January 22, 1920] 



NATURE 



531 



vital national importance as to constrain the Govern- 

 ment to treat it as a '•key industry." But there is 

 no royal road to success even in manufacture and 

 commerce. If this country is ever to stand in the 

 forefront as a producer of microscopes for the world's 

 needs the position to-day must be boldly and 

 courageously faced. The lessons of the war must not 

 be forgotten. We shiver yet when we remember the 

 single thread upon which the production of optical 

 munitions depended in this country. Our glass- 

 makers, beaten by their foreign rivals, receiving 

 neither help, encouragement, nor even recognition 

 from the Government, had been content to continue 

 their patriotic efforts to maintain the industry, on the 

 urgent representations of a few far-seeing scientific 

 men, until long after those efforts held out any 

 promise of pecuniary reward. That danger, happily, 

 has passed, and the complete solution of the optical 

 glass problem is now only a question of time. Many 

 of the glasses now produced in this country compare 

 favourably with the best of those of our foreign rivals. 

 The varieties available are limited, but the leeway is 

 being rapidly made up. 



It is often stated that the late supremacy of the 

 Germans in optical production was the direct and 

 necessary result of the glass-making labours of Abbe 

 and Schott completed in the year 1886. This is not 

 a correct statement of the case. The fact is that, 

 when Abbe and Schott broke down the barriers to 

 optical progress imposed by the limited varieties of 

 glass available, Germany had in reserve a small army 

 of scientific workers, equipped with the necessary 

 technical knowledge and skill, ready to fill the breach 

 and carry on the work of utilising the new glasses in 

 the invention of new optical systems and in the 

 improvement of old. But the world moves quickly, 

 and inventions and discoveries, however valuable in- 

 trinsigally, are likely to remain barren unless a country 

 has a sufficient number of men equipped with the 

 necessary knowledge to exploit them instantly and 

 to the full. Indeed, it is only such men that can 

 appreciate the value of inventions and discoveries. 

 The necessity for a broad and generous scheme of 

 national education in optical matters thus becomes 

 apparent. When the users of optical instruments are 

 sufficiently educated to be able to distinguish and 

 appraise good designs and work, makers will be en- 

 couraged to meet their demands. In the absence of 

 such education the faddist has his day, and the maker 

 concerns himself too often in meeting the demands of 

 fashion. 



It is satisfactory to know, then, that, so far as 

 this country is concerned, a great deal has already 

 been done to foster optical education. The establish- 

 ment of the Technical Optics Committee, which in- 

 cludes representatives of the British Optical Instru- 

 ment Makers' Association, the War Office, the 

 .Admiralty, the National Physical Laboratory, the 

 London County Coljncil, the Royal Society, and the 

 Imperial College of Science, is in itself sufficient evi- 

 dence that the question has been taken up with great 

 thoroughness. The establishment of a department of 

 optical engineering and applied optics at the Imperial 

 College will ensure a supply of capable and well- 

 educated young men for the needs of the industry 

 generally. Prof. Conrady is doing veoman service 

 in the establishment of an English school of optical 

 designers and computers, the need for which was so 

 acutely felt during the war. The outlook, then, so 

 far as education is concerned, is decidedlv promising. 

 Indeed, in some important respects the scheme of 

 education here is already in advance of that of any 

 other country. 



When we turn, however, to the purely engineering 

 side — the production of the microscope as a mechanical 



NO. 2621, VOL. 104] 



instrument — the outlook is not so satisfactory. At the 

 present time the Government is pledged to afford pro- 

 tection to the optical industries. This will probably 

 be done by a continuation of the licensing system, 

 which has for the moment been suspended because of 

 Mr. Justice Sankey's decision, but there is little doubt 

 that the system will be reimposed, either by the reversal 

 of that decision or by legislative enactment. Now the 

 public at the present time, with just cause, are very 

 suspicious of anything in the nature of Protection. 

 During the past few years Protection has so often 

 resulted in unscrupulous profiteering at the expense 

 of the community that the public may well be excused 

 for looking with suspicion upon any proposal to con- 

 tinue the system. In the case of the microscope, for 

 example, there is little doubt that at the back of the 

 minds of many people there is a fear that Protection 

 will be taken advantage of by manufacturers to foist 

 upon the market inferior goods at greater prices than 

 could be obtained in' a free market. But the sym- 

 posium has proved conclusively that this danger, in 

 the case of microscopes at any rate, is a very small 

 one. One or two important makers exhibited new 

 models, designed for mass production, which showed 

 clearly how thoroughly and seriously the problem had 

 been taken up. Microscope production in this country 

 is now a young, vigorous, and promising organism, 

 which, in the course of a year or two, will prt)bably 

 be able to stand up and fight its way in the world 

 without artificial support. 



The real difficulty at the present moment lies in the 

 fact that efficient production means mass production, 

 and mass production means large enterprises carried 

 on with large capital. Everyone is agreed that pro- 

 duction by the old methods, requiring the employment 

 of a large proportion of highly skilled craftsmen — the 

 artistic method — must be replaced by machine methods. 

 Efficient and successful production in the case of the 

 microscope involves, as it does in so many other cases, 

 specialisation, standardisation, and the use of repeti- 

 tion machinery attended by unskilled labour to pro- 

 duce interchangeable parts, the whole of the activities 

 being supervised and directed by the highest technical 

 knowledge and skill. But this involves the speculative 

 investment of capital. The maker, on the other hand, 

 who can ensure a moderate success with little risk 

 bv carrving on producing operations on a small scale 

 to meet the immediate needs of the country is under 

 a great temptation to do so rather than risk every- 

 thing in an attempt to secure large profits by mass 

 production. The present position, therefore, is a 

 serious one for the trade generally. If the mass pro- 

 duction of optical instruments is necessary to the 

 success of the industry and to the realisation of the 

 end and aims of the Government, then it is very 

 unlikely that that success will be achieved by Protec- 

 tion alone. Some much more substantial assistance 

 must be given, and this assistance is not likely to be 

 given by private enterprise. , 



An interesting fact brought out by the papers and 

 discussions at the symposium was the urgent demand 

 for greater resolving power in the microscope. This 

 matter was particularly dealt with by Mr. J. E. 

 Barnard, who showed a very interesting series of 

 slides taken with the ultra-violet microscope to demon- 

 strate the greater resolution obtainable with the 

 shorter wave-length light. The metallographers, on 

 the other hand, in some cases appeared to be insisting 

 upon large magnifications without always clearly 

 recognising that these do not involve greater resolu- 

 tion. The half wave-length limit to resolution, first 

 advanced in effect by Fraunhofer, cannot substantially, 

 at any rate, be evaded, and this fact must be clearly 

 recognised. F. Cheshire. 



Imperial College, South Kensington. 



