•4 



A ITURE 



[September 5, 1918 



was impos hi successive Governrm its 



of this country realise that the afforestai ■ 

 lands was a question "l national i Since 



:. the attitude of those responsibl 

 oi thi i ounti '. hi n gai d to thi 



tion I nged i onsidei ablj rhi lossi i 



ine, and I hi shot tagi oi teamship i m- 



I \a\ e appi i i iabl\ diminished the impi u 



timber, w ith the resull ti n to 



hi i es i" make up : 



oblems that \\ ill ha\ - to bi olved before 

 in depi nil i mil elj upon oui ov\ n resoui 1 1 

 - M E. 'P. Stebbing in a li i ture whi 

 al King's Collegi I he question 



here to gei the timbi i « i shall 1 1 quii i dut ing 



tion of the wasti I I Kingdom. Mr. 



Stebbing expressed the opinion thai we should have 

 to relj upon Canada and Russia for our future sup. 



plies of soft woods. He disapproved ,il small I. nlaiive 



schemes ol afforestation. This, in his view, would 

 not enable us to depend upon the major portion of our 

 supplies of home-grown timber, and he expressed the 

 further opinion that unless the afforestation problem 

 is conceived on bold lines, it would result in a uv less 

 waste of money 



Just as in tin case of limber and Other metallic 

 materials the bulk of our supplies can be obtained 

 by the development of the natural resources of the 

 Empire, so in the ease of metallic materials can out- 

 independence be firmly secured. The example of 

 tungsten furnishes a striking and instructive illus- 

 tration of the neglect to utilise the resources of the 

 Empire or to work in our own territory the minerals 

 won under the British flag. Under the stress of war 

 conditions the importance of tungsten as an essential 

 ingredient in the manufacture of tool-steel and as a 

 corner-stone of modern engineering is now fully 

 realised in this country. Much stiil remains to be 

 known about the properties of this element and its 

 uses, and Mr. Julius L. F. Vpgel has performs I a 

 public service in pn senting an account of tungsten 

 at a lecture at King's College, where there are also 

 a number of specimens of the metal to be seen, ["he 

 problem of preparing pure tungsten, although 01 

 commercial importance, was considered too small to 

 justify a separate establishment for the industry, with 

 suit that it was left to certain German chemical 

 metallurgical works to deal with the problem, 

 plete investigation laboratories were equipped, 

 tted works erected, and ample funds pro- 

 develop a suitabli | ss and put it into 



operation, and before lot offered 



di i containing 95 to 06 per cent, of pure 

 til) free fi om deleterious impui ities. 

 In cour oi time a still higher grade tungsten was 

 supplied, cont lining up to 0,0 per cent, of the pure 

 metal. \ establish the manufactut 



tungsten in this country resulted in the production of 

 an article 1 ry quality, but the scale of 



manufa -, and intermittent ore 



supply made competition with the powerful Get 

 producers impossible. If the tungsten industry has 

 at last been permai blished in this country, 



it is due in no small measure to the efforts of Mr. 

 Vogel_, \\hn is proi ,1 nhii the ■ 



a Widnes, which havi been 1 : ng tungsten since 



Julv, 1015, without intermi 



Even in the developmeni oi ces of energy for 



our industry there is immen 1 he applica- 



tion of scientific knowled n 1. We know, 



ample, that one cubic foot of water per second 

 falling ti ft. will deyelop one horse-power in any 

 modern turbine. What use can be made of this 

 NO. 2549, VOL. I02] 



energy? Mr. \ Newlands, engineer-in-chief of the 

 Highland Railway, showed in the coursi ol a paper 

 lead ai Hi n not onl) that thi di 



men I oi out ivati will pi ovide us with 



the energj thai we require, but also thai its proper 



developmeni 1- to si stent hound up with thi re- 



organi 1 I out industrial life. Cheap*pi 



ended use of it an 



and 1I1 the watei -powei pos 



i verj serious economic waste. 



In th Production Report it is shown 



that while thi total horse-power of industrial engines 

 in the 1 niad Kingdom is approximately ten and 



a hall' millions, of this only 178,000 h.p., or 1 6 per 

 1 'Hi.. water-power. In the op 



oi Mr. Newlands, r tld easil; draw upon 



for one to one and a half million horse-power, 01 n 

 than 10 per cent, of our requiremi nts. \ comparison 

 of the percentage of available water-power utilised in 

 Greal Britain with that of other countries furnishes a 

 very impressive reminder of the undeveloped stal 

 that industry here. Germany utilises 43-4 per cent, of 

 the water available and capable of development; the 

 United States, 24-9 per cent.; France, 11-6 per cent.; 

 Great Britain, only 8*3 per cent. It is estimated that 

 while there is ivailable for development from water- 

 power in Great Britain io-q h.p. per square mile of 

 area, only 0-91 h.p. is actually used. 

 Mr. Newlands is of the opinion that the place of 



water pow : r in inclustr, lies in th: utilisation f il so 

 far as possible in territory where industrial activity can 

 be re-created or where none has existed hitherto. This 

 raises ., very important sociological problem which it 

 is desirable that our men of scienci and engit 

 should consider seriously. The energy derived from 

 water-power ran be transmitted electrically ovei 

 areas, and made available where practicable for the 

 varied requirements of agriculture, both in field opera- 

 tions and in farm buildings. Here it would help to 

 eliminate much of the drudgery of this important 

 industry, while at the same time coming into set 

 for the purpose of rural transport. As to industries, 

 it is only necessary to mention the manufacture of 

 aluminium, the electro-chemical industries, and the 

 fixation of nitrogen to show what enormous possibili- 

 ties exist in the development of these industrii 

 the application of large power supplies which would 

 be made available by the utilisation of wt 

 saving of coal, too, through the development of our 

 water-power resources is an item the importance of 

 which cannot be over-estimated. But this is nol 

 onl. considera ion, for it has distinct and far-reaching 

 possibilities and advantages of its own; and if, as is 



• 1'iT a. we must enormously increase our 



national production to re-establish our national posi- 

 tion, thi utilisation of water-power will be necessary. 



While sidering thi development of resources 



this country, attention must he | same time 



to thi development of the resources of other parts of 

 the Empire'. We have already mentioned the case of 

 tungsti n, hut lh ie is another example of a field which 

 awaits the application of science, and that is in the 



ces of West Africa. A comparison of rei 

 statistics presented by Mr. R. E. Dennetl in a lecture 

 hibition doi s m ii make \ ery cheer- 

 ful reading. Up to the first six months of 1014 ni 

 all West African copra went to Germany. From the 

 sami territorj Germany took nearlv half the produc- 

 tion of cocoa, more than two-thirds of the palm 

 kernels, aboul one-eighth of the palm-oil, half of the 

 hides, one-third of the mahogany, more than half of 

 the ground-nuts, more than one-third of the sin a-nuts, 



ind the whole of the palm-kernel cake; in all, nearly 

 half of the total exports from the West African Union 



