88 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[April 1, 1897. 



theoretic and industrial importance — to the discovery of 

 new generalizations, and the recognition of important 

 physico-chemical laws. 



As regards originality in the application of chemistry to 

 practice, our record is hardly less brilliant, although in 

 too many cases it has been given to other nations — and in 

 particular to Germany — to gather the fruit which ought to 

 have been ours. It is interesting to note that the ammonia- 

 soda process was patented by Dyar and Hemming in the 

 first years of the Queen's reign, and was worked by the 

 Muspratts as early as 1839 ; but it was left to two Belgian 

 engineers to secure for this method of manufacturing alkali 

 the great commercial success which it now enjoys. The 

 discovery of benzene by Faraday was the first stop in the 

 history of the coal-tar colour manufacture ; the second 

 step was taken by Mansfield, at the sacrifice of his life, 

 in working out the industrial isolation of the hydro- 

 carbon ; whilst the third was due to Perkin, when, by 

 the discovery of mauve, he revealed the enormous wealth 

 of colouring matter which was latent in coal-tar. In 

 spite of the labours and example of Medlock and of 

 Nicholson, the importance of this great branch of industrial 

 chemistry was not recognized by manufacturing chemists 

 in this country, and its present extraordinary development 

 is due to Germany, which has spent upon it some of the 

 ablest chemical talent it possesses. It is rather by the 

 development and extension of well-established processes, 

 depending on comparatively simple chemical principles, 

 that our progress in the chemical arts is to be measured ; 

 for our staple chemical industries remain very much what 

 they were at the beginning of the Queen's reign. The 

 industrial chemistry of chlorine may be said to have been 

 worked out by Englishmen, and the names of Gossage, 

 Weldon, and Deacon are pre-eminently associated with 

 the growth of this branch of chemical manufacture. The 

 Muspratts manufactured Liebig's patent manure in 1813, 

 and this marks the beginning of the large trade in chemical 

 fertilizers which has been entirely developed during the 

 Queen's reign. Perhaps the best measure of the progress 

 of applied chemistry in this kingdom during the past sixty 

 years, may be gathered from the difference in the amounts 

 of oil of vitriol manufactured in 1837 and at the present 

 time. The great value of sulphuric acid as an index of 

 the prosperity of the chemical arts arises from the circum- 

 stance that there is no other single chemical product that 

 is so largely concerned in the manufacture, directly or 

 indirectly, of other chemical substances. To-day sulphuric 

 acid is manufactured with an almost quantitative precision, 

 ihanks very largely to the introduction of the Glover tower, 

 which it is not too much to say effected a revolution in 

 this great industry. 



What the future has in store for us remains to be seen. 

 The more general introduction of electrical processes into 

 chemical manufacturing is bound to effect great changes. 

 The application of electrical energy has completely altered 

 the aspect of the metallurgy of aluminium, copper, and 

 the alkali metals, and it now threatens the supremacy 

 of the established methods of manufacturing alkali and 

 chlorine. 



So far as can be seen, there is no immediate hope that 

 this country will be able to compete with Germany in the 

 manufacture of those products which are the direct out- 

 come of the application of the higher and more recondite 

 branches of chemical science to industry, nor will there be 

 even the prospective hope until our manufacturers, as a 

 body, bring the spirit of science into their work, and show 

 a greater receptivity and a more widespread desire to turn 

 the evei-growing development of the science to practical 

 account. 



AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE 

 UNITED KINGDOM.* 



IT is not given to us all to cultivate that sublime 

 enthusiasm for the crumbling relics of our pre- 

 historic past which actuates Dr. Murray in this most 

 admirable and invaluable address. Originally 

 delivered as a presidential address to the Cilasgow 

 Archaeological Society, it is here reprinted from the 

 Transactions as a permanent collection from many sources 

 of much curious information on the rise and progress of 

 the science. But it is more than that. Step by step, 

 through a clear and perfect narrative of the facts, by 

 comparisons with other lands, and contrasts with kindred 

 sciences in our own, the author has compiled an un- 

 answerable appeal to the Government to project a complete 

 archaeological survey of the United Kingdom, similar to 

 the topographical and geological surveys. Such a survey 

 has been in progress in India for more than thirty years, 

 and a minute signed by Lord Canning, in 1862, thus 

 tersely sets out its purpose : " What is aimed at is an 

 accurate description, illustrated by plans, measurements, 

 drawings, or photographs, and by copies of inscriptions, of 

 such remains as most deserve notice, with the history of 

 them so far as it may be traceable, and a record of the 

 traditions that are retained regarding them." In France, 

 so far back as 1831, M. Guizot, then Minister of Public 

 Instruction, founded a commission for the conservation of 

 national monuments. Li Denmark, Prussia, and Bavaria, 

 similar work has been done ; while the interesting memoirs 

 issued from time to time by the Bureau of Ethnology of 

 the Smithsonian Institution on many prehistoric monu- 

 ments throughout the United States of America, are well 

 known. 



Such a project, then, in our country, is eminently 

 practicable, perfectly reasonable, and absolutely necessary. 

 It should be pressed upon the Government by every friend 

 of archaeological science that a work of such magnitude 

 and importance should be no longer neglected and delayed. 

 Let us at once and for ever, as Dr. Murray so well puts it, 

 " wipe away the reproach that England is the only country 

 in Europe that does nothing to register and protect her 

 ancient monuments." The condition of the law in regard 

 to the question is simply farcical. Sir John Lubbock's 

 Ancient Monuments Protection Act (45 and 46 Vict., 

 cap. 73) was limited to a defined list of only sixty-nine 

 monuments in all (twenty-nine in England, twenty-one in 

 Scotland, and nineteen in Ireland) ; but it set up certain 

 machinery by which the Commissioners of Works are 

 empowered to receive, by bequest or purchase, any ancient 

 monument, and some few additions have been so made to 

 the original list. But, incredible as it may appear, even 

 this slow and feeble method of preserving tlae undesigned 

 records of the past has been rendered inoperative by the 

 Government, who decline to accept further monuments 

 under the Act. An excellent example of how not to doit. 

 In deploring the loss of the exact local pronunciation 

 of place names. Dr. Murray presses the phonograph into 

 the service, and advocates a phonological museum for the 

 purpose of recording reliable information as to place names. 

 An admirable suggestion, which should also serve the 

 philologist. The author further suggests the founding ot 

 local museums for the retention of antiquities in the localities 

 to which they belong, and he condemns the sacrifice of all 

 local interests to the one purpose of a national collection. 

 " Because the county of Northumberland is politically in 



* "An Archaeological Survey of the I'liited Kiugcloiii : the Preser- 

 Viitioii and Protection of our Ancient Monuments." By David 

 Murrav, LL.D., P.S.A. (Ghisgow : .Tiinies MaeLehose and Sons.) 



