54 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
based on the work of Commissions on which sat distinguished chemists 
of the day, and it became necessary to set up a State chemical department 
to assist in carrying this into effect. 
For some time the science of chemistry had received a limited and 
vicarious assistance from State grants to the late Science and Art Depart- 
ment and to the universities, but it was reserved for the war to establish 
definitely and finally the position that the whole future existence of a 
State might and probably would depend on the existence of a flourishing 
and efficient chemical industry. This resulted in the definite steps of 
assisting the application of science to industry, and providing direct 
encouragement for workers in the purely academic field. 
It is proposed, therefore, to sketch the development of the main chemi- 
cal activities of the State, and to review the conditions in Great Britain 
in the hope that it may. be of use generally to define the present position, 
and perhaps of interest to this Dominion in the present stage of its chemical 
development. 
Defence.—Explosives. 
It would appear that the importation of the technical process from 
abroad is no new thing, for it is stated that in 1314 gunpowder and guns 
were being imported into England from Ghent. Not only the material 
but the executant also appears to have been imported in the person of a 
John Crab, a Fleming, who took service with the English and supervised 
the guns and munitions used at Crécy. By 1338, cannon were mounted 
on board English ships of war, and in 1346 gunpowder was being supplied 
to the King. Although the manufacture of gunpowder is mainly a 
mechanical operation, variations in the composition which must have 
involved chemical experiment are recorded in such works as the ‘ Fire 
Work Books’ of that interesting class, the Master Gunners. In England, 
a Master of the Ordnance in 1447 is stated to have made 20 tons of gun- 
powder. This manufacture, however, early became stabilised, and the 
proportions of the composition underwent little change until the middle 
of the nineteenth century, when it was modified, but as freedom from 
smoke began to be demanded a new propellent of a type that could be 
produced only by chemists was evolved. 
It is of interest that Faraday was employed by the War Office as Lecturer 
at the Royal Military Academy from 1829 to 1853, and on appointment 
took as his assistant James Marsh, whose name, associated with the process 
for determining arsenic, is so well known to chemists. Marsh received the 
gold medal of the Society of Arts for this work, and a silver medal from the 
Board of Ordnance for his discovery of the quill percussion tube for cannon, 
and further he devised some of the earlier types of time-fuse. Abel suc- 
ceeded Faraday at the Academy and began his long career of activity as 
scientific adviser to the War Office, becoming War Department Chemist 
in 1854. 
It is necessary to mention some of the important advances made by 
Abel and his staff, including Kellner and Deering. By pulping guncotton, 
he rendered it safe to handle and store ; his researches on the properties 
of guncotton laid the foundation of later work on its stability and explosive 
properties ; and his research (with Noble) on the behaviour of gunpowder 
when fired is an example of a thorough investigation. Abel was consulted 
