March 29, 19 17] 



NATURE 



^7 



students than in normal times, but there is much 

 difficulty in' securing- sufficient lecturers and 

 demonstrators, and, with the professors and heads 

 of departments engaged on war work, the junior 

 staffs are in most cases overburdened. It is 

 doubtful whether many who were teachers 

 before the war will return to their former work, 

 the remuneration and outlook being usually un- 

 satisfactory for any but those of outstanding 

 ability. Yet the majority of our science graduates 

 have hitherto turned to teaching- for lack of oppor- 

 tunity of securing appointments in industry, few 

 being in a position to start practice individually. 

 The private practitioners in chemistry who are 

 really successful are not numerous, and these rely 

 in most cases mainly on consulting- and analytical 

 work in some branch in which they have acquired 

 a reputation. The fees for commercial work 

 leave no great margin for the principals when all 

 expenses of maintenance have been taken into 

 account, and they are seldom able to afford high 

 salaries, even to their chief assistants. Much of 

 the routine analytical work is entrusted, as in the 

 factories, to men with no special qualifications. 

 Thousands of men who have received an elemen- 

 tary training in secondary and technical schools 

 are available and can be utilised for a limited 

 range of analyses, and comparatively simple 

 operations. The more competent are thereby 

 crowded out. 



Reviewing the position as a whole, we come 

 to the conclusion that qualified professional 

 chemists will find in future an increasing demand 

 for their services in industry, either as research 

 chemists, works chemists in control of plant, or 

 works managers, the routine testing work being 

 relegated to the less qualified assistants, only the 

 i)est of these being eligible for promotion on the 

 works on showing promise of real ability. In 

 progressive concerns arrang-ements will be made 

 for such assistants to receive systematic training 

 in neighbouring universities and colleges. ^^ orks 

 chemists will be wise to take every opportunity 

 of improving their training and experience on 

 the engineering side, whereby they may become 

 capable of designing and erecting plant as 

 required. In the course of time many such men 

 will establish themselves in independent practice, 

 along with public analysts, official agricultural 

 analysts, metallurgists and other specialists, and 

 general consultants. 



Appointments in governmental and municipal 

 departments, for which in the higher grades only 

 qualified chemists should be accepted, will prob- 

 ably become more numerous, and should, in the 

 interests of the community, be made attractive to 

 men of the right stamp. Under this head we 

 embrace appointments in arsenals, factories, and 

 dockyards, with those of inspectors under the 

 Alkali, etc., Works Regulation Act, and similar 

 statutory offices, as well as those under county 

 and municipal authorities, health departments, 

 river boards, sewage works, etc., gas examiners, 

 water examiners, and so forth. Chemists 

 engaged in official laboratories should have pros- 

 pects at least equivalent to those in industry and 

 XO. 2474, VOL. 99] 



private practice, a principle which applies in a 

 limited number of the higher appointments of the 

 Civil Service. Nor should we omit the staffs of 

 the National Physical Laboratory, the Imperial 

 Institute, and similar institutions where research 

 is the primary function. 



Finally, but by no means the least important, 

 there are the professors and teachers of chemistr}, 

 who represent a very large body, eng-aged in our 

 universities and technical colleges, public and 

 secondary' schools, whose positions g-enerally 

 should afford far better prospects than they have 

 in the past. With all these openings there should 

 be no lack of recruits for the profession of 

 chemistr\', either in the Mother-country or in the 

 Overseas Dominions, where also competent 

 chemists are afforded oppbrtunities corresponding- 

 to those here indicated. 



THE WEATHERING OF COAL. 



THE Canadian Department of Mines has lately 

 issued a volume of 194 pages, constituting 

 an extra volume supplementing Report No. 83, 

 and forming a portion of the " Investigation of the 

 Coals of Canada with reference to their Economic 

 Qualities," which has been prepared by Dr. J. B. 

 Porter, of McGill Universit}'. This is devoted to a 

 discussion of the literature of the subject and of 

 the results obtained by the author and his assis- 

 tants in their researches upon this difficult and 

 important problem. It has very long been known 

 that whilst all coals are liable to undergo deteri- 

 oration on storage, some give rise to marked heat- 

 ing, whilst others are even liable to spontaneous 

 combustion. The latter, as being attended 

 with most obvious disastrous consequences, 

 was the first of these effects to attract 

 attention, and a Royal Commission on Coal 

 Cargoes was appointed to study the matter 

 exactly forty ' years ago. It is only within 

 the last few years that much progress has been 

 made towards its solution, and that mainly 

 through the labours of a few first-class chemists 

 under the scientific guidance of Dr. ]. S. Haldane, 

 in a laboratory the expenses of which have been 

 defrayed by the Doncaster Coalowners' Associa- 

 tion ; this association took up the question from a 

 slightly different point of view, namely, with the 

 object of discovering the causes of, and finding a 

 remedy for, the "gob-fires" to which some coal- 

 seams are particularly liable. Dr. Porter's atten- 

 tion has been directed mainly to the question of 

 the safe storage of coal and the prevention of 

 deterioration in its quality. 



It was soon obvious that all these problems are 

 closely related, and depend, indeed, essentially 

 upon the oxidation of coal, and this, again, upon 

 the absorption of oxygen by the coal. Dr. Porter 

 has presented his conclusions in the form of a 

 brief summarv, in which he shows that oxidation 

 depends upon the presence of moisture in moder- 

 ate amount, absolutely dry coal and thoroughly 

 wet coal (e.g. submerged in water) being both less 

 liable to oxidation than coal in the presence of a 

 small quantity of moisture; it depends also upon 



