Welsh Journals

Society is rendering, support given without enquiry as to what is the use of it all," support given in the belief that there is no discovery of the secrets of nature, which will not in due course bring forth fruit a hundred-fold. Such help is spec- ially needed at the present time. In this age of competition and struggle men want to see tangible results. They insist on the repetition of that hateful question What is the use of it," and they refuse to be satisfied with Faraday's famous reply to a lady who thus questioned him Madam, what is the use of a new-born child ? I now propose to mention a few examples of the applications of scientific research, specially directing your attention to one encouraging feature, viz the lapse of time, in certain cases, between the original researches and their practical applications. I have used the term encouraging," for we find here justifica- tion for the belief that even those scien- tific curiosities which to-day may appear to us of no practical value-say, for example, the discovery of argon-will in due course be applied to the purposes of mankind. Discoveries are often regarded merely as of academic interest," unless the man in the street can see the immediate application thereof. I suppose that the first observer who found that the magnetic needle, when free to move in a horizontal plane, pointed practically north and south, was in his time regarded as a collector of useless information but his was a dis- covery which has profoundly influenced the whole history of mankind. Were it not for the presence of Professor Turner, who can speak with authority, I should be tempted to dwell upon the work of the early astronomers and mathematicians, who laid the foundations of the art of navigation, upon which the prosperity of this empire is dependent. The labours of these early philosophers were performed with no eye to material gain-Plutarch, for example, says But Archimedes despised such things and did not think the invention of engines worthy of his serious studies," and Plato inveighed against inventions as corrupting and debasing the excellence of geometry by making her descend from intellectual to material things. It is often difficult to trace the connection between the ends of the chain which unites the original discovery with its practical application, for the links may be hidden in the bed of the river which we have crossed. For example, Cavendish, in 1760, investigated the effect of passing sparks through a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen in the presence of alkalis. We are now manufacturing calcium nitrate at the rate of 100,000 tons per annum, by a process based on his discoveries. Consider again the case of aluminium. Wohler, in 1827, obtained some globules of this substance, of doubtful purity, as large as a pin's head. This discovery remained merely a scientific curiosity until 1860. The manufacture of alu- minium is now an industry employing millions of capital and thousands of labourers, and I suppose there is scarcely a motor car in the country which does not contain a casting of that substance. Phosphorus was discovered by Brandt of Hamburg in 1669 and exhibited as a wonder of nature to Charles I in 1677. In 1834 it was first used in the manufacture of matches. To-day one firm alone pro- duces in each year some 400 millions of boxes, containing nearly 40 billions of wooden matches, and also 750 tons of wax vestas. One of the chief mainstays of our chemical manufactures is sodium carbonate. Nearly a million tons of it are produced in this Kingdom per annum. Du