 mittee, as I understood the report, recommends that 

 certain universities should be asked to establish lee 

 tureships and readerships ; my scheme was that the 

 research institution or institutions, in addition to con- 

 ducting research, should undertake the entire educa- 

 tion of both the experts and the practical planters, 

 and thus have their own professors of plant physio- 

 logy, olant genetics, mvcologv, entomology, and the 

 like. 



Mv recommendation is thus to concentrate all effort 

 in the hands of a body of highly trained scientific and 

 practical expert's, to place all the funds available in 

 their hands, and to hold them responsible not only 

 to increase the supply, but also to improve the quality 

 of the cotton produced \vithin tb^ British Empire. 

 George Watt 

 (Formerly Reporter on Economic Products 

 with the Government of India). 



.'Knnandale House, Lockerbie, March 13. 



The Separation of Isotopes. 



In a recent discussion (Vhil. Mag., vol. xxxvii.. 

 p. 523, iqig) of a number of methods of separating 

 isotopes Prof. Lindemann and Dr. Aston have shown 

 that there is little prospect of effecting by the methods 

 considered a separation which will yield pure samples 

 of the isotopes in a reasonable time. Dr. Aston has 

 recently announced the discovery that chlorine consists 

 of a mixture of at least two isotopes having atomic 

 weights 35 and 37. It appears that there is here a 

 possibility of effecting a separation of the isotones bv 

 a direct method which does not seem to be anplicable 

 in the case of most other elements. The method pro- 

 posed depends on the assumption that in the absorp- 

 tion spectrum of chlorine, which contains a vast 

 number of narrow lines, there is a difference between 

 the wave-len.r»ths of the absorption lines due to mole- 

 cules containing diff'erent isotopes. 



Supposing that ordinary chlorine contains the isotopes 

 CI,, and Cl„ in the ratio 3 : i. the molecules will con- 

 sist of CiasCl.,^, ClasCl^j, and CIstCI..,^ in the ratio 

 9:6:1. It follows that if white light traverses a 

 column of chlorine of such a length that the radiations 

 absorbed bv CI,, CI,, are reduced in intensity by a 

 factor I / 10*, the corresoonding factors in the case of 

 CI35CI37 and Cl3.:iCl35 will be t/ioIs and i/io*^ respec- 



