132 

NATURE 
[ JANUARY 27, 1923 
The Position of the Scientific Worker. 
ra the annual council meeting of the National 
Union of Scientific Workers, held at the Caxton 
Hall, Westminster, on January 13, and at the annual 
dinner which followed, the main theme of the resolu- 
tions which were adopted, of the various speeches 
made, and of the reports presented, was the methods 
by which the position of the scientific worker could 
best be improved. The late Government, it was 
alleged, had adopted a short-sighted policy with 
regard to most of those State activities which promised 
to have the most uplifting and far-reaching effect upon 
the efficiency and well-being of the nation. It had 
practised so-called economy by reducing expenditure 
on education and scientific research, at a time when 
our chief commercial rivals were increasing their 
expenditure in that direction. 
To the want of appreciation and understanding of 
the importance of science by the members of the late 
Government, culminating in drastic reductions in the 
various research departments, were attributed most 
of the present troubles of scientific workers. Within 
the past twelve months ‘economies ’’ have been 
effected in those departments of the State and 
municipal services which do not show an immediate 
return for the money expended. The inevitable effect 
will be stagnation in peace, and in war hurried, and 
therefore uneconomical, research. It is true that the 
Geddes Committee last year expressed the view 
that there is little possibility of a further war of any 
magnitude for the next ten years; but just as their 
prognostications in that respect appear doubtful at the 
moment, judged by the trend of current events, so is 
their corollary to the effect that research in this 
country can either be slowed down, or, in some 
instances, abandoned altogether. This is a doctrine 
of despair, and was characterised as such by members 
of the council of the Union, and by their guests, Sir 
Thomas Holland, Mr. William Graham, and Mr. 
H. N. Brailsford. 
Mr. Graham said that there were three aspects of 
the work of the National Union of Scientific Workers 
which particularly interested him. The Union must 
be interested in conditions of employment and 
remuneration, and he felt that it was a serious mistake, 
if not a positive crime on the part of the community, 
to starve the body of investigators upon whose efforts 
so much depends. The Union would also be alive to 
the importance of according greater recognition to 
the work of the universities, and to the contribution 
that science can make to the restoration of economic 
prosperity in the world. He thought there was a 
distinct danger to the universities in the present 
economy campaign. Before the war the country was 
making only a limited provision for the universities 
and other educational institutions. As a member of 
the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Commission, 
he had had an opportunity of making a careful- 
examination of university departments and university 
finance, and he hoped that the Bill to be presented to 
Parliament next session would result in the present 
grant being more than trebled. It would not do to 
rely in the future, as in the past, on philanthropy. 
Much larger sums of public money would be required, 
and scientific workers could argue strongly that they 
did not claim it selfishly, but for the benefit conferred 
on the nation by their investigations. The methods 
of science are needed in these days of reconstruction, 
and if adopted would undoubtedly increase pro- 
duction and help in resisting the lowering of the 
standard of life, which is a pressing danger in every 
country. Sir Thomas Holland fully endorsed these 
views, adding that the Government should understand 
that at least 80 per cent. of the expenditure of a 
teaching and research institution must be disbursed as 
salaries to the staffs. A strong and united body of 
scientific workers is a necessity if salaries are to be 
improved and the right atmosphere created. Un- 
fortunately the dignity of the work in most people’s 
eyes is apt to be commensurate with the sums paid 
for it, so there is every reason why the Union 
should put the question of remuneration in the fore- 
front. 
Dr. Alan A. Griffith, the retiring president, in his 
address, dealt with this matter from a rather different 
point of view. He suggested that scientific workers 
should free themselves from the necessity of having 
to beg from their beneficiaries the wherewithal to 
improve the efficiency of their labours, by setting up 
a business organisation for the exploitation of their 
discoveries and inventions. In providing specifically 
for the evolution of great inventions based on pure 
research, it would fill the gap between science and 
industry, which has, in the past, so seriously hampered 
the material utilisation of scientific discoveries. 
The Hydrogen-ion Concentration of Sea Water. 
A RECENT number of the Journal of the Marine 
Biological Association (vol. xii., No. 4, October 
1922) contains a series of papers by Dr. W. R. G. 
Atkins which make a contribution of conspicuous 
value towards our knowledge of the fundamental 
conditions that control vital production in the sea, 
After a short review of the literature the author 
considers what lines of research his study indicates, 
and then follow six memoirs which deal, in the most 
interesting way possible, with some of the problems 
that have suggested themselves. 
First in importance is a series of determinations of 
the H-ion concentration in the open sea between 
Plymouth and Ushant, and round Land’s End into 
the mouth of the Bristol Channel. In the open sea 
the ‘“‘pH”’ values varied between 8-27 and 8-14; 
round Land’s End the variation was between 8-18 
and 8-14, and in Plymouth Sound it was about 8-10. 
Now ‘‘ pH”’ means the logarithm of the reciprocal 
of H-ion concentration expressed in grams per litre 
NO. 2778, VOL. I11| 
of water. High values (up to about ro) mean high 
values of the “ alkalinity’ as represented, for ex- 
ample, by the quantity of N/1oo acid necessary to 
decolorise sea water made pink by the addition of 
phenolphthalein. Low values (down to about 6) 
mean “ acidity ’’ of the sea water by reason of the 
presence of unusually large quantities of carbonic 
acid. 
Biological relationships are associated with these 
variations in the PH-values. Thus, there is a decrease 
of about 0-05 between high and low water, and this is 
due to the influence of the water draining away from 
the shore zones; over a bed of Laminaria the water 
was more alkaline than in the immediate neighbour- 
hood, and in rock pools fH sank by as much as 0:25: 
this is the result of photosynthesis by alge which 
remove carbonic acid. In the aquarium tanks the 
pH-values sink to 7:6. Whenitis less than this, carbon 
dioxide is in excess, and at 7-3 there is evident distress — 
in the respiration of fishes. At 7-1 the water becomes — 
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