448 TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION G 



Section G.— ENGINEERING. 

 President of the Section: Gerald G. Stoney, B.A., F.R.S. 



WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



At times such as these the mind naturally turns to problems to be considered 

 both at the present time and after the war, and in considering such problems a 

 review of some of the errors committed in the past is most necessary. 



Such a review enables methods which should be adopted both now and in 

 the future to be considered. 



As this is an address to the Engineering Section of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, only such problems will be considered as affect 

 engineering and its allied industries. 



One thing which has handicapped our industries is the reluctance of firms to 

 utilise highly educated labour or to adopt scientific methods. In looking round 

 the industries of the district one is struck by the email number of men who 

 have undergone a thorough scientific training at one of the Universities or at 

 one of the leading technical colleges, and who occupy a prominent place in the 

 firms in this district. 



The general complaint is that University and college men are too theoretical 

 and not practical. 



It is the usual thing for a bad workman to blame his tools, and is it not 

 because employers do not know how to make use of such labour that they utilise 

 it to such a small and imperfect extent? 



Things are very different in some other countries with which we have com- 

 peted in the past, and with which there will be in all probability still fiercer 

 competition in the future. There we find the fullest use made of highly educated 

 scientific labour. 



How many engineering firms in this district have a skilled chemist on their 

 staff, and what percentage of these pay him a decent salary? And how many 

 heads of firms have sufficient chemical knowledge to appreciate the work of and 

 utilise the services of such a man because unless there is appreciation of the 

 work done by such a man his services are useless and he becomes discouraged, 

 generally finding himself up against the blank stone wall of there being no 

 appreciation of his services, and yet chemical problems are continually cropping 

 up in engineering work. There is the question of the supply of materials ; as 

 a rule the manufacturer trusts to the name of the contractor and assumes that 

 he gets materials of the composition and purity he ordered. Every now and 

 then something goes wrong and the question arises, why ? Without a chemist 

 to analyse the material it is often most difficult to say. Apart from this 

 question of thei ajialysis of raw or partly manufactured materials received, there 

 is the chronic question as to the mixtures of the metals in both the metal and 

 brass foundry, and large economies can be effected by systematic analyses. 



Another direction in which scientific labour is invaluable is in seeing that 

 instruments are in proper order and that tests are accurately carried out. Tests 

 carried out with inaccurate instruments and without proper scientific precautions 

 to see that they are accurate and reliable are worse than useless, and in fact 

 most misleading and dangerous, as entirely unreliable inferences may be drawn 



