NoveMBER 8, 1918] 
gan, has also been dwarfed by the cireum- 
stance that so large a percentage of our manu- 
facturing activities has been concerned with 
war work which it would not be expedient to 
display to public view. There has been a 
restriction of the exhibits from other causes, 
of which the pressure on manufacturers for 
delivery to the fighting services has been the 
most important. It is a tribute to those re- 
sponsible for what has been done that in the 
face of these restrictive influences they have 
found it possible to secure the cooperation of 
manufacturers and scientific workers con- 
cerned with so many different branches of 
industry as to make an effective display of 
articles now produced in home workshops and 
laboratories which before the war were ob- 
tained chiefly from enemy countries. The 
chemical, electrical and mechanical engineer- 
ing industries, iron and steel and non-ferrous 
metals trades, scientific instrument manufac- 
ture, the textile glass industries, and aviation 
and road transport, as well as food production 
and preservation, and surgery and bacteriol- 
ogy, have all been laid under tribute. 
The first impression the visitor gains is 
perhaps one in which confusion occupies the 
chief place. For the moment it would al- 
most seem as if a collector had been allowed 
to run riot through a host of products, the 
uses of which are often as asunder as the 
poles. This impression passes, and the ex- 
hibition is seen in its right perspective—not 
as an ordered sequence of manufacturing 
processes, but as illustrating the latent capa- 
cities of some of our scientific industries, the 
proper development of which has in the past 
been throttled partly by the stress of sub- 
sidized competition, partly by indifference and 
lack of application of science to the solution 
of industrial problems. The numerous sec- 
tions into which the exhibition is divided 
are so many milestones on the roads of prog- 
ress that lead in various directions towards 
the goal of increased national efficiency. 
METALLURGY 
The section which is devoted to ferrous 
metallurgy illustrates the character of the 
SCIENCE 
457 
task which has been undertaken during the 
war. It is now a familiar story how the cut- 
ting off of supplies from enemy sources of 
certain materials essential to the steel trade 
embarrassed this great industry. The supply 
of refractory materials not only for the con- 
stantly expanding steel trade, but for other 
key industries had somehow to be maintained 
Accounts have been given in the Engineering 
Supplement of the fine work done in exploit- 
ing our own sources of supply. of coke-oven 
and furnace bricks for various requirements, 
and the exhibits in this class indicate the 
success which has been won in the organiza- 
tion of a branch of British trade which has 
hitherto lacked the stimulus of national effort. 
It is also the case that the increased appli- 
cations of the electric furnace in steel manu- 
facture make it more than ever necessary to 
invoke the aid of exact scientific investiga- 
tion in the evolution of refractories to with- 
stand the higher temperatures which are com- 
ing into use. 
What has happened in connection with re- 
fractory materials has been repeated in the 
case of tungsten, an essential constituent of 
many special steels. Engineers are aware 
with what energy, on the initiative of Shef- 
field manufacturers, this subject was attacked 
and British firms put in a position to produce 
a range of compounds and metallurgical prod- 
ucts for which they previously relied on Ger- 
many, notwithstanding the fact that there 
are ample supplies of the necessary raw mate- 
rials within the confines of the Empire. 
Reference is made above to the developments 
in electrie furnace practise, and the section 
of the exhibition devoted to ferrous metal- 
lurgy contains various examples of recent ad- 
vances. A somewhat striking exhibit illus- 
trates new methods of producing sound steel. 
LIGHT ALLOYS 
The outstanding advance in non-ferrous 
metallurgy to which witness is borne at 
King’s College has been in the production of 
light alloys, the principal application of which 
has been in the construction of aircraft. 
This has called for an increased output, not 
