Welsh Journals

Hamel, in 1736, demonstrated the identity of the base of common salt with mineral alkali-as sodium carbonate was then termed. It was not until 1790 that a practical application of this discovery was made by Leblanc. This industry, which has made the fortunes of many men and given employment to thousands, was based on the work of Leblanc-who died by his own hand, a pauper, in 1800. Chlorine was discovered by Scheele in 1774. Its compounds were investigated by Berzelius about 1800. The manu- facture of bleaching powder was first established as a great manufacturing pro- cess by Weldon in 1869. Berzelius was also the discoverer of cerium in 1803; zirconium in 1824; thorium in 1829; but it was not until the last decade that the utilisation of these elements in the incandescent lamp led to the establishing of an important industry. Further scientific curiosities may be found in vanadium, molybdenum-the latter discovered in 1778-it is only within the last few years, however, that the extraordinary effect of small quantities of these elements in steel has been ascer- tained, and the high speed tools which are changing the face of Sheffield industry have been rendered possible. Wohler prepared calcium carbide in 1832, but it was not until 1892 that Moisson and Wilson laid the foundations of the carbide industry. The world's out-put in 1908 was about 200,000 tons. Another carbon compound-to-day largely used in steel industries-viz: carborundum, was probably first produced by Debretz in 1848. Three thousand tons of this valuable grinding agent were produced in the United States alone in 1909. Such examples in the domain of chem- istry might be multiplied almost in- definitely, and I am afraid the story would ever be the same, viz that the reward to the pioneer is small, though the ultimate return to the community is great. As Sir James Dewar has pointed out, no investment has ever yielded such a financial return as the capital expended by Count Rumford when he founded the Royal Institution in 1799. It is probable that the industries, based on researches conducted therein, are, every month, producing profits greater than the whole expenditure on that Institute since its foundation. It would be difficult to estimate the indebtedness of the chemical, the coal mining, the electrical, the trans- port industries to the researches of Hum- phrey Davy, of Faraday, of Tyndall and other workers in the Royal Institution. There is a passage in Professor Perry's 66 England's Neglect of Science which admirably indicates the present situation:- One thing that seems to be quite exasperating is that almost all of the most important, the most brilliant, the most expensively educated, people in England our poets and novelists our legislators and lawyers; our soldiers and sailors; our great manufacturers and merchants; our clergymen and schoolmasters are quite ignorant of physical science; it may almost be said that in spite of these clever ignorant men-through the agency of men who are not Ígnorant-all the conditions of civilisation are being constantly transformed." I have hitherto considered this matter from a financial standpoint only, for I have been anxious to impress on the business community the truth of the statement that there is no investment which gives a greater return than the encouragement of research. But I now venture to call your attention to other aspects of the subject. Consider the results of the work of men like Pasteur and Lister and those who have built on the foundations which they laid. The mortality in the hospitals of Europe