July 13, 1916] 



NATURE 



411 



zons. There are traces in the Trenton (Ordovician) ; 

 small quantities are obtained from four distinct Silu- 

 rian series. The largest quantity of oil comes from 

 the Onondaga beds, which are Devonian. The author 

 mentions both the organic and inorganic theories of 

 the origin of petroleum ; he expresses no definite pre- 

 ference, but appears to be inclined to the latter, and 

 some of the facts stated in the memoir indicate why 

 some Canadian geologists are firmly attached to that 

 view. The most interesting evidence is based on the 

 uniform composition of the associated natural gas, 

 which is advanced as incompatible with its local 

 origin ; but the balance of the evidence stated seems 

 difficult to reconcile with the inorganic hypothesis. 



Each of the three memoirs is a useful contribution 

 to Canadian geology. J. W. G. 



RADIO-ACTIVITY AND PLANT GROWTH. 

 YIJ"OR some time past Mr. Martin Sutton has been 

 ^ making experiments on the effects of radio-active 

 ores and residues on plant growth. A preliminary 

 account of the experiments was given in Nature for 

 October 7, 1915, and the detailed report now to 

 hand, issued as Bulletin No. 7, from Messrs. Sutton, 

 of Reading, confirms the conclusions, then drawn. 

 The experiments were soundly conceived and well car- 

 ried out ; the results showed that radium compounds 

 have no sufficient effect on plant growth to justify 

 any hopes of practical application in horticulture or 

 agriculture. 



The experiments were made with tomatoes, pota- 

 toes, radishes, lettuces, vegetable marrows, carrots, 

 onions, and spinach beets ; some of the plants were 

 grown in pots, and others in the open ground. Pure 

 radium bromide was used in some experiments, and 

 radium ores in others. In order to eliminate the 

 effect of substances other than radium present in the 

 ores, a mixture of these was made and applied to 

 some of the plants. In certain cases small increases 

 in growth over the unmanured plants were obtained, 

 but nothing approaching the increases given by arti- 

 ficial fertilisers or farmyard manure. 



A number of rather extravagant claims are thus 

 disposed of, including one to the effect that radium 

 treatment caused plants to take on certain flavours 

 that they do not naturally possess. Thus a previous 

 investigator had claimed that vegetable marrows 

 grown in presence of radium compounds assume the 

 flavour of pineapples; Mr. Sutton's marrows were 

 cooked and tasted by a distinguished exponent of 

 horticultural science, whose tastes in these matters 

 are recognised as being beyond reproach, and were 

 found to be indistinguishable from the others. Mr. 

 Sutton has rendered good service by disposing of this 

 and other of the hares started in the field of horticul- 

 ture that were distracting attention from the larger 

 problems with which the horticulturist has to deal. 



THE ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRIAL 



SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH A 



I. 



IF one attempted to formulate the common belief 

 concerning the origin and development of modern 

 technical industries, it would probably be found that 

 stress would be laid upon financial ability or manu- 

 facturing skill on the part of the founders ; but if, 

 instead, we were to make a historical survey of the 

 subject, I think that we should find that the starting 

 and development of most manufacturing businesses 

 depended upon discoveries and inventions being made 



1 An address delivered at Columbia University by Dr. C. E. Kenneth 

 Mees, director of the Research Laboratory, Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, 



NO. 2437, VOL. 97] 



by some individual or group of individuals who de- 

 veloped their original discoveries into an industrial pro- 

 cess. Indeed, if the localities in which various indus- 

 tries have developed be marked on the map, they will 

 often be found to have far more relation to the acci- 

 dental location, by birth or otherwise, of individuals- 

 than to any natural advantages possessed by the 

 situation for the particular industry concerned. The 

 metallurgical industries, of course, are situated chiefly 

 near the sources of the ores or of coal, but why should 

 the chief seat of the spinning industry be in Lan- 

 cashire or of modern optical industry in Jena, except 

 that in those places lived the men who developed the 

 processes which are used in the industry? And,, 

 moreover, industries are frequently transferred from 

 one locality to another, and even from one country 

 to another, by the development of new processes, 

 generally by new individuals or groups of workers. 



The history of many industries is that they were 

 originated and developed in the first place by some 

 man of genius who was fully acquainted with the 

 practice of the industry and with such theory as was 

 then known ; that his successors failed to keep up- 

 with the progress and with the theory of the cognate 

 sciences ; and that sooner or later some other genius^ 

 working on the subject has rapidly advanced the avail- 

 able knowledge, and has again given a new^ spurt to 

 the development of that industry in another locality. 



Thus, in the early days of the technical industries- 

 the development of new processes and methods was 

 often dependent upon some one man, who frequently 

 became the owner of the firm which exploited his 

 discoveries. But with the increasing complexity of 

 industry and the parallel increase in the amount of 

 technical and scientific information, necessitating in- 

 creasing specialisation, the work of investigation and 

 development which used to be performed by an indi- 

 vidual has been delegated to special departments oi 

 the organisation, one example of which is the modern 

 industrial research laboratory. 



The triumphs which have already been won by 

 these research laboratories are common knowledge. 

 The incandescent lamp industry, for instance, origin- 

 ated in the United States with the carbon lamp, but 

 was nearly lost to the United States when the tungsten 

 filament was developed, only to be rescued from that 

 danger by the research laboratory of the General Elec- 

 tric Company, who fought for the prize in sight and 

 developed, first, the drawn-wire filament, and then the 

 nitrogen lamp ; and we may be sure that if the theo- 

 retical and practical work of the research laboratory 

 of the General Electric Company were not kept up 

 the American manufacturers could by no means rest 

 secure in their industry, as, undoubtedly, later de- 

 velopments in electric lighting will come, and the 

 industry might be transferred, in part, if not com- 

 pletely, to the originators of any improvement. Manu- 

 facturing concerns, and especially the powerful, well- 

 organised companies who are the leaders of industry 

 in this country, can, of course, retain their leadership 

 for a number of years against more progressive but 

 smaller and less completely organised competitors, 

 but eventually they can ensure their position only by 

 having in their employ men who are competent to^ 

 keep in touch with, and themselves to advance, the 

 suhject, and the maintenance of a laboratory staffed 

 by such men is a final insurance against eventual 

 loss of the control of its industry by any concern. 



There was a time when the chief makers of photo- 

 graphic lenses were the British firms, the owners of 

 which had been largely instrumental in developing the 

 early theory of lens optics, but that position was lost 

 entirely as a result of the scientific work of the Ger- 

 man opticians, led by Ernst Abbe ; in a smaller divi- 



