PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS FERGUSSON. Xvii 



potash salts used in pharmacy and the industrial arts and 

 has spurred chemists in research toward the manufacture 

 of potash salts from many sources. Germany, as a supplier 

 of potash, depended, of course, on possession of great natural 

 deposits; but her pre-eminence amounting almost to monopoly 

 in the glass industry, in dye manufacture and in the produc- 

 tion of the finer synthetic organic chemicals so necessary 

 to medicine and the arts, was due to other factors. There 

 arose in Britain and on this continent a popular outcry 

 against the possibility of being without dyes. It is note- 

 worthy how war brings out the elemental in humanity. 

 In the battle front today men display primitive instinct 

 when killing is no murder, and this popular outcry was 

 expressive, all unconsciously, of course, of instinct and of 

 color as a factor in sex selection. 



Compared with the days of our forefathers, the improved 

 material conditions surrounding us everywhere are primarily 

 due to Science, and one would think that governments 

 whose chief function is to ameliorate the condition of their 

 peoples' lives would foster science and encourage and aid 

 in every possible way scientific endeavor and research work. 

 In this, to a large extent, the British Government had failed, 

 notwithstanding appeals made year after year by her leading 

 scientists. When the war broke out and Britain found 

 itself dependent on foreign nations for the production of 

 certain goods necessary to individual and national existence 

 (dependent even on the enemy for glass for periscopes), 

 there was at last a national awakening in which process some 

 decidedly plain and outspoken language was used. The 

 scientific societies under the leadership of the Royal Society 

 offered their aid to the nation; the Government threw open 

 enemy patents to use by British manufacturers and although 

 such patents often hide more than they disclose, the result 

 has been highly satisfactory. At the outset, the Board of 

 Trade had published lists of industrial products and chemi- 



