July 20, 1893] 



NATURE 



279 



steam and the apparatus for generating it. Before that time 

 arrives, and some form of gas engine (including oil engines) 

 arrive, a distinctly new departure will have to be made equiva- 

 lent to that of the separate condenser of Watt. 



The last paper in the list, that of Mr. G. H. Bryan on bulk- 

 heads, was in some respects the most promising and most sug- 

 gestive of the meeting. The bulkhead question has been 

 troubling the most thoughtful of our naval architects for some 

 time past. Dr. Elgar attacked the question some time back in 

 a paper he read before the Institution, and Mr. Martell also 

 read a memoir on the subject. Some time ago a strong 

 Government committee was appointed to consider the problems 

 involved in this matter, and a report was issued. Rightly or 

 wrongly, some naval architects are not satisfied with the position 

 in which the report left the question. It is considered by many 

 of the more thoughtful that a more scientific method of dealing 

 with the problem should be evolved. Mr. Bryan, who is a 

 Cambridge mathematician of high reputation at his University, 

 has been led to take the matter up, and the present paper is an 

 effort to bring higher mathematics to the aid of the solution of 

 the question. The paper, however, contains nothing that need 

 appal any naval architect or engineer who can lay fair claim to 

 the title, and it is eminently practical. The similes selected 

 by the author are of the simplest nature ; indeed, the 

 memoir reads more like a contribution from the pen 

 of the late Mr. Froude, who was a very prince of lucidity 

 and simplicity. We are reluctantly obliged, through want of 

 space, to treat this paper as we have the others read at this meet- 

 ing, and only give a suggestion of its scope, referring our readers 

 to the Transactions of the Institution for fuller details. Mr. 

 Bryan attacks the theory, still held by many engineers, that the 

 plate may be regarded as consisting of a series of parallel strips 

 supporting pressure by their tensions. Euler's and Bernouilli's 

 early theories have been abandoned by mathematicians, and 

 Mr. Bryan is now trying to persuade engineers to do the same 

 in effect in giving up the "parallel strip" illustration. The 

 matter affords an excellent t.xample of the manner in which the 

 student of higher mathematics may assist the engineer. We 

 may add that it is proposed to discuss the subject at the next 

 meeting of the Institution to be held next spring, and doubtless 

 Mr. Holmes, the secretary of the Institution, would forward a 

 copy of the paper to any one wishing to take part in the dis- 

 cussion. The address of the Institution is 5, Adelphi Terrace, 

 Strand. 



SOCIETY OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. 



'T'HE Annual General Meeting of the Society of Chemical In- 

 dustry was opened at University College, Liverpool, on July 

 12, when Sir John Evans, K.C. B., Treas. R.S., delivered his 

 Presidential address as follows : — 



" When I look at the list of those who in past years have 

 occupied the Presidential chair of this Society, all of them men 

 eminent in the departments of either theoretical or practical 

 chemistry, or, indeed, of both, I cannot but feel my own insuffi- 

 ciency to succeed them in worthily fulfilling the duties of this 

 post. lam, indeed, tempted to inquiie how and why it was, 

 that, in accordance with the pressing invitation of some mem- 

 bers of the Council, I ever consented to allow myself to be 

 placed in nomination as your President. It certainly was not 

 on the grounds of any fancied chemical attainments ; nor was 

 it from my having been in former years associated with any in- 

 dustry that is usually regarded as being specially connected with 

 chemistry. Far less was it in the hope that any remarks that I 

 might be called upon to make while acting as your President 

 could be of any particular interest or value to those who, in all 

 probability, are far better acquainted than I can pretend to be 

 with any subject that properly comes within the scope of such a 

 Society as ours. I believe, however, that the main reason that I 

 had for alloiving myself to be brought forward is one that will, 

 to a great extent, palliate my shortcomings in so many of the 

 essential requisites for such an office. It was the hearty and 

 entire appreciation that I felt of the work and aims of such a 

 Society as that of Chemical Industry, that was the prime mover 

 in the case. Whether I regarded the organisation of the Society, 

 with its sections at all the principal centres of chemical opera- 

 tions, each to a certain extent independent, but all working har- 

 moniously together, and forming one powerful and important 

 body, with high objects and aspirations before it ; or whether I 



NO. 1238. VOL. 4.8] 



looked at it as presenting a bond of union between industries 

 apparently unconnected, while, at the same time, furnibhing in- 

 formation of the most useful character to each and all, I could 

 not but recognise it as a body in the highest degree conducive 

 to the public welfare ; so that on these, if on no other grounds, 

 I should have been wanting in public spirit had I stood 

 aloof when others urged me to accept the post of your President. 



" It is, I firmly believe, only by some such cordial co-operation 

 among the different industries of this country as that which our 

 Society has inaugurated, that the commercial position of Great, 

 or Greater, Britain is to be maintained ; and the more fully the 

 interdependence between one branch of manufacture and another 

 is recognised and acted upon, the more likely are we, as a whole, 

 to maintain our place in the keen race of competition with other 

 countries. 



"A meiely cursory glance at our Journal will at once show how 

 numerous are the departments of British industry that are more 

 or less dependent on chemical knowledge, the information given 

 on current literature and the specifications of new patents being 

 arranged under no less than threeand-twenty different heads, 

 many of them embracing several varying occupations. Not a few 

 of these headings would, within my own memory, have conveyed 

 but little meaning even to experts. I need merely carry liack the 

 minds o'. some of the elder members of the Society, not only to 

 the days when aniline colours were not and Dr. Perkins was com- 

 paratively unknown, but to the time when lucifer matches had 

 not been invented, when photography was practically non-exis- 

 tent, and when in most of those industries in which a know- 

 ledge of chemistry is now regarded as indispensable, the ' rule 

 of thumb ' reigned absolute. 



" I can speak of those old times with some personal feeling, as 

 it is now upwards of fifty years since, that having presumably 

 completed my education, I first entered a paper-mill in order to 

 learn the art and mystery of the manufacture of paper, with which 

 the name of the firm of which I was until lately a member — that 

 of John Dickinson and Co. — has been so long, and, I may ven- 

 ture to say, so honourably connected. It was, of course, 

 recognised that some knowledge of chemistry was a requisite in 

 such a manufacture, but I must freely confess that our methods 

 were of the rudest, and that it was only as years rolled on, and 

 first esparto fibre, and then the different kinds of wood pulp 

 were introduced into the manufacture, and the various methods 

 and results of sizing studied, that a thorough acquaintance with 

 chemical laws became a sine qua non for those who hoped for 

 success in this branch of industry. 



" At the date that I have in view — say 1840 — although rags 

 were the staple material for the manufacture of paper, our con- 

 sumption of them was but small, and they were principally 

 used by us in producing paper for copper-plate work — steel 

 plates at that time being rarely used — and for the highest class 

 of printing papers. We consumed, however, a large quantity 

 of raw material in the shape of the waste arising in the manu- 

 facture of linen and cotton goods, and we had collecting agents at 

 Dundee, Belfast, Bradford, Leeds, and Manchester, who bought 

 the waste upon the spot. At Manchester we had a mill, in 

 which the cotton-waste was cleaned, boiled, and converted into 

 what is known as ' halfsiuff,' which was finally bleached and 

 made into paper at our Hertfordshire mills. In that county we 

 had another 'half-stuff' mill, at Rickmansworth, where the 

 linen waste was treated. The boiling was carried on in open 

 keirs, or such as were partially closed, and always at a low 

 pressure, as high pressure boilers for such materials were prac- 

 tically unknown. Most of the waste was twice boiled, first 

 with caustic lime, and secondly with a small amount of soda. 

 The 'shieves,' or woody particles, that were unreduced by the 

 boiling, were got rid of by a long process of screening, or 

 'devilling,' after the 'half-stuff' had been dried so far as 

 possible in hydraulic presses. The material was then bleached 

 in stone chambers by the direct action of chlorine gas, produced 

 on the spot in retorts. At the mills, however, where the 

 ' half-stuff ' was converted into paper, the remains of the 

 cbloiine had to be washed out, and the final bleaching of 

 the stuff to be effected with bleaching salts. No process for 

 the recovery of the soda used in Lolling was then known, and, 

 indeed, the quantity used was so much less than that which is 

 now necessary with esparto, that it would not have paid to 

 recover it. I remember, however, being engaged in some ex- 

 periments for the lecovery of the manganese from the spent 

 liquor of the retorts. Even when first Mr. Routledge intro- 

 duced the use of esparto fibre no evaporating or recovery 



