LATER YEARS 191 



Ramsay became a very active member of the Royal 

 Society Committee. By the middle of 1915 he had made 

 strong representations to the Government on the subject 

 of the large supplies of fats and cotton which were 

 finding their way to Germany through some of the 

 neutral nations. As, however, it did not appear to be 

 known in high official quarters that all fats are potential 

 sources of glycerine, and hence of nitro-glycerine, a very 

 powerful and extensively used explosive, and that cotton 

 is necessary for the production of ammunition, much 

 delay occurred with consequences which can be calculated 

 only in imagination. 



In a letter to his friend Fyfe on 5th February he 

 writes : 



" Last week I gave an address in Manchester at the annual 

 meeting of the Employers' Parliamentary Association and talked 

 to them about German trade methods. I will send you a copy. 

 I am trying to rouse people to see that they must reply to com- 

 mercial attack by combined defence ; and I am trying to get 

 America and France to join against Germany." 



In May he paid a flying visit to his friends at Dun- 

 blane, but his letters about this time are full of matters 

 relating to the war, and complaints of the inactivity of 

 the Government and the stupidity of not making cotton 

 a contraband article. 



So long ago as 1886 Ramsay had mentioned in a letter 

 to Mr. Worthington that he had discovered that the 

 discomfort from which he had been already suffering 

 was due to polypus in the right nostril, and that he had 



