Nov. 



iFSo] 



NA TURE 



67 



Tritschius, who said : ' — " If in any part of the working of 

 metals there is commonly more owing to experience than reason, 

 truly it is in fusion or melting . . . nevertheless if the reason be 

 a^ked why the business succeedelh well in this way but in 

 another doth not succeed at all, you have no solid answer, but 

 only that most general one, which is most commonly fal-e, viz. 

 that one fire is stronger and another weaker, and so insufficient." 

 It is just a century since Bishop Wat on. Professor of Chemistry 

 and Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, 

 pointed out" that "the improvement of metallurgy and other 

 mechanic arts dependent on chemistry might best be made by 

 public establishment of an Academy, the labours of which 

 should be destined to that particular purpose ; " and the School 

 of Mines, thus foreshadowed, was establi-hed in 1851, its 

 principal object being to " discipline the students thoroughly in 

 the principles of those sciences upon which the operations of the 

 miner and metallurgist depend." 



Our honoured founder. Sir Henry de la Beche, in his Address 

 at the opening of the School of Mines,^ said : — " We still too 

 frequently hear of practical knowledge, as if in a certain sense 

 opposed to a scientific method of accounting for it, and as if 

 experience, without that advantage, was more trustworthy than 

 the like experience with it," Such remarks might, with truth, 

 l-.e made at the present day ; but it should nevertheless be re- 

 membered that many metallurgical works are successfully con- 

 ducted in this country by so-called practical men. I do not 

 mean the kind of man so forcibly described by Mr. Bramwell'' 

 as one "who e wi-dom consists in standing by, seeing, but not 

 investigating the new discoveries which are taking place around 

 him . . . the aim and object of such a man being to ensure that 

 he should never make a misrake by embarking his capital or his 

 time in that \a hich has not been proved by men of large hearts 

 and large intelligence ; " nor do I mean the man who accepts no 

 nile but the "rule of thumb" ; but I do me.an practical men pos- 

 sessing technical knowledge of a high order, whose careful 

 observation enables them to use the results of past experience in 

 dealing with circumstances and conditions analogous to those 

 they have met with before, and with which long practice has 

 made them familiar. It would be difficult to ovenate the value 

 and importance of such knowledge as theirs, and, when we 

 remember the scale on which smelting and other operations are 

 carried on, it «ill be obvious that this kind of knowdedge can 

 only be gained in the works, and not in the laboratory or lecture- 

 room ; for, however careful the metallurgical teaching here may 

 be, it can only be [ radical in a limited sense. At the same 

 time it must be borne in mind that a man trained to scientific 

 methods starts with the enormous advantage of being able to 

 deal with circumstances and conditions that are new to him, and 

 with which therefcjre he cannot be said to be "familiar." The 

 technical skill that time and opportunity can alone give him will 

 then rest on a solid basis. I repeat, how ever, that I am anxious 

 at the outset to guard against undervaluing the teaching of 

 experience unaided by reasoning that we should recognise as 

 scientific ; for it is only necessary to witness such operations as 

 the roasting of a large mass of ore on the bed of a furnace, or 

 the forging of many tons of iron under a s'eam hammer, to 

 appreciate the value of the subtle skill of sight and touch on 

 which success depends. 



I have thus ventured to trace the relation between scientific 

 and technical men, as hitherto there have been misunderstandings 

 on both sides, or, as Dr. Williamson so well observes \^ — "Men 

 of detail do not sufticiently appreciate the value and usefulness of 

 ideas, or of general principles : and men of science, who learn 

 to understand and control things more and more by the aid of 

 the laws of nature, are apt to expect that all improvements will 

 result from the development and extension of their scientific 

 methods of research, and not to do justice to the empirical 

 considerations of practical expediency, which are so essential to 

 the realisation of industrial success in the imperfect state of our 

 scientific knowledge." 



V/hile it is no longer neces ary to justify the scientific teaching 

 of metallurgy, as Dr. Percy did, it is as important as ever that 

 the true relation of Theory and Practice should be clearly under- 

 stood. It rarely happens that a process can be transferred from 

 the laboratory to the works without important modifications ; 



* " Pyrotechnical Metallurgy," by J. C. Frilscliius of Schwartzburg 

 (translated in 1704), p. 203. 



^ " Chemical Essays," 2nd edition (1782), vol. i. p, 47. 



3 Records of the School of Mines, vcl. i. pt. i (tSsz). p. 20. 



* British Association Report, Brighton (1872). p. 238. 



5 "A Plea for Pure Sc.ence" (Inaugural L-cture, University College, 

 London, 1^70). 



and we must remember that metallurgy is a manufacturing art, 

 and that, when the truth of a theory has been demonstrated, a 

 dividend has to be earned ; this would indeed often be difficult 

 without the aid of the technical man. Practical men have, how- 

 ever, ceased to undervalue science ; and the most practical body 

 of men in the world, in the best sense of the term, the iron- 

 masters of this c untry, on whom its prosperity so largely 

 depends, formed themselves ten years ago into an Iron and Steel 

 Institute, many of the members of which possess high scientific 

 attainments and are distinguished for scientific research. 



Let us turn, then, to the advice given us by those who are 

 •accustomed to deal with metals on a large scale. Mr. I. I.owthian 

 Bell stated in his address as president of the Institute in 1873' = 

 — " If we would avoid the failure of what may be designated 

 unscientific practice, or the failure of impracticable science, we 

 must seek to combine commercial intelligence with a knowledge 

 of those natural laws which form the only trustworthy ground- 

 work of the complicated processes in which we are engaged." 



Dr. Siemens^ said in 1S77: — "It is not many years since 

 practical knowledge was regarded as the one thing requisite in 

 an iron-smelter, whilst theoretical knowledge of the chemical and 

 mechanical principles involved in the operations was viewed with 

 considerable suspicion ; " and he adds, with reference to the 

 teaching of the School of Mines and of a general Technical 

 University: — "But it must not be supposed that I would advo- 

 cate any attempt at comprising in its curriculum a practical 

 working of the processes which the student would have to direct 

 in after-life. . . . Let technical schools confine themselves to 

 teaching those natural sciences which bear upon practice, but let 

 practice ilse'f he taught in the workshop and in the metallurgical 

 establishment." 



The president for 1879, Mr. E. Williams, a most eminently 

 practical man, and one of the founders of the prosperity of the 

 great Cleveland iron district, urged' "educated intellectual 

 young men, who now hang listlessly about the professions . , . 

 to break through the atjsurd old prejudice against seemingly 

 rough work," in order that they may act as scientifically trained 

 managers. 



I have thus appealed to authorities, because my own practical 

 work has been mainly confined to a limited br.anch of metallurgy. 

 I s,ay limited, for although, on looking into the matter, I find, 

 to my surprise, that I have during the last ten years been 

 responsible for the fineness of 330 tons of gold and 740 tons of 

 silver, this, though of a total value of forty-seven millions sterling, 

 is a comparatively small bulk of metal, and the operations 

 through which it pisses are seldom complicated ; but I am none 

 the less convinced that in metallurgical works generally, as in a 

 mint, the work can only be efficiently conducted by taking ad- 

 vantage to the utmost extent of the aid that science has to offer, 

 a mint only differing from other works by the extraordinary care 

 and vigilance which must be exercised to insure accuracy and 

 avoid loss in dealing with the precious metals. Even this differ- 

 ence is les marked than formerly, and as attention to minute 

 details is becoming more and more essential to the profitable 

 conduct of works, my experience in this respect will be useful 

 to you. 



As regards the actual (raining in the school, I believe that our 

 utmost efforts should be devoted to giving the students a thorough 

 acquaintance with scientific methods and metallurgical principles, 

 furnishing ihem at the same time with as many well-ascertained 

 facts as pjssible. Here I may perhaps be permitted to quote a 

 few words from Prof. Huxley's * recent address at Birmingham, 

 as they bear so directly on our subject; he said, "What 

 people call applied science is nothing but the application of pure 

 science to particular classes of problems. It consists of deduc- 

 tions from those general principles, established by reasoning and 

 observation, which constitute pure science. No o e can safely 

 make these deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles ; 

 and he can obtain that grasp only by personal experience of the 

 processes of observation and of reasoning on which they are 

 founded." 



In one important branch of metallurgy — assaying — the teach- 

 ing in the School is thoroughly practical, and the operations 

 you may in future be called upon to conduct will not differ from 

 those taught in this laboratory. The teaching will, I am glad 

 to say, he now specially entrusted to my friend Mr. Smith, 

 the value of wh jse instruction in my own case I gratefully 

 acknowledge. 



' •Joiirtml of the Iron and Steel Institute (1873), No. i, p. 12. 



» Ihid. (1877), No. I, p. 7. 3 Ibid. (1879;, No. I, p. 24. 



< N'AruRE, vol. xxii. p. 54?. 



