ANNUAL ADDRESS. 191 



knew how to supply the results of science ; utilizing the chem- 

 ist's results, he applied nitro-glycerine to industrial uses ; simi- 

 larly, he developed the petroleum industry of Russia, and, like 

 that of our American petroleum manufacturers, his influence was 

 felt in many other industries of his own land and of the Conti- 

 nent. At his death he bequeathed millions of dollars to the 

 Swedish Academy of Science, that the income might be ex- 

 pended in encouraging pure research. Smithson, Hodgson and 

 Nobel have marked out a path which should be crowded with 

 Americans. 



The endowment of research is demanded now as never be- 

 fore. The development of technical education, the intellectual 

 training of men to fit them for positions formerly held by mere 

 tyros, has changed the material conditions in America. The 

 su-rveyor has disappeared ; none but a civil engineer is trusted tO' 

 lay out even town lots ; the founder at an iron furnace is na 

 longer merely a graduate of the casting-house — he must be a 

 graduate in metallurgy ; the manufacturer of paints cannot en- 

 trust his factory to any but a chemist of recognized standing ;, 

 no graduate from the pick is placed in charge of mines — a min- 

 ing engineer alone can gain confidence ; and so everywhere. 

 With the will to utilize the results of science there has come an 

 intensity of competition in which victory belongs only to the 

 best equipped. The profit awaiting successful inventors is greater 

 than ever and the anxious readiness to supply scientific dis- 

 coveries is shown by the daily records. The Roentgen rays 

 were seized at once and efforts made to find profitable applica- 

 tion ; the properties of zirconia and other earths interested in- 

 ventors as soon as they were announced ; the possibility of tele- 

 graphing without wire incited inventors ever^^where as soon as 

 the principle was announced. 



Nature's secrets are still unknown and the field of investiga- 

 tion is as broad as ever. We are only on the threshold of dis- 

 covery, and the coming century will disclose wonders far be- 

 yond any yet disclosed. The atmosphere, studied by hundreds 

 of chemists and physicists for a full century, proved for Ray- 

 leigh and Ramsay an unexplored field within this decade. We 



