6o 



NATURE 



[March i6, 1916 



laboratory, men whose sympathies, already scien- 

 tific, would be streng-thened by association and 

 make broad channels for the flow of science into 

 practice. 



Scientific men, we must admit, have often no 

 conception of the real environment and problems 

 of the industrialist ; of the accumulated store of 

 empirical knowledg-e from which he must select 

 what is needed ; of the skill and design with which 

 he must apply it under the limitations imposed by 

 men, material, and markets. They too often 

 underrate the extent and importance of what may 

 be called technolog-ical science and the new hori- 

 zons that it opens. The technologist is often 

 ignorantly set in the outer courts of learning ; he is 

 not quite of the elect, and antipathies arise. How 

 much have we not sacrificed of the acceptance and 

 efficacy of science in industry by offering- young- 

 men trained in pure science and knowing- nothing 

 of manufacture, to employers trained in manufac- 

 ture and knowing- nothing- of science, relying 

 wholly on the manufacturer for a most difficult 

 and precarious adjustment ? 



The manag-ement of our applied science has 

 become one of the great problems of the day, and 

 it brings with it great difficulties. Spurious tech- 

 nology is a hateful make-believe that has already 

 wrought much mischief; a man, however scien- 

 tific, \yholly on the make — to use a concise vulgar 

 term for a vulgar condition — is an unedifying 

 spectacle. But it does not follow that because a 

 man is preoccupied with industrial problems he 

 shall lose his scientific virtue or that his achieve- 

 ments, however remunerative, should rank on a 

 lower plane. It is not so difficult to distinguish 

 the genuine from the base among scientific 

 workers wherever they may be engaged. 



We must strengthen the bonds between science 

 and industry by something more than an appeal to 

 the pocket. A real s)«ipathy and interest must be 

 created on both sides ; we must open our arms ! 

 wider. Even if we find difficulty in discovering, in 

 this country, the type of railway president de- 

 scribed by Lt.-Col. Barret, there are yet many 

 men in our world of industry and in the service 

 of the State who, without any list of scientific 

 memoirs to their name, have yet been potent in 

 the service of science, and would be more potent 

 still if they were brought more into companion- 

 ship with the scientific world. The Royal Society 

 has the power of admitting to its ranks at the rate 

 of one each year "persons, who in their opinion 

 have either rendered conspicuous service to the 

 cause of science or are such that their election 

 would be of signal benefit to the Society." Here 

 at least is a limited opportunity of doing some- 

 thing towards introducing into the circle of science 

 the sort of men whose influence might help 

 towards bringing about the reform to which we 

 are bidden by a candid friend. In any of the new 

 associations that are contemplated for giving 

 science its right place in our national life we shall 

 surely df) well to cast our net widely and to extend 

 our outlook beyond the conventional circumference 

 of what have usually been deemed scientific 

 circles. 



NO. 2420, VOL. 97] 



SULPHURIC ACID IN AMERICAA 

 FN what is known as a "professional papei 

 J- Mr. W. H. Waggaman, of the U.S. Depa 

 ment of Agriculture, has recently given an accov 

 of the modes of manufacture of sulphuric ac: 

 both by the " chamber " and the " contact " pi 

 cess, with special reference to its production 

 the United States for the manufacture of fer 

 liser materials. As the paper contains sor 

 features of interest with respect to American pn 

 tice, a short account of its contents may not 

 out of place at the present juncture. 



The production of sulphuric acid of vario 

 strengths in the United States, according to t 

 latest (1913) figures available is stated to be 

 follows : — 



Total and Average... 3,013,509 ... 22,684,526 ... 7.53 

 Totalreducedto5o"B. 3,538,980*... 22,366,482 ... 6.32 



* Exclusive of 22,947 short tons of fuming acid, not convertible, vali 

 at 318.044 dollars. 



On comparing these figures with those for tl 

 two preceding years it appears that there has be( 

 a considerable increase in production of each gra< 

 with the exception of those classed under "oth( 

 grades," the decrease in which is probably a 

 counted for by the item "fuming acid," whic 

 appears for the first time in the statistics. Pn 

 sumably, therefore, the manufacture of this fori 

 of oil of vitriol has only been introduced in! 

 America within the last three, or four years, 

 account is taken of the fuming acid it is obvioi 

 that the production of sulphuric acid has ver 

 largely increased in the United States withi 

 recent years. There can be little doubt that th 

 disturbance in Continental production in consi 

 quence of the war, -with its effect on the expo 

 trade of Germany and Austria in dyes, drugs, ar, 

 fine chemicals, as well as on a variety of oth<j 

 finished products in which sulphuric acid plays j 

 part, direct or indirect, has given a still great! 

 impetus to American manufacture, and hi 

 tended to consolidate certain industries and 

 initiate others in the States, to the eventual loj 

 of the belligerent nations. German manufacture' 

 are now beginning to realise that the suprema_ 

 they have hitherto enjoyed in certain branches j 

 chemical industry is threatened, and nowhere nic^ 

 seriously than in America. 



American chemists have not talked to anythi ■ 

 like the same extent as we have done abc^ 

 "capturing German trade." Nevertheless, 5 

 recent discussions in the American Section of t? 

 Society of Chemical Industry unmistakably in'- 

 cate, aided by their elastic fiscal policy, they hsi? 

 quietly and deliberately set themselves to do 

 And, curiously enough, the "hyphenated" Amtr 



1 " The Production of Sulphuric Acid and a Proposed New Metho'' 

 Manufacture." By W. H. Waggaman. U.S. Department of Agriculi-- 

 Bulletin No. 2S3. (Washington, 1915-) 



