4o6 



NA TURE 



[August 27, 1891 



investigations conducted at tlie Watertown Arsenal, Massa- 

 chusetts, not to mention the numerous Continental testing labora- 

 tories directed by such men as Bauschinger, Jenny, and Tetmajer. 

 Perhaps the most important recent work is that described by 

 Prof. Martens, of Berlin, on the influence of heat on the strength 

 of iron. 



I might have dwelt at length on all these matters without 

 doing half the service to metallurgy that I hope to render by 

 earnestly pleading for the more extended teaching of the subject 

 throughout the country, and for better laboratories, arranged on 

 the model of engineering laboratories, in which the teaching is 

 conducted with the aid of complete, though small, " plant." 

 The Science and Art Department has done great and lasting 

 service by directing that metallurgy shall be taught practically, 

 but much remains to be done. With regard to laboratories in 

 works, which are too often mere sheds, placed, say, behind the 

 boiler-house, when may we hope to rival the German chemical 

 firm which has recently spent 2'i9.ooo upon its laboratories, in 

 which research will be vigorously conducted ? There is hardly 

 any branch of inorganic chemistry which the metallurgist can 

 afford to neglect, while many branches both of physics and 

 mechanics are of the utmost importance to him. 



The wide range of study upon which a metallurgical student 

 is rightly expected to enter is leading, it is to be feared, to 

 diminution in the time devoted to analytical chemistry, and this 

 most serious question i-hould be pressed upon the attention of all 

 who are responsible for the training of our future chemists. 

 There can be no question that sulficient importance is not 

 attached to the estimation of "traces," an analysis being con- 

 sidered to be satisfactory if the constituents found add up to 99 -9, 

 although a knowledge as to what elements represent the missing 

 O'l may be more useful in affording an explanation of the defects 

 in a material than ail the rest of the analysis. This matter is of 

 growing interest to practical men, and may explain their marked 

 preference for chemists who have been trained in works, to those 

 who have been educated in a college laboratory. 



The necessity for affording public instruction in mining and 

 metallurgy, with a view to the full development of the mineral 

 wealth of a nation, is well known. The issues at stake are so 

 vast, that in this country it was considered desirable to provide 

 a centre of instruction in which the teaching of mining and 

 metallurgy should not be left to private enterprise or even 

 intrusted to a corporation, but should be under the direct control 

 of the Government. With this end in view, the Royal School 

 of Mines was founded in 1851, and has supplied a body of well- 

 trained men who have done excellent service for the country 

 and her colonies. The Government has recently taken a step in 

 advance, and has further recognized the national importance of 

 the teaching of mining and metallurgy by directing that the 

 School of Mines shall be incorporated with the Royal College of 

 Science, which is, I believe, destined to lead the scientific educa- 

 tion of the nation. 



It is to be feared that as regards metalliferous mining our 

 country has seen its best days, but the extraordinary mmeral 

 wealth of our colonies has recently been admirably described by 

 my colleague, Prof. Le Neve Foster, in the inaugural lecture he 

 delivered early in the present year on his appointment to the 

 chair so long held by Sir Warington Smyth {Engineering, 

 vol. li., p. 2CO et seq.). We shall, however, be able to rightly 

 estimate the value of our birthright when the Imperial Institute 

 is opened next year, and the nation will have reason to be 

 grateful to Sir Frederick Abel for the care he is devoting to the 

 development of this great institution, which will become the 

 visible exponent of the splendours of our Indian and colonial 

 resources, as well as a centre of information. 



The rapid growth of technical literature renders it unneces- 

 sary for a President of a Section to devote his address to 

 recording the progress of the subject he represents. As regards 

 the most important part of our national metallurgy, this has, 

 moreover, been admirably done by successive Presidents of the 

 Iron and Steel Institute, but it may have been expected that 

 references would have been made to the main processes which 

 have been adopted since Percy occupied this chair in 1849. I 

 have riot done so, because an enumeration of. the processes 

 would have been wholly inadequate, and a description of them 

 impossible in the time at my disposal. Nevertheless, it 

 may be well to remind the Section of a few of the more prominent 

 additions the art has received in the last half-century, and to offer 

 a few statements to show the magnitude on which operations are 



conducted. As regards iron, in the last twenty-five years the 

 price of steel has been reduced from ;^55 per ton to ;^5 per ton ; 

 but, after giving the world the inestimable boon of cheap steel by 

 the labours of Bessemer and of Siemens, we were somewhat slow 

 to accept the teaching of experiment as to the best method of 

 treating the new material ; on the other hand, Hadfield has 

 brought manganese steel and aluminium .steel within the reach 

 of the manufacturer, and J. Riley has done much to develop the 

 use of nickel-steel. 



In the case of copper, we have mainly contributed to the ex- 

 traordinary development of wet processes for its extraction from 

 poor sulphides, and have met the great demands for pure metal 

 by the wide adoption of electrolytic processes. 



As regards the precious metals, this country is well to the front, 

 for Great Britain and her colonies produce about 38 per cent, of 

 the gold supply of the world ; and it may be well to add, as an 

 indication of the scale on which operations are conducted, that 

 in London alone one ton of gold and five tons of silver bullion 

 can easily be refined in a day. No pains have been spared in 

 perfecting the method of assay by which the value of gold and 

 silver is ascertained, and during my twenty years' connection 

 with the Royal Mint I have been responsible for the accuracy 

 of the standard fineness of no less than hve hundred and fifty-five 

 tons of gold coin, of an aggregate value of seventy millions five 

 hundred thousand pounds sterling. In the case of the platinum 

 industry we owe its extraordinary development to the skill and 

 enterprise of successive members of the firm of Johnson, Matthey, 

 and Co., who in later years have based their operations upon 

 the results of the investigations of Deville and Debray. Some 

 indication of the value of the material dealt with may be 

 gathered from the statement that two and a half hundred- 

 weight of platinum may easily be melted in a single charge, 

 and that the firm, in one operation, extracted a mass of pal- 

 ladium valued at ;^30,ooq from gold-platinum ore actually 

 worth more than a million sterling. 



I wish it were possible to record the services of those who 

 have advanced metallurgy in connection with this Association, 

 but the limitations of time render it difficult to do more than to 

 refer to some honoured names of past presidents of this Section. 

 Michael Faraday, President of this Section in 1837 and 1846, 

 prepared the first specimen of nickel-steel, an alloy which seems 

 to have so promising a future, but we may hardly claim him as 

 a metallurgist ; nor should I be justified in referring, in connec- 

 tion with metallurgical research, to my own master, Graham, 

 President of this Section in 1839, and again in 1844, were it not 

 that his experiments on the occlusion of gases by metals have 

 proved to be of such extraordinary practical importance in con- 

 nection with the metallurgy of iron. Sir Lyon Playfair presided 

 over this Section in 1855, and again in 1859. His work in con- 

 nection with Bunsen on the composition of blast-furnace gases 

 was published in the Report of this Association in 1847, and 

 formed the earliest of a group of researches, amongst which those 

 of Sir Lowthian Bell proved to be of so much importance. The 

 latter was President of this Section in 1S89. Sir F. Abel, 

 President of this Section in 1877, rendered enduiing service to 

 the Government by his elaborate metallurgical investigations in 

 connection with materials used for guns and projectiles, as well 

 as for defensive purposes. I will conclude this section of the 

 address by a tribute to the memory of Percy. He may be said to 

 have created the English literature of metallurgy, to have 

 enriched it with the records of his own observations, and to have 

 revived the love of our countrymen for metallurgical investiga- 

 tion. His valuable collection of specimens, made while 

 Professor at the Royal School of Mines, is now appropriately 

 lodged at South Kensington, and will form a lasting memorial 

 of his labours as a teacher. Pie exerted very noteworthy 

 influence in guiding the public to a just appreciation of the 

 labours of scientific men, and he lived to see an entire change in 

 the tone of the public press in this respect. In the year of 

 Percy's presidency over this Section the Times gave only one- 

 tenth of a column to a suinmary of the results of the last day but 

 one of the meeting, although the usual discourse delivered 

 on the previous evening had been devoted to a question of 

 great importance — "The Application of Iron to Railway 

 Purposes." Space was, however, found for the interesting state- 

 ment that the "number of Quakeresses who attended the meet- 

 ings of the Sections was not a little remarkable." Compare 

 the slender record of the Times of 1849 with its careful 

 chronicle of the proceedings at any recent meeting of the 

 Association. 



NO. II 39, VOL. 44] 



