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CHAPTER VI 



(Physical Science) 



SOME INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS 



IT is not intended here to catalogue, much less to discuss, 

 the multitude of practical applications of science which 

 have originated in this country during the last century. To 

 mention merely the manufacture of steel, the building of 

 bridges, and the evolution of the modern steam-engine is 

 sufficient to illustrate the all-pervading influence of science 

 on our industries. 



The scientific production of steel originated with Ben- 

 jamin Huntsman (1704-1776), a clockmaker of Doncaster, 

 who discovered the process of making cast steel by melting 

 in crucibles. Starting works in Sheffield, he was the first to 

 introduce a material of uniform temper and composition 

 which could in the modern sense be termed steel. Much 

 might be said on the more recent developments of the steel 

 industry by Henry Bessemer (1813-1898), and on other in- 

 ventions, such as Sir Charles Parsons' steam-turbine, one of 

 the greatest triumphs that engineering skill has ever achieved. 

 But we must content ourselves with a few selected examples 

 illustrating the effects of pure scientific research on that 

 complex organization of the community which usually goes 

 by the name of civilization. 



So much in our modern life depends on the facilities for 

 rapid mutual intercourse that it is curious to note how 

 new devices have often supplied the means before there 

 was a demand. The capacity of inventing outpaced the 

 power of the imagination to understand the use of the inven- 

 tion : the supply had to create the demand. Thus, when 

 Sir Francis Ronalds (1788-1873) submitted to the Govern- 

 ment in 1816 the design of an electric telegraph which he 



