696 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 673 



alarm regarding the possible deficiency of 

 the bread supply of Great Britain, due to 

 shortage of nitrogenous plant food in the 

 wheat fields, and advocating the proposed 

 parliamentary legislation for the establish- 

 ment of national granaries in which sup- 

 plies of wheat could be stored for protec- 

 tion against national famine, he described 

 methods and apparatus used by himself in 

 ■abstract research and later by Lord Ray- 

 leigh in the search for argon, methods and 

 apparatus whereby atmospheric nitrogen 

 and oxygen could be made to combine with 

 each other with expenditi;res of energy so 

 low as to make the utilization of atmos- 

 pheric nitrogen a commercial possibility at 

 costs as low as or lower than the element 

 could be supplied in combination in niter 

 from the celebrated deposits of Chili, until 

 then the sole source of economic supply 

 after the exhaustion of the guano deposits 

 of the world. 



The combination of nitrogen and oxygen 

 of the atmosphere through the intervention 

 of the electric arc and the silent electric 

 discharge or under the influence of elec- 

 trical tension has become commercially an 

 accomplished fact, and other means for fix- 

 ation of atmospheric nitrogen in forms 

 available for plant food have been worked 

 out, notably the process of Caro and Prank, 

 whereby nitrogen is made to combine with 

 calcimn carbide to form calcium cyan- 

 amide, since proved to be as efficient for 

 plant food as calcium nitrate or ammonium 

 sulphate. The research laboratory was the 

 direct means for producing these brilliant 

 and immediately useful results. So also 

 the biological studies of Berthelot, which 

 led to the discovery of the nitrogen-fixing 

 bacteria of clay soils ; of Wilf arth and Hell- 

 riegel, which led to the discovery of nitro- 

 gen-fixing bacteria of the root nodules of 

 leguminous plants, notably of clover; of 

 Muntz, which led to the discovery of the 



nitrifying bacteria of soils, through the 

 agency of which the nitrogen of organic 

 matters and ammonia is changed to the 

 nitric combinations, in which alone it is 

 available for the uses of vegetation. All 

 these have done their share to reduce and 

 remove the threatened danger which Pro- 

 fessor Crookes justly saw and which has 

 now been unquestionably removed by the 

 discoveries, then far from commercial at- 

 tainment, he at the same time described. 

 Abstract research is still essential to prog- 

 ress in the industry, even as it was in his 

 day recognized to be by the great Napoleon, 

 who, realizing that political supremacy is 

 largely, if not wholly, dependent upon in- 

 dustrial supremacy, called to his aid, after 

 the establishment of the celebrated conti- 

 nental blockade, all the great minds of the 

 institute and the academy, to devise and 

 develop means whereby the needs of his 

 empire could be wholly met by internal 

 resources, and out of this grew many of 

 the great industries of France and the 

 world generally: the beet-sugar industry, 

 the madder crop, the production of indigo, 

 the development of the textile industries, 

 particularly in linen and wool. This neces- 

 sity of industrial supremacy to the assur- 

 ance of the political supremacy has been 

 recognized by other great statesmen and 

 leaders. What Napoleon saw, the great 

 German Kaiser of the present day saw 

 when he urged and insisted upon the estab- 

 lishment of the engineering doctorate of 

 the universities of his empire, and Senator 

 Morrill saw when he urged upon the Con- 

 gress of the United States the enactment 

 of the great land-grant law for the estab- 

 lishment of the colleges of agriculture and 

 the mechanic arts, from which this and 

 other great universities of the land have 

 grown. This is, furthermore, what Con- 

 gi'essman Hatch saw when he proposed to 

 and urged upon the congress the enactment 



