684 REPORT — 1891. 



Section B.— CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 

 Phesident of the Section — Professor "\V. C. Robeets-Atjsten, C.B., F.R.S. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 20. 



Tlie President delivered the foUj-winT- Address : — 



The selection of Cai-diff as a place of meeting of the British Association led to the 

 presidency of Section B being entrusted to a metallurgist. It will be well, there- 

 fore, to deal in this address mainly with considerations connected with the subject 

 to which my life has been devoted, and I hope that it may be possible for me to 

 show that this practical art has both promoted the advancement of science and 

 has received splendid gifts in return. 



It is an art for which in this country we have traditional love ; nevertheless 

 tlie modes of teaching it, and its influence on science, are but imperfectly under- 

 stood and appreciated. Practical metallurgists are far too apt to think that 

 improvements in their processes are mainly the result of their own experience and 

 observation, unaided by pure science. On the other hand, those who teach 

 metallurgy often forget that for the present they have not only to give instruction 

 in the method of conducting technical operations, but have truly to educate, by 

 teaching the chemistry of high temperatures, at which ordinary reactions are 

 modified or even reversed, while they have further to deal with many phenomena 

 of much importance, which cannot, as j'et, be traced to the action of elements in 

 fixed atomic proportions, or in which the direct influence of the atom is only 

 beginning to be recognised. 



The development of a particular art, like that of an organism, proceeds from 

 its internal activity ; it is work which promotes its growth and not the external 

 influence of the environment. In the early stage of the development of an 

 industry the craftsmen gather a store of facts which afford a basis for the labours 

 of the investigator, who penetrates the circle of the ' mystery ' and renders know- 

 ledge scientific. Browning, inspired by the labours of a chemist, finely tells us in 

 his ' Paracelsus ' : — 



To know 



Eather consists in opening out a way 



"Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, 



Than in effecting entry for a light 



Supposed to be without. 



If it be asked who did most in gaining the industrial treasure and in revealing 

 the light of chemical knowledge, tlie answer is certainly the metallurgists, whose 

 labours in this respect difler materially from others which have ministered to the 

 welfare of mankind. First it may be urged that in no other art have the relations 

 between theory and practice been so close and enduring. Bacon, who never 

 undervalued research, tells us that in the division of the labour of investiga- 

 tion in the New Atlantis there are some ' that raise the former discoveries by 



