334 



NATURE 



[June 21, 19 17 



solved by patient application and earnest endeavour. 

 Large powers are needed; the various parts move at 

 great speed, hence strength is essential, but the weight 

 must be kept down ; at the same time endurance is 

 necessary; risk of untimely failure must be reduced 

 and the pilot made as secure as possible. Here the 

 metallurgist has been at work, producing alloys little 

 heavier than aluminium, yet comparable in strength 

 with. steel, and suitable for many new demands, and 

 in this field Dr. Rosenhain, of the National Physical 

 Laboratory, has arrived at many important results. 



Or consider the instruments the pilot needs to deter- 

 mine his height, his speed, or the direction in which he 

 is moving to enable him to drop his bomb at the right 

 moment, or to sight his gun on his enemy as the 

 two planes come within range. Cambridge, as repre- 

 sented by Horace Darwin and Keith Lucas, has done 

 yeoman service in these various fields, while in all our 

 many discussions on theory we have profited by the 

 great knowledge and the clear thinking of our Chan- 

 cellor — Lord Rayleigh, president of the Advisory Com- 

 mittee for Aeronautics. 



Again, turning to another subject, consider the 

 science involved in the manufacture of a big gun and 

 its ammunition, or in the calculation of the trajectory 

 of its projectile. Many gun problems are not new ; 

 artillerists had long realised the importance of experi- 

 ment and calculation, the manufacturer to test his steel 

 and determine the safe stresses to which it could be 

 subject, the gunner to measure the resistance to the 

 motion of the shell to plot its trajectory, determine its 

 time of flight for various ranges, set his fuse, and 

 design his sights so that his shooting might be accurate. 

 But the long-range gunnery of our modern ships and the 

 high-angle fire required for anti-aircraft work, have 

 each introduced new difficulties, and in solving these 

 Cambridge men, such as Littlewood, Hill, Richmond. 

 Herman, Gallop, and Fowler, have been well to the 

 fore, while for anti-aircraft work the Bennett height- 

 finder in one of its many forms is in general use in 

 the Allied Armies. 



One striking feature has been the development of 

 methods of accurate workmanship. With some few- 

 exceptions all the gauges for munitions pass through 

 the National Physical Laboratory. About 400,000 have 

 been dealt with in the last eighteen or twenty months. 

 At first we were in despair. The limits of accuracy 

 which the inspection department fixed were extremely 

 narrow — in some cases only three ten-thousandths of 

 an inch. Rejections were very numerous ; to supply 

 the requirements appeared impossible, but now gauges 

 are examined at the rate of about 10,000 a week, and 

 some 80 per cent, pass as a matter of course. Some 

 firms get practically all their gauges through. Careful 

 scientific examination of the causes of error, improved 

 methods of manufacture, and a firmer grasp of the 

 essentials have produced this change ; the standard of 

 manufacture has been gradually improved, and results 

 at first thought unattainable have been realised. 



Physics and engineering would afford many othet 

 instances, such as improvements in means of signal- 

 ling, w;ireless telegraphy, sound-ranging, and weather 

 prediction. 



Chemistry and the biological sciences have contri- 

 buted more than their full share, and though I cannot 

 claim to speak with first-hand knowledge of the achieve- 

 ments of medical science, I must mention some facts 

 for which I am indebted to the kindness of Surg.- 

 Gen. Sir Alfred Keogh and Col. Webb, ^who 

 informs me that the annual admission ratio for all 

 causes other than wounds in action in France is approxi- 

 mately 428 per 1000. In the following campaigns the 

 corresponding ratios were : — 



NO. 2486, VOL. 99] 



Egypt, 1882 2276 



Nile, 1884-5 557 



Dongola, 1896 892 



Nile, 1898 955 



South Africa 843 



China, 1900-1 933 



In France the annual admission ratio 



For typhoid fever is ... .. 09 per 1000. 



And for the whole typhoid 



group of diseases 2-4 ,, 1000. 



In South Africa the annual admission ratio 

 For enteric fever was ... ... 130 per 1000. 



And for enteric fever plus other 



continued fevers ... ... 204 ,, 1000. 



The figures speak eloquently of the triumphs of 

 medicine, and the wonderful results achieved by the 

 devotion of doctors- and nurses. 



The war has brought home to us, in a way that 

 only an event of its magnitude can do, the dependence 

 of the modern world on science and the advancement of 

 natural knowledge ; the need, then, is that when peace 

 comes we should use this great power to the full to 

 repair the ravages of war. 



A distinction is often drawn nowadays between pure 

 science and industrial science. I saw somewhere re- 

 cently a protest against the use • of the latter term. 

 Science is one, and industrial science — so-called — is 

 the application of the discoveries of pure science to 

 the problems of industry. Huxley wrote long ago : — 

 "What people call applied science is nothing but 

 the . application of pure science to particular 

 problems." It is essential that we should remember 

 this, and strive here in the first place for the advance- 

 ment of pure science. 



Scientific investigations we may divide into two 

 classes : those in pure science which are directed sol^^ly 

 to the advancement of natural knowledge, the dis- 

 covery of Nature's laws, and those which have for 

 their aim the application of these discoveries to the 

 processes of our everyday life in art, or commerce, or 

 manufacture. There is no need to lay stress in this 

 room on the paramount importance of the first class. 

 The Cavendish professor, speaking recently in Lon- 

 don, said truly: "The discoveries in applied science 

 may produce a reformation ; those in pure science lead 

 to revolutions." 



The Rontgen rays, as Sir J. J. Thomson recently 

 pointed out, were studied first as one means whereby 

 we might hope to learn something of the nature of 

 electricity. They are now the surgeon's trusted guide, 

 telling him how to direct his knife and restore his patient . 

 to health and strength. Pasteur's work commenced 

 in an inquiry into the crystallog^raphic differences- of 

 certain chemical substances, leading him to the result 

 that certain kinds of chemical fermentation are due 

 to the action of living organisms which are not born 

 spontaneously in the fermenting material, but are 

 derived from infection. Lister seized on this and 

 applied it to medicine and surgery. The medical 

 statistics of the war will show, when they can be 

 prepared, something of what the world owes, 

 measured in lives saved for future work, to these two 

 discoveries ; the amount of pain the sufferers have 

 been spared is immeasurable. 



Lord Moulton, in his preface to " Science and the 

 Nation," refers with special pleasure to Dr. Rosenhain's 

 essay on modern metallurgy. The foundation of this 

 work rests on Sorby's application of the methods of 

 petrographic research to investigate the properties of 

 meteorites, and on the study of the thermo-electric 

 properties of metals due to Seebeck, Peltier, and 



