B.—CHEMISTRY. 83 
Health.—The three main steps with regard to public health and sanita- 
tion in this period were the forcing of these questions into prominence by 
Playfair, with the consequent Commissions and legislation leading to the 
formation of the Local Government Board and its successor, the Ministry 
of Health, which has many varied activities in preserving purity of air 
and water and protecting the workman in dangerous trades ; secondly, 
the determination of standards for a safe water supply by the pioneering 
work of Frankland ; and thirdly, the appointment of public analysts by 
the local authorities, with the Government Laboratory as referee, for safe- 
guarding the supply of food. 
Agriculture.—Science was being applied to agriculture about the end 
of the eighteenth century, and at the beginning of the next Davy did 
| pioneering chemical work for the Board of Agriculture. Private endeavour 
is responsible for the next development, State action being limited to the 
; prevention of fraud in the sale of fertilisers and feeding stuffs. In 1909, 
_ however, the annual allocation of a sum of money to the Development 
{ Commission for the advancement of agriculture stimulated research in a 
_ large number of institutions engaged in the scientific study of problems 
in which chemistry plays an important part. 
Other Activities—In addition to the chemical work reviewed in the 
foregoing sections, there is a variety of subjects connected with State 
Departments to which chemists have contributed, such as the composition 
of the sea, and the composition and physical chemistry of rocks and build- 
ing-stone. At the Government Laboratory a large number of investiga- 
tions have been conducted on matters directly referred from Government 
Departments. 
DuRING THE WAR. 
In all the activities described, the war requisitioned the work of the 
chemist, but, naturally, predominantly to meet the demands of active 
warfare. 
Defence.—The attention that had been bestowed on the subject of 
propellants enabled expansion to take place with no important alteration 
in the technique of their manufacture, to which was adapted a new type 
of cordite, ultimately made on the largest scale, without using an imported 
solvent. For high explosives we were in much worse case, as these had 
not been made by the Government, and were manufactured in Great 
Britain only in small quantity. Their study at Woolwich led to a rapid 
evolution of new processes, substances, and methods of use. Thus a method 
was worked out for the manufacture of trinitrotoluene, and to save this 
_ substance a new high explosive, amatol, devised. This explosive, consist- 
_ ing of ammonium nitrate and trinitrotoluene, passed exhaustive trials and 
_ was ultimately produced at the rate of 4,000 tons a week. The production 
_ of the ammonium nitrate for the mixture was in itself a stupendous under- 
taking, and the methods of filling the explosive into shell and other muni- 
tions gave rise to much ingenuity. Inthe Research Department, Woolwich, 
the number of qualified chemists engaged in the study of explosives in 
all their aspects ultimately exceeded a hundred, while for manufacture and 
inspection over a thousand were employed. The ideal set before himself 
by Lord Moulton in 1914, to produce nothing less than the maximum of 
G2 
