SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
erected on a semi-commercial scale. In 1916, the Association of Bottle 
Manufacturers of Great Britain contributed £1,000, and agreed to con- 
tribute £250 per annum towards the upkeep of the department. Various 
other contributions were received, and the original committee was ex- 
tended still further and became the Delegacy for Glass Research. The 
Department of Glass Research at the University guaranteed to spend 
£20,000 a year for five years, provided the Glass Research Association 
raised £5,000 a year over the same period. On the formation of the 
British Scientific Instrument Research Association, at first mainly for 
optical instruments, but later for various other scientific instruments of 
precision, a similar scheme providing for an expenditure of £40,000 a 
year for five years, and later extended by an additional £24,000 to 
£30,000, was adopted on condition that the members of the Instrument 
Association made an immediate contribution of approximately £7,000 
out of their net revenue account. This association works in conjunction 
with the Department of Technical Optics at the Imperial College of 
Science and Technology, which is also assisted by the Industrial and 
Scientific Research Association as well as the National Physics Labora- 
tory, which has undertaken the testing and standardization of chemical 
glassware of the highest grade. he test of clinical thermometers now 
reach 30,000 a week. It is interesting to note here that we can now 
obtain an English-made thermometer, which will withstand very high 
temperatures (500°C.), and which is also provided with a white 
enamel back. This instrument is a great advance on any German 
instrument tested at the laboratory. It would thus appear. that, with 
well-established places for research, directed by well-qualified investi- 
gators, such sections as optical and scientific glassware in particular 
will successfully hold their own with the foreign. They will have to 
stand the keen competition of Jena, which has an established world-wide 
reputation. Moreover, the United States of America, which before the 
war imported its optical glassware, has also made herself independent. 
Research in England during the war was directed mainly towards the 
production of goods previously imported from enemy countries. While 
there has been undoubted success in many different directions, any 
scheme devised for safeguarding the industry can only be effective if the 
industry strain every effort to attain to the highest pitch of efficiency. 
Real progress will be made only by the co-operation of manufacturers, 
workers, and users. The old style of coal-fired furnaces will be a handi- 
cap in the competition with the various new types, such as those fitted 
with automatic self-stoking producer plants. _ In the bottle trade some 
of the Owens machines are being introduced. These are capable of 
turning out 75,000 quart bottles in 24 hours Other blowing machines 
will produce 30 large-size tumblers or 40/60 “ nappies” per minute. 
There has been a notable achievement in the making of electric light 
bulbs. The pre-war production was about 12,000,000 per year. Now 
it is 50,000,009, and one manufacturer can produce 400,000 a week. 
Great Britain can now supply all her own needs. 
Automatie machinery: for the production of bottles, tumblers, 
chimneys, electric light bulbs, sheet glass and tubes are now in opera- 
tion. One of the greatest handicaps, compared with America, is the 
cost of fuel. In the United States of America coal can be obtained for: 
£1 to £1 5s. a ton, while in England the cost rose from 14s. a ton to» 
106 
