592 
NATURE 
[JULY 29, 1915 

clear. It is by no means taking too high a posi- 
tion to state that, unless such uniformity is 
certain, the task of any works’ manager will be 
so heavy and the risks which he will encounter 
so great that his factory will be endangered. 
Quite apart from this, even supposing he sur- 
mounts such obstacles, the material which he will 
produce will be markedly inferior to that which 
he can make in the ordinary course of his busi- 
ness. It has been quite rightly pointed out. by 
people of expert knowledge and authority that 
the ballistics on which artillerists’ calculations are 
based are demolished by any alteration in his 
charge. Sir William Ramsay is perfectly right in 
showing, not only that the pointing and therefore 
the sighting of the gun must be altered, but also 
that the chamber in which the explosive is fired 
must be enlarged if any form of nitro-cotton 
inferior to the standard material is used; and it is 
quite conceivable that the weight of the projectile 
and the pitch of the grooving would also have to 
be changed. Without going too closely into such 
highly technical matters, it can be said with full 
confidence that the gunner would have his trade 
to learn again, and this can scarcely be done in 
the midst of a war. 
Many references have been made to the use of 
substitutes for cotton in the manufacture of nitro- 
cellulose, but they are all of a somewhat academic 
kind. As has been stated above, no one doubts 
that such things can be used, but it is a sort of 
misapplied ingenuity which seeks to find sources 
of cellulosic materials; such ingenuity would be 
quite thrown away on a practical maker. There 
is one possible danger, due entirely to the laxity 
of the control of the import of cotton at the be- 
ginning of the war; it is that between August 4 
and the present date the German chemists have 
been sedulously endeavouring to utilise some such 
materials. Eleven months, now nearly twelve, is 
enough even for a German chemist to make some 
progress; and it may be that a nitro-cellulose of a 
sort may be being made in Germany now from 
material other than cotton. The fact remains, 
however, that the Germans are eagerly buying 
cotton, and are doing their utmost to obtain more 
than their legitimate share of the new crop which 
should be on the market in a month or two. 
There is much truth in the statements which 
have been made in many periodicals—in the Times 
on several occasions and in the Engineer a good 
many months ago—to the effect that we English 
people have been a little too modest. Because of 
the great flood of genius which governed the 
German nation somewhere in the middle of the 
last century, and gave us those deathless names, 
Bunsen, Kekulé, Liebig, Meyer, and others, and 
because some of our present chemists of the 
highest rank were trained under these great men, 
the ordinary British public nas been obsessed with 
the idea that chemistry is a German science. A 
very little knowledge of the history of chemistry 
would show that such a mistake is almost 
childish. Our French friends have claimed that 

who have read the work of Robert Boyle or have 
studied the work of Priestley, Cavendish, Ber- 
zelius, know very well that chemistry is cosmo- 
politan. The arrogance of German soldiers has 
been reflected in a similar arrogance of German 
chemists; and those eminent in our land whose 
names it would be impertinent to recite, as well 
as such of our colleagues now living, whether 
Scandinavian or Dutch, to whom again it would 
be improper to refer, have their own opinion as 
to the correctness of any claim by German 
chemists to a prerogative in science. 
To return to the question of cotton, I think 
there is not the slightest doubt among those 
whose opinion is of jwalue that raw cotton or 
cotton waste is absolutely|essential for the produc- 
tion of a satisfactory propulsive explosive; and 
this view has been accepted by responsible states- 
men in both Houses. Personally, investigations 
of this question through commercial channels 
have convinced me that this is a fact, and I am 
perfectly prepared to maintain it against anyone 
who claims an equal authority. 
BERTRAM BLOUNT. 

THE WAR AND CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. 
N the occasion of the annual meeting of the 
Society of Chemical Industry, of which an 
account appeared in Nature of July 22, there 
was a notable change in the character of its 
business as compared with that of previous annual 
gatherings. We learn from Prof. Henderson’s 
presidential address that, in the opinion of the 
society’s council, too much of the time over 
which the meeting extends had hitherto been de- 
voted to purely social functions, and that in the 
past no sufficient advantage had been taken of 
the opportunity afforded by such an assemblage 
of technologists to lecture them on matters which 
superior persons might hold to be for their general 
good. No doubt the council, like the rest of us, 
is impressed with the seriousness of the strenuous 
and critical times in which we are living. What- 
ever semblance of frivolity may have hitherto 
characterised these annual gatherings obviously 
would be out of place on the present occasion. 
Accordingly, with the co-operation of the Man- 
chester section, a special programme was ar- 
ranged which should at once be “topical” and 
illustrative of the good resolutions of the council. 
Whether their hopes and wishes have been 
wholly realised may be open to doubt. Four 
special papers, in addition to the president’s ad- 
dress, were presented for the consideration of 
the members. Naturally, since so much has been 
said during the past ten or eleven months con- 
cerning the relations, immediate and proximate, 
of applied chemistry to the war, and to matters 
arising, directly or indirectly, out of it, it was 
almost inevitable that this comprehensive subject 
should be the dominant feature of the communi- 
cations. Prof. Henderson, as might be expected, 
could not refrain from some reference to a feeling 
chemistry is a French science, but those of us , of disappointment that fuller use had not been 
NO. 2387, VOL. 95| 
