432 



NATURE 



[July 20, 19 16 



qualifications and give him the practical training, 

 which is just as essential for the director of a labora- 

 tory as scientific knowledge. 



These necessary qualifications in the director are 

 reflected in the division of the laboratory itself into 

 manufacturing and scientific sections, since the manu- 

 facturing section should be able to carry out on a 

 small scale all the chief manufacturing operations, so 

 that any investigations made in the laboratory can be 

 carried through to the practical works' scale without 

 interfering with the production departments. In the 

 research laboratory of the Eastman Kodak Company 

 the manufacturing department includes emulsion- 

 making and plate, film, and paper-coating departments, 

 the capacity being very considerable, the plate depart- 

 ment being able to make 300 dozen 8 in. by 10 in. 

 plates a day. These departments are used not only for 

 systematic experiments on emulsion suitable for various 

 purposes, such as different kinds of plate emulsion, 

 colour-sensitive emulsions, especialfy for colour photo- 

 graphy, and experimental printing papers, but they 

 are further used to make en a small scale products 

 which are required for special purposes in very small 

 quantities, such as special plates required by astro- 

 nomers or spectroscopists, or special films required for 

 experimental purposes by tho^se working on colour 

 photography, or attempting to develop other photo- 

 graphic processes. Requests for such special materials 

 are received by every large manufacturing company, 

 and the execution of the orders in the production 

 departments frequently involves much delay and loss, 

 whereas the manufacturing section of the laboratory 

 can carry out the work with a full understanding of 

 the use to which the materials are to be put, and can 

 often materially assist the purchaser in working out 

 his idea. Co-operation of this kind between the 

 general public and the laboratory cannot but be of 

 advantage to both parties. 



The manufacturing departments should be in charge 

 of skilled foremen who have had previous experience 

 in the works, and be run in exactly the same way 

 as the production departments themselves, being under 

 the general supervision of the director of the laboratory 

 and of any assistants that it may be necessary for him 

 to employ. The foremen of the departments should, 

 however, co-Of>erate very fully with the scientific de- 

 partments. 



There is always some difficulty in a laboratory in 

 getting the scientific departments to make full use of 

 the special knowledge of the manufacturing division 

 and at the same time to realise the practical difficulties 

 which occur in works processes, but this difficulty can 

 be overcome much better in the case of the manufac- 

 turing division of the laboratory than it could if an 

 outside production department were involved without 

 the laboratory division acting as intermediary. 



The scientific division of the laboratory should be 

 divided into departments dealing with the special sub- 

 jects, but every care should be taken that these depart- 

 ments do not become at all isolated from each other, 

 and that they co-operate with each other in the most 

 complete way on the solution of the problems on which 

 the laboratory is engaged. In order to ensure this the 

 main lines of work under investigation may be suit- 

 ably discussed at a morning conference at the beginning 

 of the day's work, one day of the week being assigned 

 to each subject. The laboratory organisation will* then 

 resolve itself into a number of different departments 

 engaged in dealing with a number of different lines 

 of work, and the total work of the laboratory during 

 the year may be suitably represented by a chart 

 similar to that devised for the research laboratory of 

 the Eastman Kodak Company. 



The departments of the laboratory are represented 



NO. 2438, VOL. 97] 



as circles on the outside of the chart, the main divi- 

 sions in which problems group themselves being 

 represented by rectangles, subdivided in some in- 

 stances, occupying the middle of the chart. Each 

 of these rectangles will correspond to a morning con- 

 ference; thus, a conference will be held on general 

 photography, at which there will be present members 

 of the photographic department, the physics depart- 

 ment, the department of organic chemistrj', and the 

 emulsion and coating or manufacturing departments. 

 There will be present at the conference, in fact, every 

 scientific worker of the laboratory, whatever his rank, 

 who is directly engaged on the subjects which are 

 included under the head of general photography, and 

 in some cases, or on special occasions, members of the 

 staff of the compan)' external to the laboratory may 

 be invited to these conferences, although as a general 

 rule in the case of a large company it will not be 

 possible for them to be regularly present. All the 

 main lines of investigation should be laid down at 

 these conferences, and the progress from week to week 

 carefully discussed. This procedure will enable a great 

 saving in time to be made, since it will avoid the loss 

 of time which continually occurs in laboratories from 

 the wrong man doing a specific piece of work ; and 

 the economy can be much increased by a suitable 

 arrangement of the building and equipment itself. 



The building should be so arranged that all the 

 laboratories are open to everybody in the scientific 

 departments, but that in each laboratory involving 

 special classes of apparatus there are specialists con- 

 tinually working who are available for consultation 

 and assistance to all other workers in the laboratory. 

 In this way single operations which become necessary 

 in the course of an investigation may frequently be 

 transferred from the man who has carried on the main 

 line of work on the subject to some other specialist in 

 the laboratory. In the Kodak laboratory, for instance, 

 electrical measurements, photometric measurements, 

 sfiectrophotography, lens optics, photographic sensito- 

 metry, work involving dyestuffs, and all strictly photo- 

 graphic operations, such as copying, lantern-slide 

 making, printing and enlarging, making up de- 

 velopers, etc., are in the hands of specialists, and; 

 whenever any of these operations become necessary in] 

 the course of an investigation, the conference directs] 

 that they be carried out by the specialist on the subject. 

 In this way an organic chemist, for instance, will have 

 the absorption curve of his products measured, not by 

 an instrument in the organic laboratory, but by the 

 physics department, while the preparation of photo- 

 graphs, lantern-slides, and prints, which are often 

 involved in publication, are carried on by the photo- 

 graphic department and not by the man who did the 

 work, these arrangements relieving specialists in on« 

 subject from having to acquire technical skill in 

 another. It is in such complete co-operation that th« 

 greatest economy in scientific investigation is to b^ 

 found. 



It must be remembered that such specialisation aA 

 this is not at all suitable for use in a university, where 

 the object is the broadening and education of the 

 students; it is one of the many differences between 

 research work in a university and in a set research 

 laboratory, whether it be industrial or not, that in a 

 university the primary object is the training of the 

 worker, while in the research laboratory the primary 

 object is the carrying out of the investigation. 



The best utilisation of the results obtained in an 

 industrial research laboratory is only second in import- 

 ance to the organisation required to obtain them. All 

 results of general scientific interest and importance 

 should undoubtedly be published, both in the public 

 interest, and because only by such publication can 



