THE RARER METALS AND THEIR ALLOYS. 515 



into brilliant diamond are received with appreciative interest: but, on 

 the other hand, the vast importance of effecting similar molecular 

 changes in metals is ignored. 



We may acknowledge that "no nation of modern times has done so 

 much practical work in the world as ourselves, none has applied itself 

 so conspicuously or with such conspicuous success to the indefatigable 

 pursuit of all those branches of human knowledge which give to man 

 his mastery over matter." 1 But it is typical of our peculiar British 

 method of advance to dismiss all metallurgical questions as "industrial," 

 and leave their consideration to private enterprise. 



We are fortunately to spend, I believe, eighteen millions this year 

 on our navy, and yet the nation only endows experimental research in 

 all branches of science with £4,000. We rightly and gladly spend a 

 million on the Magnificent, and then stand by while manufacturers com- 

 pete for the privilege of providing her with the armor plate which is to 

 save her from disablement or destruction. We as a nation are fully 

 holding our own in metallurgical progress, but we might be doing so 

 much more. Why are so few workers studying the rarer metals and 

 their alloys'? Why is the crucible so often abandoned for the test tube ? 

 Is not the investigation of the properties of alloys precious for its own 

 sake, or is our faith in the fruit fulness of the results of metallurgical 

 investigation so weak that, in its case, the substance of things hoped 

 for remains unsought for and unseen in the depths of obscurity in 

 which the metals are left? 



We must go back to the traditions of Faraday, who was the first to 

 investigate the influence of the rarer metals upou iron, and to prepare 

 the nickel-iron series of which so much has since been heard. 2 He did 

 not despise research which might possibly tend to useful results, but 

 joyously records his satisfaction at the fact that a generous gift from 

 Wollaston of certain of the "scarce and more valuable metals" enabled 

 him to transfer his experiments from the laboratory in Albemarle street 

 to the works of a manufacturer at Sheffield. 



Faraday not only began the research I am pleading for to-night, but 

 he gave us the germ of the dynamo, by the aid of which, as we have 

 seen, the rarer metals may be isolated. If it is a source of national 

 pride that research should be endowed apart from the national expendi- 

 ture, let us, while remembering our responsibilities, rest in the hope 

 that metallurgy will be well represented in the laboratory which pri- 

 vate munificence is to place side by side with our historic Eoyal Insti- 

 tution. 



'The Times, February 22, 1895. 



"In the development of the use of these alloys the Societ6 Ferro-Nickel and Les 

 Usiues du Creuzot deserve sx)ecial mention. 



