PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 449 



f 1 0111 them and f^n-reailiing tioubl«>s caiiso<J in tlie futtiip. Huw many tests of 

 steam ciigijies are iiiueliable because there is no standardisation of the pressure 

 and vacuum giuges and thermometers used, and in how many cases is even the 

 reading of the barometer omitted? An absolute pressure stated as so many 

 inches of vacuimi has no meaning unless the barometer reading is also given 

 or the inches of vacuum are stated as reduced to 'Bar. 30.' How many firms 

 using steam have any arrangements for testing vacuum and pressure gauges? 

 And yet there are no instruments more liable to error than these gauges. When 

 one tries to analyse the results of steam tests one is constantly up against the 

 elementary question ' Were the gauges, &c., accurate? What a misfortune it is 

 that there were no means of testing their accuracy.' Under scientific super- 

 vision arrangements are made to avoid such troubles and get reliable results 

 which can be depended on for future designs. 



What has been said about pressure gauges and thei measurement of pressure 

 applies, of course, to all other instruments and measurements. In most works, 

 it may be said with sorrow, that the only moderately accurate measurements 

 that can be made are those of dimensions and weight. It is only by accurate 

 testing of e.xisting plant that reliable deductions can be drawn enabling safe 

 progress to be made in future designs. 



One of the great things which helped forward the steam turbine in the early 

 days was accurate and full testing of each plant as soon as it was completed 

 and before it left the works. The latei Mr. Willans was probably the first, or 

 one of the first, to recognise the importance of accurate testing of steam jilant, 

 and the success his well-known engine had was largely due to this. From the 

 earliest days of the steam turbine, Sir Charles Parsons recogni.sed the necessity 

 of such testing, and the test house has always been a prominent feature of 

 Heaton Works. And then in the higher ranks of engineering works it requires 

 a scientific mind to draw safe conclusions from tests carried out and to 

 see in what directions progress can be safely made. Snch methods have 

 enabled the steam turbine during the writer's acquaintance with it, now extend- 

 ing over some twenty-eight years, to grow from 50 horse-power to some 45,000 

 or more in each unit, and the steam consumption to be reduced from 40 lb. 

 per h.p. hour to about 7^ lb. or less than one-fifth. 



And closely allied to such work in engineering works is the general question 

 of scientific research, and here a trained scientific mind is of the utmost import- 

 ance to see that reliable results are obtained and to make true logical deductions 

 from those results. Without suitable training a man is liable to be unable to 

 grasp all the conditions of an experiment and to make deductions from the 

 data obtained which are totally unjustified and often lead to most disastrous 

 results in the future. 



Such research is generally carried out in four places — engineering works, 

 private laboratories, engineering colleges, and national laboratories. 



The first has already been dealt with. 



The second is of comparatively small importance in practice. 



As regards the third a gi-eat deal of good work has been done in engineering 

 colleges, often under great difficulties for want of plant and money, and it is 

 greatly to the credit of our professors and others that they have succeeded 

 in doing so much with the very inadequate appliances at their disposal, and 

 handicapped for want of funds. How inadequate their income is can be under- 

 stood when it is remembered that Leipzig University alone has an annual 

 income from the German Government of 100,000/., as against a total Government 

 grant to nil the Universities here of about 45,000/., or less than half. 



Of national laboratories we have only one, the National Physical Laboratory 

 at Teddington, and here again the support given to it is totally inadequate. 

 The total income from all sources last year was only 40,00(J/., and of this 

 23,000?. was charges for work done, such as testing meters and other instru- 

 ments and such commercial work ; the Government grant is only 7,000/. a year, 

 and besides this 7,500/. was received for experiments in connection with 

 aeronautics, which is reallj' war work. The balance was made up of sub- 

 scriptions, grants from technical societies, and miscellaneous receipts. Compare 

 this with the German equivalent, the Reichsanstalt of Berlin, which has an 

 income of 70,000/. a year from the Government, or ten times that given to 

 our N.P.L. The Bureau of Standards, the similar institution in U.S.A., has 

 1916 Q a 



