2l6 



NATURE 



\7aii. 6, 1 88 1 



be made available as a marketable article. At present it 

 runs a.vay as calcium chloride ; but if Weldon's process 

 for regenerating the chlorine were to prove as succesbful 

 as his well-known plan (of world-wide application) for 

 obtaining it from the ordinary chlorine-still liquor has 

 proved (and this so far has not come to pass), it is pretty 

 clear that all the old alkali works would have to be 

 closed. Next come the chapters on Bleaching Powder 

 and Chlorate of Potash. Here we find thirty-four pages 

 of a practical treatise devoted to the theoretical con- 

 sideration of the composit'on of 1 leaching powder, and 

 even graphical formulae may be detected on some of these 

 pages, to say nothing of chemical equations of some com- 

 plexity, involving the discussion of one of the most intri- 

 cate of chemical problems. This is a pretty dish to set 

 before our " typical practical man," who only knows the 

 Substance he makes under the names of "B.P." or 

 " Chemic," and would be puzzled to say of what 

 it consisted. It is however a species of nourishment 

 which it will do him good inwardly to digest, for 

 if he turns away from it in disgust and dismay, so much 

 the worse for him and his manufacture. " The rule of 

 thumb," as Mr. Mundella truly said at Leeds the other 

 day, " is now over ; we stand at its grave." Cur manu- 

 facturers must all be thoroughly trained in the scientific 

 principles which underlie their trades. Noble and great 

 things have been done by Englishmen in the perfection 

 and development of chemical industry, and still greater 

 things remain for them to do ; but whilst taking only 

 proper credit for what England has done and is doing, 

 let us not forget that the general scientific education of 

 our manufacturers and managers is far below that of their 

 Continental competitors. It is no doubt quite true that 

 no German alkali work could exist were it not for their 

 import duty on English soda ; for even with all their care 

 and scientific knowledge, the Germans are unable to 

 compete on equal terms with us, thanks rather to the 

 circumstances of our environment than to any special 

 merits of our own. 



But this artificial and economically unsound condition 

 of Continental manufacture ought rather to urge us so to 

 comi-lete our system that we not only shall have the 

 advantages which geographical position and geological 

 good fortune places at our disposal, but also that thorough 

 scientific training and the knowledge of what is being 

 done elsewhere, without which all natural advantages 

 become comparatively valueless. In this way and in this 

 way only can we, as it seems to me, fight against the 

 incubus of protective tariffs. On this necessity for our 

 typical "practical man " to re-consider his position and 

 to arm himself for the technical war with every appliance 

 which science places at his disposal. Dr. Lunge speaks 

 so forcibly and so well in the preface to his third volume 

 that 1 take the libsrty of giving his remarks m extciiso. 



I may however express my own doubts whether the 

 British alkali-maker has, as Dr. Lunge maintains, in 

 reality been distanced by any foreign manufacturer of 

 alkali or sulphuric acid, except so far as regards the 

 import of British goods into countries where inland \ 

 produLtion is artificially stimulated by protection. .As 

 regards other chemical industries, especially those such 

 as the manufacture of colours, in which great delicacy and 

 care in manipulation and an intimate knowledge of the 



highest developments of organic chemistry are essential, 

 one must in sorrow confess that Dr. Lunge is perfectly 

 right when he says that the English trade is rapidly 

 passing into the hands of French and German houses, 



"Cther books aim at nothing but giving an accurate 

 description of the present style of making sulphuric acid 

 and alkali in England ; and they leave the chemistry 

 of the subject almost totally aside. My treatise differs 

 from this in several respects. First it gives a detailed 

 chemical description of the raw mattriah, intermediate 

 and final products, of the modes of testing, and so forth, 

 supplemented by numerous tables of solubilities, densi- 

 ties, &c. ; and it also enters very fully into the theory of 

 all the processes concerned, accurately citing all papers 

 on the subject, so that the reader can go to these for 

 further elucidation. I am quite aware that a treatment 

 of this kind will appear lengthy and superfluous to some 

 readers who look into this book merely for ' practical ' 

 hints. In this respect they will not, I trust, be dis- 

 appointed either, but I make bold to say that they would 

 do very well not to despise the scientific part, the purely 

 chemical detail, of this work. 



" Afterall,our subject belongs to the domain oichemistry, 

 and the times are far behind us when, in the manufacture 

 of chemical products, the practical man with his rule of 

 thumb could look down upon the chemist in the labora- 

 tory — who in the former's idea was at best only good for 

 testing the materials, but whose interference with the 

 works would invariably cause mischief. That this was 

 true to some extent, and still is so, where the chemist 

 attempts to transfer his ideas into practice in a crude 

 state without sufficient practical experience, nobody can 

 possibly deny. But does the ' practical man ' on his part 

 make no mistakes .? 



" Have not untold sums been wasted in futile ' inven- 

 tions ' and 'improvements' merely because 'practical' 

 inventors lacked a scientific knowledge of their subject .■' 

 Probably very much larger sums have been lost in this 

 way than by the deficiency in practical experience of 

 'theoretical' inventors, for the simple reason that the 

 latter class of inventors generally have not so much 

 means at command as the former. It is a mere 

 truism that theory and practice should always go 

 hand in hand ; but it must nevertheless be incul- 

 cated over and over again, as would appear froai the 

 fact that several costly books on perhaps the most impor- 

 tant branch of chemical industry have just been published 

 with next to no chemistry in them. And to what conse- 

 quences does this neglect of a scientific treatment of 

 practical subjects lead ? The author may be pardoned 

 for illustrating this from his personal experience. .K 

 little more than sixteen years ago he left his native 

 country for Great Britain, and he might justly hope to 

 learn a great deal and find much more scope for himself 

 in that country which he is proud to have made his 

 second home. More particularly the manufacture of 

 sulphuric acid, soda-ash, and bleaching-powder was at 

 that time quite insignificant in Germany, and not very 

 considerable in France as compared with Great Britain, 

 nor could the technical appliances, the yields, or even the 

 purity of the products in the two former countries vie 

 with those of the latter. How different matters are now 

 is a matter of notoriety. The manufacture of chemicals 

 has made enormous strides forward, both in quantity and 

 quality, in France, and even more so in Germany. Many 

 of the chemicals of these countries outstrip those of 

 English works in purity ; and their plant and their pro- 

 cesses are frequently superior to those used in the majo- 

 rity of English works. Everybody knows how this has 

 come about. The foreign chemists and manufacturers 

 have looked all round, not merely in their own countries, 

 but wherever they could find improved methods and 

 apparatus, and upon the practical knowledge thus gained 



