that assists the students to visualise the process. Classes in Physical and Organic Chemistry suffer more usually from this defect than those in Inorganic Chemistry. In some cases where historical treatment would add interest and intelligibility this aspect is ignored. Some teachers who have had experience with younger students cover the ground too slowly for the older students who attend evening classes, and the waste a good deal of time in endeavouring to elicit conclusions from early and isolated experiments. It should be understood that reasoning is very difficult until the students have acquired a sufficient number of facts to enable them to make comparisions. Experience shows it is better to cover the same area once at too slow a pace. Again consideration of the atomic and molecular theories is sometimes limited to the very elementary treatment which is possible in the first year, and the somewhat advanced treatment possible in the third year. It is very desirable to devote some attention to fundamental conceptions like these in each year of the course, and they should be closely associated with appropiate parts of the syllabus. The text-book does not always serve its most useful purpose in the scheme of instruction. Teachers can save a great deal of time by instructing students to read definite portions of the book in most weeks of the course. Students need to be trained to acquire information for themselves, and the lecture hour is often more profitablly devoted to emphasising important pointscreating perspective than in conveying information which can be obtained quite easily from a book. Sometimes the students will follow the instruction more easily if they already have some familiarity with the facts or the terminolgy. Homework exercises vary greatly in value. They are sometimes restricted to straightforward book-work and make too little demand upon thought. More attention might often be paid with advantage to calculations. The homework, like the text-book, should have a definite purpose in the scheme of teaching. For example, it may be used to secure revision, to prepare the minds of the students for a future lesson, or to fix in their minds the meaning or application of a law or principle. Lecture notebooks vary very greatly in quality. In many cases they are excellent, in others extremely poor. Writing up notes is a very heavy task for evening students, and the labour might be considered reduced by proper use of the text-book and suitable homework exercises. Lecture notes are of more importance in the later stages when the deficiences of the text-book have to be made good. While the laboratory exercises are generally suitable and the work well arranged, there are some schools in which an improvement would be desirable. Thus, insufficient training is given in the simple laboratory operations. The students have not enough practice in fitting up apparatus, and the importance of neatness and tidiness are not sufficiently impressed upon them. The theory of qualitative inorganic analysis does not always receive sufficient attention. In practical organic chemistry there is in some cases a tendency to give too little to preparation, and in others too little time to the study of the properties and reactions of the chief compounds dealt with in the course. Generally, more attention should be given to the study of type-reactions. In this subject good judgement is required to secure that the students receive sufficient practice in the different kinds of exercise. Where so much good work is being done these detailed criticisms may appear a little ungenerous. The defects ,however, exist, and they have been recorded in the hope that they may be of service to beginners and to those who may be replanning their schemes or reconsidering their methods. The surest way to perfection lies in the recognition and elimination of defects. EXAMINATIONS AND STANDARD OF WOrk. It will be observed that the work varies from the single isolated class in Chemistry to the organised part-time courses extending over six years, and the full-time course occupying 30 hours a week and extending over four years. So far as University and Pharmaceutical courses are concerned their standards are definite. No exact definition of the standard is possible for the instruction in Pure Chemistry given in courses for Engineering, Mining, etc. In National Certificate and similar courses, and courses in Applied Chemistry, the students are either examined by their own teachers, generally with the assistance of external assessors, or by such Bodies as the Union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes; the Unions of Education Institutions, which operates in the midland counties; and the East Midland Education Union. Certain local Education Authorities such as the County Councils of the West Riding of Yorkshire, of Kent and of Surrey, also conduct examinations. A few of the larger schools are also approved by the Institute of Chemistry and are entitled to prepare candidates for the Associateship Examination. The Institute of Chemistry co-operate with the Board in the scheme for the award of National Certificates. These are of two gardes Ordinary and Higher. The Ordinary Certificates require attendance for three years in a Senior Course of 180 hours a year, and Higher certificates an attendance for a further two years in an Advanced Course occupying the same number of hours a year. The examinations are internal, but questions are moderated and the scripts assessed by the assessors appointed by the Institute. Certain schools in the area of the Union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes are permitted to use the examinations of the Union, and the questions and scripts are also moderated and assessed by the Institute of Chemistry. Candidates must make a minimum percentage of attendances, and secure a minimum number of marks for home work and laboratory work. These marks count in the final total upon which the certificate is awarded. The standard for the Ordinary Certificate is rather higher than that of the Intermediate Science examination of a University; in Mathematics it is lower; but in Organic Chemistry it covers a much wider field. The standard for the Higher Certificate is not so easy to define as in an Advanced Course a good deal of time may be devoted to Applied Chemistry. Where no Applied Chemistry is included it lies between a pass and an honours degree. In order to present students for National Certificates a school must be specially approved. It must be adequately equipped, the staff must be well-qualified, the conditions for admission must be satisfactory, and the course must be properly organised. Thirty-two schools have been recognised and the number is slowly increasing. Many schools have made very considerable improvements in equipment and organisation in order to obtain for their students the benefits of the scheme. ing courses extend over six years. The fifth year is the final year of the course for the Higher National Certificate and in the sixth year students who are otherwise eligible may prepare for the Associateship examination of the Institute of Chemistry. CONCLUSION. It will be clear that there is a very considerable volume of instruction in Pure Chemistry in the country, and that it is being given to students with a great variety of occupation and purpose. Where it is taught in its application to Engineering, Mining, etc., it does not reach beyond matriculation standard; in the Pharmaceu tical courses it rises to that of intermediate science; and in some cases higher than this, but in many of the National Certificate and University courses and in a few of the courses similar to National Certificates courses, a fair proportion of the students reach a standard which is the more remarkable considering that many of the students can only give part-time to study. The teachers as a body are well qualified and generally competent; the accommodation and equipment are, on the whole, good; the organisation of most of the courses is satisfactory; and the defects to which attention has been drawn are the exception rather than the rule. AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS THROUGH SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. By EDWARD R. WEIDLEIN, Sc.D. (President, American Institute of Chemical Engineers; Director, Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa.) (Continued from Page 45.) The Research department of the National Carbon Company, Inc., as reported by H. D. Batchelor, has produced from carbon, the most common chemical element next to oxygen, all manner of things essential to the commercial world. Among the most important of these products are carbon electrodes which range in size from huge elements forty inches in diameter, nine feet long and weighing three to four tons, for use in steel and other metallurgical furnaces, to tiny pencils of carbon one-eighth inch in diameter and two inches long, used in small dry cells. Another and perhaps not so well known form is that of activated carbon-the last defence between our soldiers and the deadly gases used in warfare. Over a quarter of a century ago the flashlight, another form of light,was produced by these research laboratories in recognition of the need of an easily portable electric light. Here again the original element has been developed from a dim, barely visible light to a high powered searchlight of several thousand beam candle power. These laboratories have also developed the dry cell in all forms from an original laboratory toy to one of the essential elements of the electrical industry. Investigation and research have increased many fold the electrical capacities of this product. A recent contribution of the Union Carbide and Carbon Research Laboratories is a methane detector of two distinct types. These two devices developed by chemical and physical research provide a portable indicator which can be used to give warning of the presence of explosive gases in coal mines or elsewhere. In this instance the industrial research work of the corporation finds itself employed in a distinctly humanitarian service. Two of the most important tools for metal working to-day are the oxy-acetylene welding and cutting torches. This equipment has been made really valuable by an unusually broad co-operative effort among several companies. The Union Carbide Company contributed through large-scale industrial research on the production of calcium carbide. The Prest-O-Lite Company developed the method of bottling acetylene dissolved in acetone, thus making the gas portable and available in smaller quantities than warrants the installation of generators. Not the least important phase of this research was that concerned with safety in the compression and transportation of acetylene and its companion gas, oxygen, as a result of which these two gases are now widely distributed by all the usual means of transportation. In the field of organic chemistry, the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation has applied intensive research methods to isolate in pure form the various constituents of the huge hydrocarbon resources of the country and to use these materials as the basis o fintricate synthetic processes. This work is the result of intensive research begun at Mellon Institute by Dr. George O. Curme and his associates. The results of this research have made available in large quantity and at low cost a variety of commercially valuable aliphatic organic chemicals, distinct in origin as well as in application from the synthetic chemical products heretofore generally known. A principal product of these efforts is ethylene glycol, which has been offered to industry for the first time, after having been known since the early days of chemistry only as a chemical curiosity. Ethylene glycol is now widely used in explosives manufacture and as an antifreeze material for automotive engines; it is also finding numerous new uses to supplement the inadequate supplies of glycerol and is further serving purposes entirely new in the arts. The ethers of glycol are ideal for solvents for nitro-cellulose lacquers and in the rapidly expanding lacquer industry they are introducing qualities indispensible in their nature. The pure hydrocarbon constituents of natural hydrocarbon mixtures have also found many valuable and interesting uses. For example, ethane, propane, isobutane, and normal butane have been found to have special physical properties making them. desirable as refrigerating gases. While referring to organic solvents it is important to mention achievements of Dr. M. C. Whitaker, of the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. The production of high grade, pure cologne spirits from molasses, which is fully competitive with the alcohol made from grain, is now done as a continuous distilling operation without the use of charcoal or chemical treatment and the accompanying expensive redistillation operation. The U.S. Industrial Alcohol Company has solved the problem of producing anhydrous alcohol by the continuous distillation process, resulting in large production at low cost. This process is not only in use in the United States, but also in Continental Europe, England and Australia. In the chemical field Doctor Whitaker and his associates have contributed to the development of new processes and new products in which alcohol is used as a raw material. They have developed and manufactured acetic acid from alcohol for chemical purposes on a very large scale. The manufacture of ethyl acetate by an efficient and continuous process, using all grades of dilute solutions from acetic acid, including vinegar, has also been worked out. Another accomplishment is a continuous process for the production of anhydrous ethyl acetate by an azeotropic distillation process and without the use of chemicals. By its large available production of anhydrous ethyl acetate, this company became the only American producer of large tonnages of ethyl aceto-acetate, which is now supplied to dye and pharmaceutical manufacturers. No more striking illustration of the important relation of science to industrial progress and public welfare can be found than in the very successful resarch of the E. I. duPont de Nemours & Company, of which a condensed picture is presented by Dr. Charles M. A. Stine. Among the outstanding achievements of this company's research men is the development of much safe methods of manufacture of high explosives. The development of machinery for carryong cut many of the operations in the manufacture of high explosives, and the standardisation and im provement of the processes of manufacture, has freed this industry from many of the risks which attached to manufacturing operations of this type years ago. It is possible that the use of high explosives, while very wide and very important in the development of the industries of this country is still not so much a matter of general information as to insure an appreciation of the great progress which has been made in this industry. Dr. C. E. K. Mees, who has contributed so much to the well-being and progress of the photographic industries, has communicated the following brief account of several research results : 66 One piece of work of which everybody is now aware is the development of the Cine-Kodak process, including the invention of the reversal process and the working out of the necessary apparatus, a system by which the films daily received from amateurs at the present time can be processed. The whole of the system of amateur cinematography marketed by the Eastman Kodak Company was originated in the research laboratory. A piece of research work which has proved very fruitful in practical results, but which has no direct relation to the work of the company, was the development of a method of electroplating rubber from latex solution. This was studied originally in order to find a method of covering photographic apparatus with rubber. The results obtained were so satisfactory and novel that the process was eventually sold to the Anode Rubber Company, Inc., for exploiting in many directions which were not originally contemplated." Dr. E. C. Sullivan, of the Cornish Glass Works, points out some of the principal achievements in the field of glass technology. The development of low expansion glasses used for laboratory ware, baking ware, line insulators, chemical manufacture, lamp-making, etc. The development of potash-free lead glass for incandescent lamp bulbs when the outbreak of the World War shut off imports of potash, and later development of nonlead glass for incandescent lamp bulbs, which has made possible tank melting and manufacture of bulbs by the automatic machine. The development of lens design and high transmission colours for railroad semaphore signals. Glasses for absorbing or transmitting various selected wave lengths, including X-rays, ultra-violet and infra-red. Among these products is a glass comparable with quartz glass in ultra-violet transmission. Silicate refractories, such as tank blocks, cast in moulds from the molten material. Representative of research done in the schools are the following investigations carried out in the University of Michigan: Heat transfer and evaporator design; gas absorption; electrodeposition of metals; mechanism of combustion in automobile engines; petroleum distillation and equipment design; season cracking of brass and factors affecting properties of metals at elevated temperatures; purification of coal gas; instantaneous carbonisation of crushed coal; causes of the disintegration of concrete and gypsum structures when exposed to moisture; dimensional changes in steel with heat treatment; and design of steel springs. The history of industry shows clearly that within the last fifty years, and largely within half that period, manufacturing practice has advanced with a speed incomparably greater than at any previous time. Empiricism has given way to industrial research, or the application of experimental method, as manufacturing has kept pace with the advancement of science in general. Great progress in technologic knowledge has come from the infusion, through industrial research, of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering; and technology, or systematic industrial practice, can proudly boast of many conquests that deserve to be called marvellous. SPECTRAL ANALYSIS OF Ca, Sr, Ba By KUNIZO HUKUDU. The procedure consists of observing salt solutions fulgurated in a special fulgurator, with the electrodes reversed, i.e., the anode in the solution. Accuracy and limit of application of this method were carefully studied and it was found that this is especially suited for the analysis of minute quantities of lithium, calcium, strontium and barium. In carrying out this study, the author owes much to the suggestion and encouragement of Prof. Hashida and Prof. Nagai, as well as to the kind interest and care taken by Prof. Y. Shibata of the Faculty of Science of Tokyo Imperial University. INSULIN AND ITS MANUFACTURE. By F. H. CARR, F.I.C. (Before the Royal Society of Arts, CLINICAL USE OF INSULIN. The rationale of the present treatment of diabetes mellitus with insulin is founded upon the assumption that it is desirable to rest the islet tissue of the pancreas in order to re-establish its function. For this purpose, it is obviously desirable to get rid of the abnormal concentration of sugar in the blood for the sake of the general healthy condition of the body tissues. Accordingly the dietary is adjusted to a low level and insulin is administered. In a normal individual the effects of a large dose of sugar will have ceased after 1 hours when the excess of sugar above 0.1 per cent. has disappeared from the blood of the normal individual; indeed, the natural supply of insulin has brought the blood sugar a little below normal, and a little later the normal will be re-established by drawing upon the glycogen stored in the liver. In the diabetic the case is far different, the sugar having risen high above the level (0.19 to 0.20 per cent.) at which it escapes through the kidneys; both the flooding of the tissues with glucose and the loss through the kidneys act to the detriment of the general cell functions of the body. Nor has it fallen to the initial figure even after four hours. In a few words, then, the basis is that in a normal individual insulin pours into the blood in such quantity and at such rate that the sugar content of the blood is well controlled. In a diabetic this is not the case, consequently at least a partial correction may be made by injecting insulin at intervals of several hours, the time of such injection being co-ordinated with the principal meals. Too much insulin produces effects which are no less serious than those resulting from a shortage; it follows, therefore that it must be administered with great care. It is important to determine the sugar in the blood and urine at intervals, medical skill being, of course, necessary for the interpretation of the figures observed. Over-dosage with insulin produces serious symptoms demanding immediate treatment, or a fatal issue may result. These symptoms are quickly relieved if sugar or glucose is taken by the mouth. ment. Abundant evidence is at hand as to the wonderful results achieved by the treatI will content myself with two examples, the first being a case of coma to show the remarkable change in the blood content which accompanies these dramatic recoveries, the second that of a young diabetic to illustrate the wonderful improvement in general health which results from the treatment. Very severe diabetics are likely to die in a state of coma. The onset of these symptoms had until recently been regarded as proof that death was at hand. With insulin treatment recovery from the comatose condition is not only likely, but probable; numerous cases are on record of people who have thus snatched been from the jaws of death and have been able a few weeks later to return to their homes and daily avocations. SO For the record of my second example I may refer to a case described by Passmore, Raven and Poynton in The Lancet. A child who had been under medical treatment for diabetes for four years had become emaciated that at eight years of age she weighed only two stone, the bones of the pelvis could be seen in their skeletal outline and the upper arms were almost unbelievably thin. With insulin treatment she rapidly regained the appearance of a bright normal child and her weight rapidly increased. After six months she weighed 3 stone 10 lbs., and went to school daily. Banting, in the Nobel Prize Lecture, quoted 130 children treated with insulin, of whom 120 were still living; while of 164 similar children who did not receive insulin 152 were already dead. Those who have been privileged to take part in this work have the good fortune, not accorded to every worker who contributes to important advances of science, to know that they have contributed greatly to human happiness. Every stage in the unfolding of knowledge prepares the way for further advance. The discovery of insulin has been the starting point of many researches to which time does not permit me to refer. I should like to take this opportunity to point out that in science no national boundaries bar the road to progress. Although insulin was discovered in Canada, much of the work to which I have referred this evening has been contributed from other countries, in particular from the United States of America, from Denmark, from Japan and from this country; and quite recently the news has |