May 6, 1915] 
effort. . This. statement 
January, and things have not been standing still 
since. More especially there was no indication 
then that either the country or the Government 
was aware of the necessity for enormous efforts 
for the adequate supply of ‘‘munitions,” amongst 
which must be included “optical appliances.”’ As 
is well known, the only firm supplying optical glass 
in this country is the firm - referred to in the 
House of Commons, namely, Messrs. Chance 
Brothers, of Birmingham; and a_ paragraph 
appeared in the Times on April 26 to the effect 
that this firm will now supply optical glass only 
to those manufacturers of optical instruments who 
can produce a War Office or Admiralty certificate 
showing that the glass is needed for the fulfilment 
of a Government contract. This means that, not- 
withstanding the large increase in the capacity 
of the plant at Birmingham, the whole of the 
optical industry of this country, other than that 
engaged in Government work, cannot be supplied 
at the present time with any optical glass what- 
ever. When we consider the important trades 
which require such glass in fairly large quantities 
for other than Government purposes, there is no 
doubt of the great seriousness of the position. 
But so optimistic is the Government that it has 
declined a patriotic offer of Lieut.-Col. J. W. 
Gifford to hand over to the nation free of cost 
practically the whole of a collection of fine optical 
glass, considerably ‘over a ton in weight, which he 
has accumulated during twelve years of laborious 
research, some of the results of which have been 
published by the Royal Society from time to time. 
The definite proposal made in Dr. Walmsley’s 
letter to the Times is that the Government should 
at once take over the optical glass branch of 
Messrs. Chance’s factory. We understand that 
this proposal is, as yet, a suggestion of Dr. 
Walmsley’s only, and that, for obvious reasons, 
he did not communicate beforehand with the firm 
in question. In passing, we may say that great 
credit is due to this firm for its very vigorous and 
patriotic efforts to deal with the situation, but the 
matter appears to us to have got beyond the point 
at which any private firm should be required, for 
the good of the whole community, to undertake 
such heavy capital expenditure as it has already 
made and to risk the great sacrifices which may 
be called for if this expenditure be rendered un- 
productive after the war. As pointed out by Dr. 
Walmsley, the natural solution, that competing 
firms should instal plant and enter the market, is 
not applicable in this case, because the whole 
amount involved is too small to make it worth 
while for any important firm to enter into com- 
petition. The supply of fine optical glass for the 
United Kingdom involves probably an outside 
turn-over of not more than 20,000]. a year, an 
amount which is not worth dividing. But the 
supply of this small quantity of raw material, in 
the form of unwrought optical glass, affects an 
industry in which the value of the finished products 
runs to millions of pounds’ worth of goods per 
annum, and in which the greater part of the 
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NATURE 



267 
cost of output goes in wages to highly skilled 
labour. 
It is true that the firm named already has risen 
to the occasion, has octupled its plant, and, if 
Ministerial replies are taken at their full face 
value, has succeeded so far as to supply present 
Government requirements. But what of the rest 
of the industry, and, moreover, what is to happen 
when the war is over? The foreign supply of 
, however, was made in 
this vital “key” product will doubtless be 
resumed, surrounded by the ante bellum ‘wire 
entanglements”? to which Dr. Walmsley refers, 
such as restrictive contracts on users, the lodging 
of dummy and blocking patents in our Patent 
Office, and all those means by which officially- 
nurtured foreign competition in the past has 
endeavoured to kill the production in this country 
of the far more vital and more costly finished 
products. Is it too late in the day to ask that 
these methods of competition should not be used 
against private firms without any greater safe- 
guards available than those which have proved so 
ineffective in the past? 
It seems to us that the proper course is to act 
generally in the direction of Dr. Walmsley’s 
suggestion, with such modifications as may be 
found desirable on full investigation. This would 
mean, in substance, that the Government should 
undertake the supply of this “key” product. 
With a Government department empowered to 
deal with eventualities, full attention could be 
given to the other important matters dealt with 
in the report of the British Science Guild, namely, 
the adequate development of research, better pro- 
vision for the testing of the physical and optical 
properties of samples of glass, and, most important 
of all, provision for adequate technical training and 
research in applied optics, so that this country 
may recapture speedily the position it held for so 
long in the forefront of the world’s optical develop- 
ments. 
GASES IN WARFARE. 

ASPHYXIATING 
D R. J. S. HALDANE’S report on his investi- 
gation of the nature and effects of the 
asphyxiating gases, used by the Germans in their 
attack last week on the French and British lines 
near Ypres, leaves but little doubt that chlorine or 
bromine was the chief agent employed, whilst shells 
containing other irritant poisons were also used. 
Prof. H. B. Baker, who accompanied Dr. 
Haldane, is carrying out an investigation as to 
the chemical side of the question, and until his 
report is available, surmises as to the nature of 
the poisonous gases and the methods adopted for 
their use would be premature, but the evidence 
seems to point clearly to the fumes floated by the 
wind on to the Allies’ lines being chlorine, as at 
ordinary pressure bromine is a liquid below 59°C., 
and at ordinary temperatures would not give off 
its vapour with sufficient rapidity to cause the 
seven-foot bank of vapour that drifted on to the 
Allies’ trenches, whilst the colour of the cloud 
would have been a rich brown and not the “green- 
