October 20, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



571 



ive use. This, the report says, is equally true 

 of the weapons of industry. The brains, even 

 the very processes, that to-day are necessary 

 to the output of munitions were yesterday 

 needed, and will be needed again to-morrow, 

 for the arts of peace. The council was faced 

 from the first with the fact that the war had 

 greatly reduced the number of workers avail- 

 able for research, and it found that certain 

 researches conducted or directed by profes- 

 sional associations in the period preceding the 

 war stood in grave jeopardy of enforced 

 abandonment. The first act of the council, 

 therefore, was to save as many derelict re- 

 searches as possible; its second was to confer 

 with professional and other societies con- 

 cerned, especially with chemical and electrical 

 industries; its third to form a register of re- 

 searches; its fourth to aid research in educa- 

 tional institutions, and its fifth to form the 

 standing committees already mentioned. The 

 appointment of other standing committees is 

 in contemplation. The sphere of universities 

 and technical colleges in relation to the work 

 with which the council is concerned is dis- 

 cussed, and finally certain general conclusions 

 are drawn. The first is that a largely in- 

 creased supply of competent researches must 

 be found, and the second, that there must be 

 a hearty spirit of cooperation among all con- 

 cerned, men of science and of business, work- 

 ing men, professional and scientific societies, 

 universities and technical colleges, local au- 

 thorities, and government departments. It 

 was found that the output of the universities 

 before the war was altogether insufficient to 

 meet even a moderate expansion in the de- 

 mand for research. It is hinted that hitherto 

 the scientific army in Great Britain has con- 

 sisted of a brilliant group of staff officers, and 

 it is bluntly said that we have not yet learnt 

 how to make the most of mediocre ability, 

 though without scientific rank and file it will 

 be as impossible to staff the industrial re- 

 search laboratories that are coming as to fight 

 a European war with seven divisions. The 

 council expects to be able to encourage a 

 longer period of training by the offer of re- 

 search studentships, but " it is useless to offer 



scholarships if competent candidates are not 

 forthcoming, and they cannot be forthcoming 

 in sufficient numbers until a larger number of 

 well-educated students enter the universities. 

 That is the problem which the education de- 

 partments have to solve, and on the solution 

 of which the success of the present movement 

 in our opinion largely depends." The council 

 considers that the organization of research 

 in the interest of various industries must be 

 coordinate. " It must be continuous in its 

 operation, and its ramifications will spread as 

 knowledge grows. It will inevitably tend to 

 bring industries into intimate relation which 

 are at present independent of each other; to 

 transform what have hitherto been crafts into 

 scientific industries; and to require coopera- 

 tion, not only between different firms in the 

 same industry, but between groups of indus- 

 tries in a continuously widening series of 

 interrelated trades. The forces which are at 

 work in this direction have elsewhere found 

 their expression in connection with the trust 

 and the combine; but we believe, if the real 

 nature of these forces is clearly grasped, that 

 it will be possible to organize them for the 

 benefit, not only of the industries, but of the 

 nation as a whole." — The British Medical 

 Journal. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Annals of the Dearborn Observatory, North- 

 western University. Volume I., Historical 

 and Descriptive Introduction, Measures of 

 Double Stars. By Philip Box, director of 

 the observatory. Published at Evanston, 

 Illinois, 1915. 4to. Bp. 229. 

 Science often moves along paths that soon 

 become obscure to the eye of the historian. 

 He can always trace the course of the high- 

 ways, marked as they are by published con- 

 tributions. But he may easily miss the almost 

 equally important though less conspicuous by- 

 ways through the quiet places — the influence 

 of a great teacher, or the silent force of an 

 example of devotion. He who seeks to ac- 

 count for the great activity in America along 

 the lines of observational astronomy must not 

 overlook or underestimate the part that Burn- 



