TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 671 



by his capacity for -work and his power of inducing work in others. Although 

 perhaps some of us did not appreciate this at the time, yet we feel we owe him a 

 •debt of gratitude for his having started us in the right way. The list of papers 

 under his name in the Royal Society Catalogue up to the year 1883 is ^99, written 

 by himself alone, besides twenty-two joint papers. One of his characteristics 

 which impressed me was his inTestigation for the purpose of furthering chemical 

 Imowledge without any view to practical applications, and I well remember his 

 lecture at the Royal Institution, in 1862, on mauve and magenta (which owed 

 so much of their success to his work), in which he produced the original specimen 

 of benzene which had been obtained by Faraday from oil-gas in 1825. He pointed 

 out that Faraday had prepared this substance and investigated its properties 

 without ever supposing that it could have any practical application. The fol- 

 lowing is the concludmg paragraph of the lecture : — 



' Need I say any more ? The moral of mauve and magenta is transparent 

 enough ; I read it in your eyes. We understand each other. Whenever in future 

 one of your chemical friends, full of enthusiasm, exhibits and explains to you his 

 newly discovered compounds, you will not cool his noble ardour by asking him 

 that most terrible of all questions, " What is its use ? Will your compound 

 bleach or dye? Will it shave .P May it be used as a substitute for leather?" 

 Let him quietly go on with his work. The dye, the lather, the leather, will make 

 their appearance in due time. Let him, 1 repeat it, perform his task. Let him 

 indulge in the pursuit of truth — of truth pure and simple — of truth not for the 

 sake of mauve, not for the sake of magenta ; let him pursue truth for the sake 

 of truth.' 



This seems to me the true spirit of the scientific investigator, and in many 

 cases the reward consists solely in the consciousness that the investigator has done 

 his duty ; in some cases the reward may take a more substantial form, and since 

 the above paragraphs were written I have been informed that Professor von 

 Hofmann has left a large fortune, the result of the applications of his discoveries 

 in technical chemistry. 



The following Papers and Reports were read : — 



1. Electrolytic Synthesis. By Professor A. Crum Brown, F.B.8., F.B.S.E., 



and Dr. J. Walker. 



2. Impurities in Chloroform. By Professor W. Ramsat, F.B.S. 



3. Report of the Committee on the Nature of Solution. 

 See Reports, p. 261. 



Report of the Committee on the Bibliography of Solution. 

 See Reports, p. 261. 



I 



5. Report of the Com.mittee on Wave-length Tables of the Spectra of the 

 Elements. — See Repoi'ts, p. 193. 



6. A Note on Alloys of Aluminivin with Ferro-manganese. 

 By T. W. Hogg. 



The alloys which form the subject of this short paper were prepared by mix- 

 ing ferro-manganese with aluminium, both previously fused. 



These alloys possessed the unexpected feature of being readily attracted by the 

 magnet, and it is principally on this account that they have been thought 

 sufficiently interesting to bring before the members of this section, especially as 

 the alloys of aluminium have for some time attracted much attention. 



It is now well known that the addition of manganese to iron or steel produces 



