58 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



lished; amongst them may be mentioned the work of Rosenhain and 

 Tucker on the lead-tin alloys (Phil. Trans., 1908), in which they describe 

 hitherto unsuspected changes on the lead rich side which go on when 

 these alloys are at quite low temperatures, also the constitution of the 

 alloys of aluminium and zinc; the work of Eosenhain and ArchButt 

 (Phil. Trans., 1911), and quite recently the excellent work of Vivian, 

 on the alloys of tin and phosphorus, which has thrown an entirely 

 new light on this difficult subject. 



So far I have called attention to some of the difficulties encountered, 

 in the examination of binary alloys. When we come to ternary alloys 

 the difficulties of carrying out an investigation are enormously increased, 

 whilst with quaternary alloys they seem almost insurmountable ; in the 

 case of steels containing always six, and usually more, constituents, we 

 can only hope to get information by purely empirical methods. 



Large numbers of the elements and their compounds which originally 

 were laboriously prepared and investigated in the laboratory and 

 remained dormant as chemical curiosities for many years have, in the 

 fulness of time, taken their places as important and, indeed, essential 

 articles of commerce. Passing over the difficulties encountered by 

 Davy in the preparation of metallic sodium and by Faraday in the 

 production of benzene (both of which materials are manufactured in 

 enormous quantities at the present time), I may remark that even 

 during my own lifetime I have seen a vast number of substances trans- 

 ferred from the category of rare laboratory products to that which 

 comprises materials of the utmost importance to the modern metal- 

 lurgical industries. A few decades ago, aluminium, chromium, cerium, 

 thorium, tungsten, manganese, magnesium, molybdenum, nickel, 

 calcium and calcium carbide, carborundum, and acetylene were un- 

 known outside the chemical laboratory of the purely scientific investi- 

 gator; to-day these elements, their compounds and alloys, are 

 amongst the most valuable of our industrial metallic products. They 

 are essential in the manufacture of high-speed steels, of ai'mour-plate, 

 of filaments for the electric bulb lamp, of incandescent gas mantles, and 

 of countless other products of modern scientific industry. 



All these metallic elements and compounds were discovered, and 

 their industrial uses foreshadowed, during the course of the purelv 

 academic research work carried out in our Universities and Colleges ; all 

 have become the materials upon which great and lucrative industries 

 have been built up. Although the scientific worker has certainly not ex- 

 hibited any cupidity in the past — although he has been content to rejoice 

 in his own contributions to knowledge, and to see great manufacturing 

 enterprises founded upon his work — it is clear that the obhgation 

 devolves upon those who have reaped in the world's markets the fi-uit 

 of scientific discovery to pi'ovide from their harvest the financial aid 

 without which scientific research cannot be continued. 



The truth of this statement is well understood by those of our great 

 industrial leaders who are engaged in translating the results of scientific 

 research into technical practice. As evidence of this I may quote the 

 magnificent donation of 210,000Z. by the British Oil Companies towards 

 the endowment of the School of Chemistry in the University of Cam- 



