48 
NATURE 
[Marcu 12, 1914 
Twenty-five years ago the number of industrial con- 
cerns employing even a single chemist was very small, 
and even he was usually engaged almost wholly upon 
routine work. Many concerns engaged in business of 
a distinctly chemical nature had no chemist at all, and 
such a thing as industrial research in any proper sense 
scarcely came within the field of vision of our manu- 
facturers. Many of them have not yet emerged from 
the penumbra of that eclipse, and our industrial fore- 
men as a class are still within the deeper shadow. 
Meantime, however, research has firmly established 
itself among the foundation-stones of our industrial 
system, and the question is no longer what will be- 
come of the chemists. It is now what will become of 
the manufacturers without them. 
In the United States to-day the microscope is in 
daily use in the examination of metals and alloys in 
more than 200 laboratories of large industrial con- 
cerns. An indeterminate but very great amount of 
segregated research is constantly carried forward in 
small laboratories, which are either an element in some 
industrial organisation or under individual control. 
An excellent example of the quality of work to be 
credited to the former is found in the development of 
cellulose acetate by Mork in the laboratory of the ° 
Chemical Products Company, while a classic instance 
of what may be accomplished by an aggressive indi- 
vidualism plus genius in research is familiar to most 
of you through the myriad and protean applications of 
Bakelite. The rapidity of the reduction to practice of 
Baekeland’s research results is the more amazing when 
one considers that the distances to be travelled between 
the laboratory and the plant are often, in case of new 
processes and products, of almost astronomical dimen- 
sions. 
Reference has already been made to the highly 
organised, munificently equipped, and_ splendidly 
manned laboratories of the Du Pont Company, the 
General Electric Company, and the Eastman Kodak 
Company. There are in the country at least fifty other 
notable laboratories engaged in industrial research in 
special industries. The expenditure of several of them 
is more than 300,000 dollars each a year. The United 
States Steel Corporation has not hesitated to spend 
that amount upon a single research, and the expenses 
of a dozen or more laboratories probably exceed 
100,000 dollars annually. One of the finest iron re- 
search laboratories in the world is that of the American 
Rolling Mills Company. 
The steel industry in its many ramifications promotes 
an immense amount of research, ranging from the 
most refined studies in metallography to experimenta- 
tion upon the gigantic scale required for the develop- 
ment of the Gayley dry blast, the Whiting process for 
slag cement, or the South Chicago electric furnace. 
This furnace has probably operated upon a greater 
variety of products than any other electric furnace in 
the world. Regarding the steel for rails produced 
therein, it is gratifying to note that after two and 
one-half years or more no reports of breakage have 
been received from the 5600 tons of standard rails 
made from its output. 
Industrial research is applied idealism. It expects 
rebuffs, it learns from every stumble, and turns the 
stumbling-block inte a stepping-stone. It knows that 
it must pay its way. It contends that theory springs 
from practice. It trusts the scientific imagination, 
knowing it to be simply logic in flight. It believes 
with F. P. Fish, that ‘during the next generation— 
the next two generations—there is going to be a 
development in chemistry which will far surpass in its 
importance and value to the human race that of elec- 
tricity in the last few years—a development which is 
going to revolutionise methods of manufacture, and 
NO 2Ba/5,, “Vole "oa || 
more than that, is going to revolutionise methods of 
agriculture ’’; and it believes with Sir William Ram- 
say that ‘‘ the country which is in advance in chemistry 
will also be foremost in wealth and general pros- 
perity.”” 
Modern progress can no longer depend upon acci- 
dental discoveries. Each advance in industrial science 
must be studied, organised, and fought like a military | 
campaign. Or, to change the figure, in the early 
days of our science, chemists patrolled the shores of 
the great ocean of the unknown, and, seizing upon 
such fragments of truth as dritted in within their 
reach, turned them to the enrichment of the intellectual 
and material life of the community. Later they ven- 
tured timidly to launch the frail and often leaky canoe 
of hypothesis, and returned with richer treasures. 
To-day, confident and resourceful, as the result of 
many argosies, and having learned to read the stars, 
organised, equipped, they set sail boldly on a charted 
sea in staunch ships with tiering canvas bound for 
new EI] Dorados. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
BiRMINGHAM.—The City Council has renewed the 
annual grant to the University. An amendment by a 
Socialist member opposing the renewal, on the ground 
that the elementary education of the city and the 
technical school were being starved, was defeated by 
seventy votes to twenty-nine. 
Dr. J. E. H. Sawyer has been appointed assistant 
to the chair of medicine. 
Mr. H. A. Scarborough has been recommended to 
the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 for a 
research scholarship. 
Prof. Bostock Hill is to represent the University at 
the congress of the Royal Sanitary Institute in July 
next, 
CAMBRIDGE.—The work submitted by Mr. T. W. 
Price, of Clare College, entitled ‘‘ Osmotic Pressure of 
Alcoholic Solutions,’’ has been approved by the Degree 
Committee of the Special Board for Physics and 
Chemistry as a record of original research. 
OxrorD.—Under the existing constitution of the 
University, certain seats in the Hebdomadal Council 
are limited to the heads of colleges and professors 
respectively. A statute providing for the abolition of 
‘orders’ and for throwing the whole of the seats open 
to members of Convocation of five years’ standing,” 
which had been passed by small majorities in Congre- 
gation, was submitted in its final stage to Convoca- 
tion on March 10. The proposed statute was sup- 
ported by Prof. Geldart, and opposed by the rector of 
Exeter, and the warden of Wadham. It was rejected 
on a division by 97 to 83. 
The preamble of a statute providing for the estab- 
lishment of an additional professorship of chemistry, 
to be called ‘‘ Dr. Lee’s Professorship,’’ passed Con- 
gregation without a division. 
THE presentation of the portrait of Sir William Ram- 
say, K.C.B., to University College, London, and of the 
replica to Lady Ramsay, will be made on Wednesday 
next, March 18, at 4.30, in the Botanical Theatre. 
THE appeal made by Girton College for 8000l. by 
January 1, I91t4, to meet conditional promises of 
12,0001. from an anonymous benefactor and 4oool. 
from Rosalind Lady Carlisle, has been completely 
successful, and the purpose of the appeal, which was 
the extinction of a mortgage debt ot 24,000l., has now 
been achieved. The donation, we learn from _ the 
