July 8, 1909] 



NA TURE 



00 



We have replaced personal skill by division of labour in 

 chemical work just as much as in all the other branches 

 of human industry. In so doing we have certainly un- 

 consciously copied nature. Do not her earliest creations, 

 the unicellular organisms, in which one cell is made to 

 fulfil all the functions of life, resemble the patient crafts- 

 man, who works at the object that he wants to turn out 

 from the beginning to the end, and then, with a last loving 

 glance, hands it over to his client? And are not our 

 factories of the present day comparable to the complicated 

 organisms of the later epochs of creation, with their many 

 coordinated and subordinated organs that Vifork in unison, 

 and in their joint activity are much more powerful than 

 their tiny unicellular ancestors? 



One of the most interesting chapters in the evolution 

 of animated life is the gradual transformation of aquatic 

 organisms into those living in the air and on solid ground 

 — a tremendous change, and one which could only be effected 

 by many and varied attempts and by means of the most 

 marvellous adaptations. Right into the midst of our 

 epoch, when the conquest of land as a permanent dwelling- 

 place for plants and animals is practically accomplished, 

 reaches the perpetuation of intermediate forms, which can 

 adapt themselves to land or water, as the circumstances 

 may require. 



Now what is the lesson we can learn from the study 

 of this wonderful development in comparing it to what 

 has happened in our own industry? I think it is obvious 

 and of the greatest importance. It is this, that no 

 industry, and especially no chemical industry, can be trans- 

 planted, such as it is, from the place in which it has been 

 successfully developed, into any other without having to 

 undergo a complete change, which taxes to the utmost 

 the organising and inventive power of those who make 

 the attempt. 



This is a truth too often forgotten in our times, when 

 the keenest struggle for success is rife everywhere, and 

 people who have to suffer from the competition of factories 

 established in other countries are apt to vent their grief 

 in uncharitable accusations. Yet how frequent are the 

 examples, when manufacturers, who have risen to great 

 prosperity, suffer tremendously by transferring their own 

 business into some new locality. In many cases it is 

 merely a move in their own country, yet it means, 

 gen°rally, a far-reaching adaptation to altered conditions ; 

 but if it becomes a question of transplanting a manufacture 

 from one country into another, it must be quite a new 

 creation if it is to be a success. As a new creation it 

 should command our respect, and though it mav be in- 

 convenient it should not be disparaged. It was the destiny 

 of aquatic organisms to conquer land as a dwelling-place, 

 and it is the destiny of the industrial countries of the 

 present day to carry industry to the nations that are readv 

 to receive it. 



There are, fortunately, no two countries alike in this 

 world, and most of them differ, from a manufacturing 

 point of view, more than land and water for plants and 

 animals. Whenever an industry leaves its native country 

 it has to be re-modelled. Take, for instance, the gas 

 industry, which was born in England, and has been carried 

 by English enterprise over all the world. No sooner it 

 crossed the channel and was established !n France and 

 Germany than it had to be materially transformed, not 

 in its principle, but in the constructive details and the 

 dimensions of the necessary plant. Our coal was different 

 from yours, our fire-clay had to be prepared and worked 

 differently for the production of the necessary retorts, our 

 condensers and gas-holders had to be altered and encased 

 to withstand the sudden and wide changes of temperature 

 of a Continental climate, our yields proved lower, and the 

 economy of the process was materially different. Still 

 greater changes awaited the gas industrv on the other 

 side of the Atlantic. Though the United States arc 

 possessed of good gas-coal, the freights for it to the New 

 Enffland States proved to be too high. On the other 

 hand, anthracite was incomparably cheaper there than it 

 is with us, and the same was the case with mineral oils 

 of a high boiling point. All this led to the successful 

 substitution of carburetted water-gas for the illuminating 

 gas of Europe, kt present we trv hard to acclimatise this 

 American adaptation of the sras industry both in England 

 NO. 2071, VOL. 81] 



and Germany. Brilliant as the work done by gas 

 specialists in connection with these attempts undoubtedly 

 is, the success is, to say the least, indifferent, and will 

 remain so until the water-gas question will again have 

 undergone so complete a transformation and adaptation to 

 European industrial conditions that it will once more be 

 paramount to a new creation. 



Another example. Just at the present time a new- 

 country is about to join the concert of industrial nations. 

 Norway, in the rocky solitudes of which the bear was wont 

 to ramble and the elk and the reindeer to graze, the blue 

 fjords of which knew no other craft than fishing smacks 

 and occasional pleasure yachts, is beginning to develop a 

 chemical industry of vast dimensions. Will that industry 

 be similar to the one existing in this country or in 

 Germany? Certainly not. Its factories will have no 

 chimneys, no fires. They will be activated by the " white 

 coal," the force of roaring torrents. Our engineers have 

 pondered over the problem of economically transforming 

 heat into electricity ; the task of the Norwegian manu- 

 facturer is just the reverse. One of the fundamental 

 problems of our German chemical industry is the utilisa- 

 tion of our overwhelming wealth of sodium and potassium 

 salts ; the Norwegians neutralise their synthetic nitric acid 

 with limestone, because they have no cheap alkali. Many 

 other points of the same kind might be mentioned, but I 

 think these are sufficient to show that, whatever that new 

 Norwegian industry may prove to be, when fully developed 

 it must be different from what the world has seen so far. 



The first activity which the human race develops in 

 taking possession of wild districts is agriculture, and we 

 know full well that no two countries are alike in their 

 agricultural methods and results. An agricultural country 

 has to develop a dense population, and, in its work, the 

 peculiarities due to its soil and its climate, before it can 

 attempt to create an industry. The blending of the old 

 agricultural interests with the newly acquired industrial 

 ones means in itself a convulsion. Is it then probable that 

 so fundamental a change may be brought about by the 

 mere importation of a miserable copy of what has been 

 born and nurtured to maturity on other soil and under 

 another sun? 



If we study the life of plants and animals we are struck 

 by the marvellous economy reigning everywhere. There 

 are few physiological processes which can be called 

 wasteful. Everv bve-product of the more important 

 chemical reactions that take place in the organisms of 

 plants and animals is utilised and made to serve some 

 purpose. In plants, for instance, the refuse of the chemical 

 work of the protoplasm seems to be deposited as encrust- 

 ing material in the enclosing cellulose. The encrusted 

 ceil is then made to serve as a mechanical support for 

 the body of the plant, whilst new and more vigorous cells 

 are formed to fulfil the functions of life. Some of the 

 bvc-products of the chemical work of the plant are trans- 

 formed into dye-stuffs, others into perfumes, both with the 

 object of attracting the insects which are necessary for 

 fertilisation. Everywhere in animated nature we see the 

 principle of storing up food, either to serve in cases of 

 need or to provide for a future generation. Even in those 

 cases where nature seems to be wasteful, as, for instance, 

 in producing germs and seeds in far greater numbers than 

 seem to be required for the continuation of the species, 

 the seeming superabundance is merely a wise calculation 

 of the probabilities for the development of the germs. 

 More marvellous, perhaps, than any of these examples^ is 

 the economical use of the energy required for sust.aimng 

 the functions of life. So far as I am aware, there is not 

 a single engine of human invention which can utilise the 

 energV supplied to it in so perfect a way as, for instance, 

 a horse utilises the calories contained in its food for the 

 production of mechanical power; and though_ the 

 mechanical equivalent of light as a form of energy is, so 

 far as I am aware, yet an unknown constant, we may 

 safely say that the perfection with which living plants 

 utilise the energy of sunlight for carrying out the endo- 

 (herniic reactions upon which their nutrition and growth 

 depends is far superior to the methods which we have so 

 far discovered for similar purposes. 



.Are not these principles of economy which so universally 

 pervade living nature also the very essence of all Indus- 



