454. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 
of the relation of strength and structure to composition’ is due to the 
pioneer labours of the late distinguished Dr. Sorby—an amateur uncon- 
nected with the industry—and to a fruitful conjunction of the labours of 
engineers and chemists outside the works, who in self-protection have 
tested the materials before use. 
In Germany the chemist and the engineer have been placed on an 
equality and required to work together, with results which are altogether 
satisfactory. We need to adopt a similar practice. Any attempt to 
fuse the two into one will meet with failure, I am persuaded; they are 
called upon to work from different points of view—they need to be in 
sympathy and to understand one another but their work is complementary. 
I have watched engineering students closely during years past and am 
satisfied that, on the average, they represent a type of mind different from 
that of the chemist—the tendency of the one is to be constructive and of the 
other to be reflective: the analytical work done by the chemist in the 
laboratory is but the means to an end in the same way that the work done 
by the engineer in the drawing office is. Our future engineers should 
study chemistry and chemists should study engineering, in order that 
they may understand one another and work together—not in order that 
they may supplant one another. The chemist has to some extent allowed 
himself to be pushed into the background—perhaps because the average 
chemist in the past has been too tame a person; moreover, being forced to 
work in his laboratory, he has had less opportunity of gaining freedom and 
breadth of outlook than the more fortunate engineer, whose work has carried 
him out into the world. 
You will be wise in Canada if you take care to select no small number 
of your abler students—young men of promise physically as well as intel- 
lectually—and train them as chemists. Of late years attention has been 
called from every side to the inconsiderate manner in which raw materials, 
especially coal, iron and wood, are being used up in all civilised countries. 
It is difficult to interest the public in such a subject, as few can appre- 
ciate the consequences, owing to the general ignorance of science and to 
the existence of an optimistic belief in the power of scientific discovery. 
But nothing will compensate for the exhaustion of your coal and iron 
supplies. It is your bounden duty to economise these in every possible 
way. The chemist and engineer will be required to help you in effecting 
economies by improving present methods of treatment. But the further 
question arises whether it be not also your duty, here in Canada par- 
ticularly, without loss of time, to effect still greater economies by utilising 
the vast stores of energy in your possession, in the form of uplifted water, 
which now run to waste. The falls of Niagara are the most glorious and 
entrancing sight in the world I have witnessed next to the total eclipse 
of the sun, yet I question whether it be permissible to allow any part of 
their available energy to be dissipated—whether the claims of posterity do 
not forbid us to allow ssthetic considerations to prevail in such a case. 
To conclude, I have treated my subject very widely and at times 
vaguely, having ranged over a great variety of subjects—somewhat from 
the point of view of modern opera, perhaps; indeed, I am willing to confess 
that I have been much influenced of late years by music and by the 
recognition of the obvious desire reflective musicians have shown to secure 
breadth of effect and harmonious development of all the elements which go 
to compose a dramatic situation. Chemistry touches the drama of life at 
every point: if ever we are to understand life and regulate our actions in 
accordance with understanding, it will be in no slight measure because we 
appreciate the lessons which chemistry alone affords. 
