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MASTER MINDS OF
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GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD

LONDON BOMBAY SYDNEY

First published 1930

by George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd.

39-41 Parker Street, Kingsuiay, London, W.C.a

Printed in Great Britain by Jarrold & Sons, Limited, Norwich

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PREFACE v^j&J^

IT was interesting to talk to Kings of Commerce
and to learn how they rose to fame and fortune;
before writing Heroes of Modern Adventure and
More Heroes of Modern Adventure we were privileged to
hear intrepid explorers relate their stories of endurance
and heroism in quest of the unknown that have thrilled
the world. But when gathering material for the present
volume we found even greater romance — the romance
of knowledge that little by little is solving the secrets of
nature and revolutionizing the world in which we live.

Not much more than a century ago people laughed at
Galvani for making a frog's leg twitch by the application
of an electric current, and less than a hundred years have
passed since Faraday was tinkering with magnets and
wire. Those people who asked " What's the use? " did
not dream that these men, with Volta, Humphry Davy,
and a few others, were initiating the mighty changes in
the conditions in which we live brought about by the
development of electric light, electric power, the tele-
phone, and wireless.

Barely fifty years ago even the schoolmaster thought
little of Science. The average schoolboy got an hour
weekly of what he called " stinks" and regarded it as
a splendid opportunity for taking it easy and sucking
sweets. Science was looked upon as something apart
from ordinary life, and many, especially religious people,
hated and feared it. George Gissing wrote : " I see it
restoring barbarism under the mask of civilization. I see
it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts."

If Gissing had lived to see the Great War he might have

5

6 Master Minds of Modern Science

felt that his fears were realized, especially when poison
gas swept in waves over the trenches and high explosive
bombs killed women and children in the streets of great
cities. Yet that same gas, chlorine, has its proper use in
bleaching cloth, and the explosives their real value in
blasting tunnels through mountains, or breaking up coal
in a pit. It is not fair to blame a useful article because
it is put to a bad use.

Science, properly used, has saved far more lives than
science badly used has destroyed. Medical Science has
reduced the annual death-rate in Great Britain from
seventy per thousand to less than fourteen within little
more than a century ; it is wiping out infectious diseases
— in the end it will utterly destroy them. Chloroform is
a poison which will kill, but think of the amount of agony
which our ancestors suffered before this anaesthetic was
discovered ! In Nelson's day when a wounded man had
to have a leg or arm amputated those near by would
stuff their ears with cotton-wool so as not to hear his
screams.

Look back farther still at what we call the Dark Ages.
For centuries man had stood still; the ordinary citizen
enjoyed little comfort in his life; prejudice and persecu-
tion reigned supreme. In the middle of the fifteenth
century printing was invented; printed books made
known to many knowledge that had long been lost for
all practical purposes; yet it was not until the seven-
teenth century, when that great genius Sir Isaac Newton
began his work, that real Science was born and the world
awoke from its sleep.

For a long time progress was slow. Even at the
beginning of the nineteenth century there were no rail-
ways; it took a week to travel from London to Edin-
burgh, and more than a month to cross the Atlantic.
Nearly everything that man required was still made by
hand. A pair of the commonest boots cost two pounds,

Preface 7

I

and a suit of rough clothes five or six pounds. Wind-
mills and water-mills were used, but steam was only just
beginning to be thought of as a motive power. There
was no gas or electricity, and when coal gas was first used
in the House of Commons members were seen touching
the pipes to see if they were hot. They actually believed
that the gas came through the pipes as flame. Telephones,
telegraphs, electric tramways, photography, motor-cars,
aircraft, none of these had yet been dreamed of.

Slowly at first, but with ever-increasing speed, Science
began to alter conditions, and during the nineteenth
century it completely changed the face of the civilized
world. Trade, transport, and education were revolution-
ized ; food, clothes, all the necessities of life, were made
cheaper and more plentiful; the poorer folk were given
comforts and conveniences of which even the rich had
known nothing a hundred years before. Science shed
light upon dark places, and it has linked up the whole
world.

During this present century the power of Science is
increasing like a snowball. There is more progress now
in one year than there was in ten during the nineteenth
century, and the pace is becoming constantly faster.
Chemists are working in all fields of endeavour, and hardly
a week passes without some important discovery being
announced. Read the chapters in this book on the
Curies and the work of Sir William Bragg and you will
realize that the discovery of radium is perhaps the most
important event in the history of man. It has changed
our whole conception of the universe.

Old-fashioned folk talk much of the restlessness and
discontent of the present generation. But these are only
natural in a time when things are moving so fast — in
what we call an age of transition — and they are not really
bad in themselves. After all, we do not want people to
act like sheep. Discontent may be divine.

8 Master Minds of Modern Science

For better or worse — and we think it is for better —
scientists are the rulers of the world. Look back and you
will see that the work of Stephenson had a far greater
effect on man's destiny than the conquests and law-
making of Napoleon.

Yet scientists are very modest folk. We did not find
it easy to persuade our subjects to talk of themselves,
and our chapters are not in any sense stories of their
intimate lives. There is, however, no less interest attach-
ing to the wonderful work they are doing, or have already
done, of which we have told.

It has not, of course, been possible to do more than
touch the fringe of the subject. We might easily have
selected two hundred names instead of twenty. Our idea
has been not merely to choose the greatest scientists of
the present day, but rather to present as many different
aspects of Science as possible, and to procure the material
in each case from the one best able to give it. With two
exceptions, all our subjects are alive at the time of writing.
The exceptions are Luther Burbank, the Californian
plant wizard, and Professor Curie.

Our chief difficulty has been to put the mass of material
given to us into simple and readable language. Science
in these days has a language of its own, and if we have
erred here and there in trying to simplify technical terms
we must beg the reader's indulgence.

Our task has entailed much travelling and interviewing
— work which has been lightened by the very great kind-
ness of those interviewed. Your modern scientist is one
of the world's hardest workers, and it is real charity on
his part to give up two or three valuable hours to a
stranger who comes asking him endless questions.

Among those who have given us special assistance,
and to whom, therefore, special thanks are due, are
Sir William Bragg, Sir Ernest Rutherford, Sir Oliver
Lodge, Mr J. B. S. Haldane, Sir Robert Robertson,

Preface 9

Director of the Government Laboratory, Sir Ronald
Ross, Sir Frank Dyson, Sir John Snell, Sir Charles
Parsons, Sir Daniel Hall, and Sir Joseph Petavel, Director
of the National Physical Laboratory.

The facilities given us include permission to quote from
published works in compiling some of our chapters, and
for this additional help we make grateful acknowledg-
ment.

It may be said that this volume is published with the
authority and consent of many of the distinguished
scientists whose achievements it relates. We hope their
kindly assistance will be justified by the interest the book
will awaken in those who are eager to know more of the
notable conquests of Science in our own day.

T. C. Bridges

H. Hessell Tiltman

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. John L. Baird, Pioneer of Television 15
II. The Amazing Experiments of Sir Jagadis Bose 28

III. Sir William Bragg and his ' Jolly ' Occupa-

tions 37

IV. The Story of Luther Burbank 48

V. The Story of the Curies 60

VI. Sir Edgeworth David's Discoveries in the

Antarctic 70

VII. Sir Frank Dyson, Astronomer Royal 81

VIII. The Work and Life of Albert Einstein 95

IX. J. B. S. Haldane and his Adventures 104

X. Sir Daniel Hall and his Experiments 117

XI. The Achievements of Sir Oliver Lodge 129

XII. The Story of Archibald Montgomery Low 139

XIII. The Beginnings of Wireless 151

XIV. Dr R. A. Millikan Discovers how Matter is

Created 162

XV. Sir Charles Parsons and the Turbine 169

XVI. Sir Joseph Petavel and the National Physical

Laboratory 181

XVII. Sir Robert Robertson and the Government

Laboratory 196

XVIII. How Dr A. Rollier Founded the Most Wonder-
ful School in the World 208

11

12 Master Minds of Modern Science

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. How Sir Ronald Ross Conquered an Enemy

of Man 214

XX. Sir Ernest Rutherford and the Lilliputians 228

XXI. Dr G. C. Simpson and the Meteorological

Office 237

XXII. Sir John Snell Hastens the Advent of a New

Age 245

XXIII. Sir Arthur Thomson and Once upon a Time 259

XXIV. Sir Arthur Smith Woodward Investigates the

Remote Past 268

■-'5

jujiUBRARY Uj

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PAGE

Sir William Bragg Frontispiece

John L. Baird giving an Early Demonstration of

Television 18

John L. Baird seated before the Transmitter in his

Latest Television Studio 26

Sir Jagadis Bose 31

Sir William Bragg demonstrating to Boys and Girls 38

Luther Burbank among his Flowers 50

The Late Professor Curie 63

Madame Curie 66

Sir Edgeworth David 70

Professor Edgeworth David and his Companions at

the South Magnetic Pole 75

Sir Frank Dyson with ex-King Amanullah at Green-
wich Observatory 90

Professor Einstein 96

How Light is bent by Gravitation 100

J. B. S. Haldane 113

Sir Daniel Hall 118

Sir Oliver Lodge in his Study 130

Professor A. M. Low, with the Audiometer which

he invented to photograph noise i43

The Marchese Marconi speaking from his Yacht in

Genoa Harbour to an Audience in Sydney 158

13

14 Master Minds of Modern Science

PAGE

Dr R. A. Millikan 164

Sir Charles Parsons 173

The Engine-room of the " Mauretania " 178

The William Froude National Tank 191

Sir Robert Robertson 198

The Sunshine School at Work 208

Children undergoing Sun Cure at Leysin 212

Colonel Sir Ronald Ross, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. 225

Sir Ernest Rutherford 230

Dr G. C. Simpson 238

Sir John Snell 246

The i,ooo,ooo-volt Testing Transformer in the

Research Laboratory at Stourport 251

Sir J. Arthur Thomson 260

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 269

CHAPTER I

THE WONDER OF WIRELESS SIGHT
John L. Baird, Pioneer of Television

WHEN the telephone was invented by Graham
Bell more than fifty years ago, and the world
was thrilled by the possibility of hearing voices
over great distances, some one remarked that " We shall
be seeing at a distance next."

Many thought that the prophecy was a joke, but the
brains of scientists have a habit of ' worrying ' at problems
tirelessly, and even one as difficult as this is at length
solved. Though baffled again and again, keen minds
maintained the endeavour to fulfil that prophecy, until
one day in October 1925 a young Scottish inventor, poor
and unknown, was working alone in a London attic
when suddenly he saw on the screen of his home-made
apparatus the image of a dummy head that was in the
next room. The prophecy had become a scientific fact
— that inventor, the first man in the world to see through
a brick wall, as it were, had made television possible, and
ensured for himself an enduring place in the history of
scientific research.

But that is anticipating our story. To appreciate that
achievement in a Soho attic one must know something
of the long search for the secret of television and of
John Logie Baird, the remarkable and patient scientist
who has given humanity ' long-distance eyes ' — the
ability to see persons and objects thousands of miles away.

Television, or its equivalent, had been a dream of
centuries. Most people regarded it as just a dream, like
the search for the food of the gods, or the elixir of life,

15

1 6 Master Minds of Modern Science

and no more capable of fulfilment than are many other
miracles which man would like to perform, but cannot.

But an increasing number of dreams equally ' far-
fetched ' had materialized during recent decades. Already
it was possible to turn night into day by pressing a
switch, to talk over vast distances, to operate without
pain, to show upon a screen crude, flickering reproduc-
tions of animated scenes. But actually to see through
walls — it simply could not be done. Nevertheless there
were scientists who were wrestling with the idea of wire-
less, of speaking and seeing over long distances without
an intervening wire, and within a few years of the first
conversation on the telephone there was to be born
near Glasgow the Scottish boy who was destined, before
attaining the age of forty, to solve this problem of tele-
vision. John Logie Baird, after whom the Baird Television
Development Company, Ltd., is named, would be the first
to agree that his twin inventions of television and nocto-
vision (seeing in the dark) have not yet reached perfection,
but enough has already been done for the story of his
achievements to be one of the romances of the age.

To retell, even briefly, the history of the scientific facts
behind television would need the whole of this book. We
should have to go back to 1873, when the light-sensitive
properties of selenium were discovered, and the first frac-
tional part of the riddle — the possibility of turning light
into electrical impulses — was solved.

But selenium proved too slow in action to assist those
who sought to make television possible. The author of
Television for the Home says :

It should be realized that television is not really a question
of transmitting and receiving a number of images each second,
for an image cannot be sent or received as a whole. Each image
has to be broken up into thousands of tiny fragments and
reassembled by the receiver in a fraction of a second. The
practical problem in television was how to transmit nearly

yohn L. Baird 17

100,000 signals per second, and it was at once realized that this
problem was on quite a different plane to the ordinary wireless
problem, such as sending signals by dots and dashes.

By the aid of selenium pictures were reproduced by
telegraphy in 1907, when a picture of King Edward VII
was transmitted in twenty minutes by a German named
Korn. Since that date the sending of pictures by tele-
graphy has made rapid strides, and illustrations trans-
mitted over great distances in this way appear regularly
in our newspapers. But these later developments, even
had the results been available, would not have helped
those who in the closing years of the last century
sought the key to television, because with a picture it was
not necessary to transmit and receive the whole produc-
tion in a fraction of a second, whereas if television was to
be successful some method of sending nearly 100,000
signals per second must be discovered.

More valuable was Hertz's discovery, in 1888, of wire-
less waves which made broadcasting possible. Another
step had been taken toward seeing at a distance, but still
both the possibilities of the invention and the method
were undiscovered.

The Hertzian waves and the discovery of photo-electric
cells made it possible to transmit scenes infinitely faster
than had been possible by selenium, but here another
difficulty arose. The photo-electric cells were not suffi-
ciently sensitive, and would not respond to the small light
available. Shadows only were received — there was no
known method of amplifying the impulses sent out.
Thus it was found that if a human face were brilliantly
illumined by powerful lamps, the reflected light caught
and transmitted was less than one candle-power.

For some years there was no further advance, until
developments in wireless, especially Sir John Fleming's
invention of the thermionic valve, encouraged the
pioneers of television to redouble their efforts, for the

1 8 Master Minds of Modern Science

new valve provided a means of amplifying the most
minute currents of electricity to almost any extent. But
once more disappointment was ahead. It was found
that for successful television an amplification at least a
thousand times greater than that obtained by Sir John
Fleming's valve would be required.

It will be seen, therefore, that the real stumbling-block
to the successful production of wireless sight for fifty
years was the discovery of a light-sensitive device speedy
enough, and sensitive enough, to permit the transmission
not of vague shadows, but of clear, sharp, complete pic-
tures, at the speed of twelve or more per second.

In other countries — in the United States, France, and
Germany — patient investigators were at work on these
problems, but between the discovery of the light-sensitive
properties of selenium in 1873 and Baird's first successful
experiment in the transmission of shadows in 1925 there
stretch fifty years of heart-breaking disappointments —
fifty years during which apparently no progress was made.
This period, however, was really that of a strenuous
international race for the honour of achieving television,
and the prize was won by a Scottish engineer who fought
ill-health, discouragement, and lack of funds, to experience
at last the thrill of watching, not a vague shadow, but a
face having expression, with light and shade, all this being
conjured by the inventive genius from the apparatus to
the creation of which he had so tirelessly devoted himself.

John Logie Baird is the son of a Scottish Presbyterian
minister, and was born at Helensburgh. While still a
schoolboy he showed signs of the inventive instinct which
was later to dominate his life. It was then that he set up
a model telephone exchange by his bedside to connect
him with four friends living near by. The telephones
were precariously connected by wires hanging across the
village street, and it was this fact that brought John
Baird's first effort at construction to an untimely end, for

JOHN L. BAIRD GIVING AN EARLY DEMONSTRATION

- OF TELEVISION

The image of a person holding two dolls is seen on the little screen.
'Seeing by wireless' has made big strides since this photograph was

taken.

18

yohn L. Baird 19

one rough night a wire was blown down, and, catching
a passing cabman round the neck, it jerked him off his
cab. Thinking that the wire had been erected by the
newly formed National Telephone Company, the cabman
promptly complained to them, and thus it was discovered
that they had an unauthorized rival in the field.

There followed other experiments with an antiquated
motor-car which Baird purchased and pushed home to
the manse where he lived, while later he cultivated his
intense interest in the new world of science then being
opened up by studying at the Royal Technical College
and Glasgow University, and thereafter by serving as an
apprentice in a mot or- works.

In this first situation he developed that capacity for
hard work which was afterward to be so invaluable in his
prolonged one-man experiments. The works opened at
5.30 a.m., and overtime was the rule rather than the
exception, so that during most of the year Baird left
home before daylight and did not return until late at
night.

He left the motor-works to take up a post under the
Scottish Electricity Commission as Assistant Superin-
tendent of the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company.
War came, and he volunteered for service, but was
rejected as physically unfit. He returned to his post in
the Power Company, and throughout the War he worked
on the machines which supplied power and light to the
munition factories and shipyards of the Clyde. Ill-health
at last caused him to resign, and it was then that he
resolved to use part of his enforced leisure to seek the clue
which would make television possible.

His research work was interrupted by the necessity of
rebuilding his health. Immediately after the War he had
invented a patent sock which kept the feet warm and dry
in any weather. The sock sold widely, and money was
beginning to flow in when it became necessary for him to

20 Master Minds of Modern Science

abandon business cares for a time, so that he sold out his
business to a Glasgow merchant.

A visit to the West Indies followed, and upon his return
he had to look round for further work which would
provide him with a livelihood.

For a time he bought and sold Australian honey, and
with the profits made on this side-line he bought an
interest in another firm, which sold coconut dust as a
fertilizer. The business proved very profitable, but once
more his health broke down, and he was ordered a com-
plete rest. He went to Buxton, and in August 1921 came
back to ' start all over again.1

He built up another business, this time selling soap, but
once more his health proved unequal to the strain of com-
mercial life. He suffered a nervous breakdown, this being
so severe that the doctors told him that he must abandon
for ever the thought of a business career.

There must have been very little hope in the heart of
the young Scot when he left London for the third time to
live quietly in Hastings, on the South Coast. Yet had he
but known it, he was at that moment within two years
of the beginning of discoveries for which his name will
always be honoured.

Debarred from active business life, he turned once again
to scientific research, and it was natural that the particu-
lar branch of science which attracted him should be the
investigation of television, to which he had been so
strongly attracted when a student.

During the years when he had been working as an engi-
neer and as a business man others had been struggling
with this very problem. But they had made no pro-
gress; the search for the secret of television remained
where it was when Baird had been a student at Glasgow.

He settled down to work in a room over a shop in
Queen's Arcade, Hastings, and it was here that his first
small step toward television was successfully accom-

jfohn L,. Baird 21

plished six months later. Before an audience which
included William Le Queux, the novelist, Baird trans-
mitted coarse shadows from a transmitter to a receiving
apparatus. A tiny step forward, and others, including
Jenkins, the American inventor, had accomplished as
much, but it fired Baird' s hopes.

The authors believe that that first successful experiment
at Hastings will be associated in history with the first
electric light and the first flight of the Wright brothers.
It was achieved with an apparatus made out of an old tea
chest and an empty biscuit box. The projection lens was
a bull's-eye lens costing tenpence ; the driving mechanism
was a toy electric motor which cost less than six shillings.

Through this home-made apparatus Baird's visitors
saw on the screen of the receiver a small flickering Maltese
cross. It was a small achievement, but a report in the
Press aroused the interest of a cinematograph proprietor,
who sought out the young inventor and bought a third
share in the wrork for £200.

Twelve months later Baird had succeeded in transmit-
ting outlines of simple objects in black and white. The
step from shadows to reflected light had been taken, and
Baird was ready to return to London, there to seek the
interest and the funds without which he could not con-
tinue his work much longer.

Hastings has since commemorated Baird's association
with the town by means of a tablet placed on the walls of
the shop where he achieved his first success.

In London Baird secured as his workroom an attic in
Frith Street, Soho, close by the room in which Freize-
Green had invented the first crude cinematograph
machine, about the time when Edison was experimenting
with his kinetoscope. Baird felt convinced that television
was now just round the corner, but, like many another
inventor, he was to face a dark hour before seeing the
dawn of his hopes.

22 Master Minds of Modern Science

Money ran short. He found it difficult to secure even
food. For days he wandered round London with thread-
bare clothes, seeking the funds which would enable him to
continue his work. No one was interested in television
because none believed it to be possible. Despairing, he
turned at last to friends, who responded generously.
Money was forthcoming, the first tiny company was
formed, and the great search for wireless sight was re-
newed with fresh vigour.

One wonders how Baird feels about that dark chapter
when he stands beside the case in the Science Museum at
South Kensington wherein is preserved for the nation the
crude television apparatus with which he transmitted
those first outlines, and remembers that for the sake of
improving it he went without bread.

The real turning-point came soon after funds were
placed at his disposal. In March 1925 Mr Gordon Sel-
fridge, hearing of the remarkable experiments which were
taking place in that attic room in Soho, and quick to
realize their importance, visited the laboratory. There
he was given a demonstration and saw transmitted from
one room to another a crude outline of a paper mask.
This mask was made to wink by covering one of the eye-
holes with white paper, and its mouth could be opened
and closed by the covering and uncovering of the slot in
the white paper which represented it.

It was a very elementary experiment, but it convinced
the Store King that television was at last coming, and he
arranged to pay a substantial sum to have it demonstrated
at his store for two weeks. Thus it was that the first
public exposition of the wireless transmission of visible
outlines was given in Britain by Baird.

This public demonstration aroused great interest. The
layman who expected to see a perfected brass apparatus
and mechanism may have been unimpressed by Baird's
weird conglomeration of makeshifts fastened together

yohn L. Baird 23

with string, glue, and sealing-wax, but in the scientific
world the importance of his advance was recognized.

The demonstration given in April 1925 showed only the
transmission of outlines, and nothing in the shape of a
human face or any object having light and shade or detail
could be reproduced. At the end of the fortnight, there-
fore, the apparatus was hurried back to Soho, where more
months of tireless experiment passed before the remaining
problems were at length solved. The most dramatic
moment in the history of television cannot be better
described than in the inventor's own words :

It was on an October afternoon in 1925 that I experienced
the one great thrill which research work has brought me.
After weeks of steady progress, on this particular afternoon
the dummy's head which I used for experimental purposes
showed upon the receiving screen not as a black and white
effect, but as a real image, with details, and with gradation of
shading. I was vastly excited and ran downstairs to obtain a
living object. The first person to appear was the office boy
from the office below, a youth named William Taynton, and
he rather reluctantly consented to submit himself to the
experiment.

I placed him before the transmitter, and went to the next
room to see what would appear on the receiving screen. The
screen was entirely blank, and no effort of tuning would pro-
duce any results. Puzzled and very disappointed, I went back
to the transmitter, and there the cause of the failure became at
once evident. The boy, scared by the intensely bright light,
had backed a yard or so away from the transmitter. I gave
him half a crown, and persuaded him that there was no danger,
whereupon he took up his position again before the apparatus.
This time his head appeared on the receiving screen quite
clearly. It is curious to consider that the first person in the
world to be televised should have required a bribe to accept
the invitation.

Heartened by success, Baird decided to submit his
achievement to an expert and critical audience. He

24 Master Minds of Modern Science

issued an invitation to the Royal Institution of Great
Britain to visit his attic laboratory and witness a demon-
stration of the apparatus, which he now named ' the
televisor/

Fifty members of the Institution accepted the invita-
tion, and as the attic could only accommodate six persons
at a time, they witnessed the exhibition in relays. The
scientists looked on with intense interest as images of
living faces were transmitted from one room to the other.
The prophecy of fifty years was fulfilled, and ' seeing
at a distance ' was an accomplished fact.

Dr Russell, F.R.S., the Principal of Faraday House,
who witnessed this demonstration, wrote in Nature :

We saw the transmission by television of living human faces,
the proper gradation of light and shade, and all the move-
ments of the head, of the lips and mouth, and of a cigarette and
its smoke were faithfully portrayed on a screen in a theatre,
the transmitter being in a room at the top of the building.
Naturally the results are far from perfect. The image cannot
be compared with that produced by a good cinematograph film.
The likeness, however, was unmistakable, and all the motions
are reproduced with absolute fidelity. This is the first time we
have seen real television, and, so far as we know, Mr Baird is
the first to have accomplished this feat.

It could no longer be doubted that television might
become a commercial success ; money was forthcoming,
and Baird was able to move from the attic in which his
experiments had been carried out to larger and more
adequately equipped premises near by. Here during 1926
numerous demonstrations were successfully conducted,
and the inventor continued his efforts to perfect his
apparatus.

Two years later one of the authors took part in an
experiment in which his face was transmitted to a receiv-
ing set two floors away, before which sat a friend. The
rapid progress made by the inventor during those two

jfohn L. Baird 25

years will be appreciated when we add that not only was
the reproduction of the face sharp and clear, but every
movement of the lips came through clearly enough for a
lip-reader to have read what was being said. Later, both
sides of a one-pound Treasury note were televised and
were clearly recognizable.

Even more remarkable, when one remembers that first
flickering Maltese cross seen at Hastings in 1923, was the
spanning of the Atlantic by television. This was first
accomplished in February 1927, when recognizable images
of persons were transmitted from London to New York.
The signals were sent by land-line from London to the
Baird transmitter at Coulsdon, Surrey, and there sent by
wireless on 45 metres. They were tuned in at an amateur
station at Hartsdale, New York. Commenting upon this
demonstration, the New York Times said: " His success
deserves to rank with Marconi's sending of the letter S
across the Atlantic/'

Another milestone on the road to television in the home
was passed when early the following year Mr Brown, wire-
less officer of the Berengarta, received and recognized the
features of his fiancee sitting before the transmitter in
London, 1500 miles away. The television apparatus was
in no way affected by the vibration or rolling of the vessel,
and in this demonstration, as in the others we have men-
tioned, only two operators were engaged, one at each end.

With the success of these varied experiments the
problem of television was solved. That the transmission
will be further improved is certain, but the secret which
men groped after in dozens of laboratories for half a
century had been discovered.

Having told the story of Baird's greatest achievement,
we must add a word about the original Baird televisor
itself. A detailed description of this earlier apparatus
would be too technical to be understood by any but the
expert, but the principle behind it is as follows :

26 Master Minds of Modern Science

The light reflected from the scene to be televised is
collected by means of a lens — just as it is when focusing
a camera — and this light is focused upon the light-sensi-
tive cell. Interposed between the cell and the lens are
three rapidly revolving discs. The first, bearing a number
of round lenses in staggered formation, revolves at a rate
of 800 revolutions per minute, and breaks up the image into
strips. The second is provided with a large number of
radial slots and revolves about 4000 times per minute,
further cutting up the light-ray. The third disc has a
spiral slot and revolves more slowly.

The combined effect of these discs is to cause the whole
of the image to fall on the light-sensitive cell in a quick
continuous chain of tiny areas of varying brilliance in one-
tenth of a second. The light reflected from the shadows is
naturally dim, while from the high lights of the scene it
is comparatively bright. The cell transforms these rapid
variations of light into electric-current variations, which
are transmitted to the receiving apparatus by wire or
wireless after being amplified.

At the receiver the apparatus is somewhat on the lines
of that used at the transmitter, although in a rather
simplified form. Similar revolving discs are interposed
between the source of light, a glow discharge lamp, and
the ground-glass screen. The incoming varying current
causes this light to vary in a corresponding manner to the
variations of the cell at the transmitter ; the discs break up
the light and throw it on the screen reconstructing the
scene. Considerable modifications of this earlier appara-
tus have been made in the past year or two.

Since carrying out his first successful television experi-
ments Baird has been devoting part of his time to further
developments made possible by his own achievements.
The most remarkable of these new developments is nocto-
vision, or seeing in darkness or fog by means of the
electric eye of the televisor.

JOHN L. BAIRD SEATED BEFORE THE TRANSMITTER IN HIS
LATEST TELEVISION STUDIO

26

jfohn L. Baird 27

During early experiments in television Baird found that
it was essential for his sitters to endure a blinding glare of
light if a recognizable image was to be transmitted. He
fought to overcome this obvious defect, and later experi-
ments made it possible to televise objects in ordinary
daylight. Experimenting further he found that if use
was made of the invisible infra-red rays a person sitting
before the transmitter could be seen in total darkness.
This apparent miracle was achieved through the fact that
although the infra-red rays are invisible to the human eye,
the sensitive electric eye of the televisor can readily detect
them and pick up any image on which they are directed.

Demonstrations of noctovision were given during the
British Association meeting at Leeds in September 1927,
persons sitting in a dark room in Leeds being clearly seen
on the televisor screen in London. More recently the
headlights of a motor-car, covered with sheets of ebonite
which withheld all except the invisible infra-red rays, were
picked up by the noctovisor at night from a distance of
three miles, and while the motor-car was quite invisible
to the naked eye its progress could be clearly watched on
the screen of the noctovisor.

When perfected this further invention will be of great
assistance to shipping during fog, for with a noctovisor on
the bridge the navigator will be able to pick up the lights
of approaching ships or the rays of a lighthouse when
through enshrouding fog these are blotted out for every
eye save the wonder eye of the Baird apparatus.

Rich as are the records of modern science in men who
have triumphed over great obstacles, it is doubtful if any
other research-worker of our generation has known a
more astounding turn in fortune's wheel than that which
brought fame to Baird. His success may be expected
shortly not only to give to the world television in the
home and all that that miracle means, but also to rob
the demon fog of much of its terrors on the high seas.

CHAPTER II

DO PLANTS AND METALS FEEL ?
The Amazing Experiments of Sir Jagadis Bose

AS long ago as 1879 a well-known French scientist
published a book in which he pointed out that the
^life of plants has much in common with that of
animals. At night, for instance, a green-leaved plant
takes in oxygen and gives out carbon dioxide exactly in
the same way as you or I or a dog. In fact, the plant
breathes.

Again, a plant has digestive ferments which change
starch into sugar, and it forms certain waste products,
though these it seems able to use up again. Plants have
no muscles, yet they have considerable powers of move-
ment. Blossoms turn their open faces toward the sun
or lower their heads when rain falls, the tips of twigs are
in constant movement, while some plants, such as the
sundew, the Venus fly-trap, and the mimosa, have very
special movements. The sundew closes its tentacles about
the fly caught on its sticky leaf, the fly-trap snaps together
the two halves of its trap-shaped leaf-blade, while the
mimosa shrinks away from the human hand before it is
actually touched, and when touched collapses like a closed
umbrella and for the time shams dead.

But it was not until the present century that there
appeared a scientist who began a deep study of these
phenomena and made the startling discovery that plants
have hearts. This was Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose, the first
Hindu scientist to attain a world-wide reputation, and
the first Indian to be knighted for scientific work.

Sir Jagadis Bose is of small stature and is now no longer

28

Sir yagadis Bose 29

young, yet one who has heard him lecture says of him
that his expression " exhales a spirit of sheer beauty,
especially when he talks.' ' He began life as a poor
university professor, but his work attracted the attention
of Sir James Dewar and Lord Rayleigh, who brought
him to England to work in Faraday's laboratory at the
Royal Institution.

He worked there to such purpose that even the popular
newspapers and magazines recorded the wonders he
achieved. Then he went back to India, where he has
toiled alone for more than twenty years. Disturbingly
alone, for among India's three hundred millions he has
been the only man working on these special lines. He has
had not a soul in the whole Indian Empire with whom to
discuss his ideas and experiments.

In 1926 he was back in England, lecturing before the
British Association at Oxford, where the great Einstein
himself was in the audience. When the lecture was over
Einstein solemnly declared that Bose ought to have a
statue erected in his honour in the capital of the League
of Nations.

And why was Einstein so impressed ? Why is it that
Bose's name is now known, not merely in the laboratories,
but all over the world ? It is because he has proved that
all life is one. By actual experiment he has shown that
steel and other metals can feel, that plants have emotions,
and that everything created lives and dies.

Bose has not done this merely by watching plants
through a magnifying glass. He has invented whole sets
of delicate instruments for measuring the nervous reflexes
of plants. He has been called a mystic, but he is a mystic
who measures his visions to the millionth of an inch. He
may have the imagination of the East, but to this he
adds the cold precision of the Western man of science.

Yet his discoveries are so marvellous that it is difficult
to believe them. They seem to be far more like fairy

30 Master Minds of Modern Science

tales than records of scientific fact. Listen to what he
says himself:

Hitherto we have regarded trees and plants as not akin to
us because they are the voiceless of the world, but I will show
you that they are sensible creatures in that they really exist
and can answer your questions. When it receives a shock the
leaf of this mimosa drops, and we have invented an apparatus
by means of which this answer can be converted into intelligible
script. We began by attaching the dropping leaf to a lever,
seeking to get the response actually written on paper, but the
resistance of movement over paper was too great, so the lever
was set to vibrate at one thousand times a second and a musical
note was sounded. Now we could measure the effect on the
lever to a thousandth part of a heart-beat.

Our hearing ranges through no fewer than eleven octaves, but
our sight through only one octave of light. Anything that does
not range between red and violet we cannot see. Yet the plant
actually sees the ultra-violet and even those ether waves which
bring to us wireless concerts.

It is not unlikely that plants have a sixth sense. In certain
of my experiments I have noticed — I say it with caution, because
I do not want to appear to magnify the truth ; that truth exists
and we intend to find it — that while a plant was recording a
throbbing the pulsing was affected by the approach of certain
people, but became normal again when they went away.
Generally a plant took twelve minutes to recover from the
blow.

The instruments invented by Sir Jagadis for the purpose
of measuring the pulses of plants are amazingly delicate.
The movements of a plant are so slow that even the slug-
gish progress of a snail is six thousand times faster than
the growth of a plant, whose average rate is one-millionth
part of an inch per second. One inch in a million seconds
— that is the average growth, but some plants, such as the
bamboo, grow much more rapidly. A bamboo shoot
grows from nine to twelve inches in twenty-four hours.

Sir Jagadis first tried to solve the problem by means of

SIR JAGADIS BOSE

Photo by Elliott and Fry

31

Sir yagadis Bose 31

a delicately poised system of compound levers, but friction
of contact at the bearings limited magnification to ten
thousand times, which was not sufficient for his purpose.
Then he tried a single magnetic lever, which by its move-
ment rotated a delicately poised astatic needle (a needle
which is unaffected by the earth's rotation). A spot of
light reflected on a screen from a tiny mirror attached to
the needle gave a magnification which could be increased
from a million to a hundred million times. This magnified
the highest power of a microscope no less than one hun-
dred thousand times. He called this machine the cresco-
graph (growth-recording machine), and some idea of its
power may be gathered from the fact that if attached to
a snail it would show this slowest of creatures as shooting
forward at the rate of two hundred million feet an hour.
Sir Jagadis says :

Plants have hearts. Long before I invented the crescograph
I was already certain that sap-pressure rising in the stem worked
in almost exactly the same way as blood driven by the human
heart. In other words the pressure was not constant, but came
in beats. The crescograph gave definite proof that every sur-
mise was correct. The actual rate of the pulsation of sap in a
cyclamen proved to be the one-hundred-thousandth part of an
inch per second, but when the leaf was placed on the magnetic
needle of the instrument the spot of light curved to and fro on
the screen at the rate of ten feet in twelve seconds.

Another method employed by the great Indian scientist
was one in which he pushed an electrical probe against the
stem of the plant, shifting the probe forward by one-tenth
of a millimetre at a time until the galvanometer began to
record. His aim was to keep the stem stationary, allow-
ing the rod to touch the stem with just the right pressure,
so that each heart-beat could be discovered. The great
difficulty was to find the right kind of rod ; many things
were tried, but proved useless. One day Sir Jagadis was

32 Master Minds of Modern Science

at the Zoo, and happened to pick up the quill of a hedge-
hog. In a flash he realized that this was an ideal rod, as
indeed it proved to be.

Another problem was to keep the very delicate instru-
ment from being affected by the shaking caused by
lorries and other heavy vehicles passing over the road
outside the house. Complicated shock-absorbers had to be
devised and constructed before this object was attained.

The Bose Institute is near Calcutta ; there is a lecture
theatre and a laboratory surrounded by a charming
garden. Around the garden are the quarters of European
and Indian students. Not so much as a screw comes
from outside. Everything for the delicate instruments is
made there in the workshops. There is plenty of money
available, for although Sir Jagadis has troubled little
about patent rights of his inventions, he has done so
many marvellous things that he has made a large fortune
— how large may be gathered from the fact that he has
endowed his institute with a sum of one hundred thousand
pounds; and although he lives like a hermit and gives
away almost all his income, yet fresh sums are always
coming in from all parts of the world.

His instruments are so marvellously delicate that he has
been able to prove that plants respond to wireless stimu-
lation which is beyond the limit of human perception.
Here is an instance of his methods. He takes a mimosa
(the sensitive plant already mentioned) and brings this
up under glass, screened from all shock and discomfort.
To all appearance it flourishes and grows fat, yet when
tested it proves sluggish. It no longer responds, like its
wild brother, to stimulation. A graph of its slow move-
ments is taken ; these provide a startling contrast to the
complete collapse of the wild mimosa.

Then Sir Jagadis poisons a plant, placing the stem in
bromide, and the plant is made to inscribe the throbbing
pulsations due to the action of the poison. The result

Sir y<zgadis Bose 33

suggests the flutterings of a living creature struggling
for life.

Thousands of years ago Indian doctors discovered that
a very small amount of the poison from the fangs of a
cobra administered in the form of a solution had the effect
of reviving dying patients. This explains why it has been
the custom to take the body of an Indian who has died
from cobra bite and to place it on a raft and send it down-
stream, the idea being that he may later wake up. Sir
Jagadis has discovered that this solution of cobra poison
will quicken the heart-beats of a plant.

The human tongue is very sensitive to electric currents,
and in this respect a Hindu is on an average twice as sen-
sitive as a European. It has been found by experiment
that different individuals and different races vary enor-
mously in their response to such stimuli as electric
currents, as also in their response to changes of tempera-
ture, of pressure, and of light. Some people can hear the
high-pitched squeak of the bat, others cannot ; some are
intensely sensitive to draughts, others get a headache
before a thunderstorm. The ant perceives the rays
beyond the violet which are invisible to man, and many
birds seem to have a magnetic sense which guides them
on long flights out of sight of land.

In the same way plants are found to vary greatly in
their powers of perception. Sir Jagadis has shown, for
instance, that a tree can notice the passing of a cloud
between itself and the sun. With his delicate instru-
ments he has proved that it reacts — you might almost
say ' shivers.' And plants are far more sensitive to
electric currents than man. The biophytum, for instance,
has been proved to be eight times more sensitive than
even the most sensitive human tongue.

On the other hand, plants are slower in their response to
such stimuli. In man or other animals there is an appre-
ciable time between the spur and the reaction. If you

34 Master Minds of Modern Science

prick your foot with a needle the message of pain has to
be flashed from the foot to the brain and back by means
of a chain of nerves. In a frog this interval is about one-
hundredth of a second, but in a plant it is fifty to seventy-
five times as long, and the interval is longer in cold
weather than in warm. It is also lengthened by fatigue.
In other words, if you try the same experiment several
times on the same plant the plant gets tired and the latent
period — as it is called — grows longer and longer. Sir
Jagadis considers that the line of cells along which the
impulse passes in a plant resembles the human nerves, and
that the plant begins to show traces of mind.

There is a practical result from all this work, for Sir
Jagadis has discovered a large number of plants which
have medicinal properties, the existence of which had
never before been suspected. Some of these are especially
useful in cases of failing heart action.

Sir Jagadis has done much more than enlarge our
knowledge of plants. He has worked on metals and dis-
covered that they too have the vital force. Metal-
workers have known for a long time past that metals can
suffer from fatigue. For that matter, every man who
owns razors knows that it is not good to use the same
blade day after day. A razor in daily use gets duller
and duller, even if stropped afresh at each time of using ;
but if it be laid aside for a few days it will recover its
keen edge. The X-ray has demonstrated that rest causes
the disturbed molecules to fall back into their original
positions.

Sir Jagadis uses the galvanometer to test the fatigue of
metals. The galvanometer is a delicate instrument used
for detecting the presence of electric currents. It contains
a needle on a pivot, and this needle is deflected by even
the faintest of currents. Diagrams from galvanometer
tests show that metal resembles muscle in that its sensi-
tiveness grows less and less under repeated stimulation.

Sir yagadis Bose 35

But Sir Jagadis has gone farther than this. We all
know the effect of great cold on our own bodies, which
grow numb. If your hand is half -frozen you may cut it
badly without feeling the pain. Then as regards animals,
creatures such as hedgehogs lie all the winter in a sleep
that resembles death. Sir Jagadis has proved that
metals, like animals, are most sensitive at temperatures
characteristic of summer, while in frost or in great heat
their sensitiveness rapidly diminishes. More wonderful
still, he has shown that metals are affected by stimulants
and by narcotics. A dose of bromide puts the human
brain to sleep and a dose of bromide of potassium adminis-
tered to a block of tin makes it lose much of its normal
sensitiveness.

The parallel between man and metals has been carried
even farther. A large dose of opium deadens all the
human senses, but a small dose makes them more active.
Metals react in a corresponding way.

More marvellous still, metals can be killed by poison,
like animals. A piece of metal in a healthy condition was
taken and tested ; the galvanometer showed that it was
in full vigour. Then it was treated with a dose of oxalic
acid, a strong poison. At once there was a spasmodic
flutter, then the galvanometer signals grew more and
more feeble, until they almost ceased. A powerful anti-
dote was applied, and slowly the metal began to recover
and to record again. The metal was given a rest, and soon
recovered its normal activity.

Then the experiment was carried out a second time, the
metal being kept in the bath of poison until the signals
ceased altogether. The metal was then taken out and the
antidote applied. It was too late. The metal had been
killed. Sir Jagadis varied the experiment by using other
metals, but in each case the result was the same.

This is a very strange thing, for apparently, of course,
the poison affects only the outside of the metal, by

36 Master Minds of Modern Science

rusting it. Yet actually the entire molecular structure of
the metal is affected. It appears that the metals we use
in our knives, pens, motor-cars, and so forth are dead,
or at least in a state of coma caused by the enormous
temperatures and the pounding which they have suffered.
But the foregoing experiments make it conceivable that
in future we may make use of live metals in ways as yet
untried.

Sir Jagadis ranks as one of the most original of scientific
explorers, for he is the first to prove that the three king-
doms of matter — the animal, the vegetable, and the
mineral — are one in essence, and that the distinction
previously drawn between organic and inorganic matter
is based on a false assumption.

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CHAPTER III

" rs 5

SOME X-RAY MIRACLES

Sir William Bragg and his 'Jolly ' Occupations

NOT so many years ago the atom was looked upon
as a hard little particle, the brick with which
matter was built up. Then came doubts on the
subject, and more doubts, until the solid atom as thought
of in Victorian times was proved by Rutherford and
others to be a number of tiny specks floating or revolving
in void. Professor Eddington says that Einstein and
Rutherford are the ' villains of the piece/ but what
about Bragg, who proved that one atom could go right
through another?

The atom, as we now know it, resembles a planetary
system with satellites revolving around a central sun.
Now the planets of our own system are so far apart — the
new planet is no less than four thousand million miles
away from the sun — that it is quite possible to imagine a
second planetary system passing through ours without
any collision occurring between the various members of
the two systems. And that, in fact, seems to be exactly
what happens when two atoms meet. Unless there is a
collision between the protons, the inconceivably small
centres of the atoms — and the chance is about a million
to one against it — the two atoms pass through one
another without damage to their constituent parts.

That has been proved — definitely proved — in a famous
experiment carried out by Sir William Bragg, who made
an atom of helium take a perfectly straight path through
an inch of air. An inch does not seem much, yet it is
a huge journey when considered in terms of atoms, a

37

38 Master Minds of Modern Science

journey during which the helium atom must have passed
through many millions of other atoms.

" You cannot force one billiard ball through another,' '
says Sir William. " The moving ball either pushes the
still ball in front of it, or both move away at different
angles.' ' Now the helium atom could not push millions
of other atoms before it, yet its course was dead straight.
Thus it must have gone through the other atoms, and so
we have definite and conclusive proof that an atom is not
a solid body and that two atoms can occupy the same
space.

Mr C. P. R. Wilson, who has worked much with Sir
William Bragg, emphasized this fact when he passed an
alpha particle (the smallest particle known) through
damp air, and succeeded in photographing the tiny trail
of mist or fog which it left behind it in its extremely
rapid passage.

Sir William's chief work has been the exploration of the
X-ray. In 1908, when Sir William became Cavendish
Professor at Leeds University, the X-ray was in constant
use in surgery, yet there was still much doubt as to the
actual working of these rays. In other words, the people
who used the rays had very little idea as to how they
worked and why they penetrated solid bodies. This was
the task Sir William set himself ; he resolved to find out
exactly what happened, and in a long course of experi-
ments he proved that X-rays themselves do nothing to
the matter through which they pass. What actually hap-
pens is that they produce a comparatively small number
of fast-moving beta particles which start off at great
speed, and it is these electrons which do the work.
" They may," said Sir William, " be compared to stones
which on the level remain at rest, but when started down
hill become extremely active."

In the course of his experiments Sir William made
the interesting discovery that X-rays, which had been

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Sir JVilliam Bragg 39

regarded as particles, had also the properties of waves.
Considerably puzzled, he called in his son, William
Lawrence Bragg, then little more than twenty years of
age, and one result of their researches was that in 1915
they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
The story of these interesting experiments is told in
Sir William Bragg's book An Introduction to Crystal
Analysis (Bell, 1928).

The book begins with the account of an experiment
made by M. Laue in the year 1912, which proved that
X-rays were of the same nature as rays of light. M. Laue
passed a fine pencil of X-rays through a crystal of the
precious stone called beryl and allowed it to fall on a
photographic plate. After an exposure the plate was
developed, and the result was a most exquisite pattern
resembling a great flower.

The experiment was a complete success, and gave
convincing proof that X-rays are of the same nature as
rays of light ; also it opened out a new field of research,
which has proved to be of the greatest practical value to
industry. The explanation is that it gave chemists a new
method of investigating the structure of solid bodies.
Hitherto this kind of examination had been confined to
liquids and gases, but with the aid of the X-ray and the
camera chemists were at last able to explore solids, and
during the past eighteen years these researches have been
extended to all kinds of objects, such as wool fibre, silk,
metals, wood, rubber, etc.

As Sir William said in one of his Christmas lectures, we
are now able to look ten thousand times deeper into the
structure of the matter that makes up our universe than
we were able to look when we had to depend on the micro-
scope alone. The discoveries of radio-activity and of
X-rays have given us new eyes, so that we can understand
many things that formerly were obscure.

The chemistry of any solid body depends upon the

40 Master Minds of Modern Science

arrangement of the molecules of which it is composed, and
examination by means of X-ray spectroscopy discloses
the arrangement of the molecules. When a steel-founder
produces a steel ingot he has changed the structure of the
iron as originally smelted by adding a certain proportion
of carbon atoms to the atoms of iron. Now the micro-
scope can show the existence of separate crystals in a
metal, but not the arrangement of atoms in a crystal.
That is where the X-ray comes in, and already it has
thrown a flood of light upon the inner meaning and
purpose of all the complex properties of metals.

All through the centuries metal-workers have worked
by rule of thumb, experimenting more or less blindly,
occasionally with profit, but more often failing. Now with
the aid of the X-ray they are beginning to work with
some degree of certainty, and have already discovered
many interesting secrets. For instance, it is known that
the properties of metals depend on the variety of crystal-
line structure. Under pressure some sets of atoms in
crystals tend to slip over other sets. A fairly thick sheet
of aluminium, if composed of a single crystal, can be bent
in a man's hand, yet an ordinary piece of the same metal
is quite stiff. In this latter piece the crystals are pointing
in all directions, so that some are always ready to take the
strain.

A metal usually becomes harder when beaten. This
has been known to metal-workers for thousands of years.
A bronze sword dug up in Shropshire had edges almost as
hard as steel, and it was found that the sword had been
hardened by beating while it was cold, being tempered
afterward to remove the brittleness. The man who made
that sword had no idea, of course, why beating hardened
his metal. It is the X-ray that has shown us how the
beating rearranges the crystals.

Bronze was the first of the alloys. It is made of copper
and tin ; both are soft metals, yet a compound of the two

Sir William Bragg 41

is harder than iron. This is the age of alloys, and one
important modern alloy is a mixture of aluminium and
copper. A very small amount of the former metal added
to copper hardens it greatly, and the X-rays show us that
when aluminium is added the structure of the copper
crystals remains the same, but that here and there an
aluminium atom takes the place of a copper atom. This
prevents slipping and causes the hardness. But there
must not be more than ten per cent, of aluminium in the
mixture. If more than ten per cent, is used the copper
crystals are broken up altogether and a new structure is
formed.

All this may seem a little technical, but it is difficult to
put it more simply, and it is important because it is yet
another proof of the value of Science to industry. Thanks
to the researches of Sir William Bragg and his followers,
metal-workers are now able to compound their alloys on
a definite scientific basis, instead of working blindly as
before.

We have spoken of the result of the first experiment
made by M. Laue — explaining that the pattern shown by
the photograph was very beautiful in shape and perfectly
symmetrical. Similar results have been obtained in all
photographs taken under similar conditions, thus em-
phasizing the fact that Nature always tries to arrange
things regularly.

Take an X-ray picture of a section of fine-drawn
aluminium wire, no thicker than a hair, and you have a
black circle with a white centre. Around this centre
there are rays, then two broken circles (broken, however,
with perfect regularity), and near the rim two more
kindred circles. The whole is like a burnished convex
shield of great beauty.

The X-ray photograph of a section of a thin cord of
rubber resembles the sun in eclipse with a dark corona
around it ; rock salt gives a dark centre with an intricate

42 Master Minds of Modern Science

but perfectly regular pattern of dots arranged about it.
It does not matter what subject you choose, the result is
a pattern more or less intricate, yet perfectly regular, and
often astonishingly beautiful.

The manufacture of artificial silk grows by leaps and
bounds. This of course is made of cellulose blown out
into fibres so fine that they match the thinness of the
silkworm's own product. The holes through which the
liquid viscose is forced are one-five-thousandth of an inch
in diameter. These threads are constantly examined and
analysed by the X-ray, and for much of the beauty and
cheapness of the stockings they wear now women are
indebted to the experiments made by scientists such as
Sir William Bragg and M. Laue.

Similarly we are indebted in some measure to the
X-ray for our cheap and reliable electric bulbs. In the
laboratory of the General Electric Company at Wembley
the fine wire filaments are examined under the X-ray, and
from enlarged photographs of the extremely fine wires
used the chemists learn more about the composition of
the metal than they could in any other way.

The needle of a compass is hung upon a tiny jewel, and
similar jewels are used in the making of all high-class
watches, such as you see advertised as being jewelled in so
many holes. Here again the X-ray photograph plays its
part, enabling the cutter to make perfect his delicate work,
and to see with ease whether the tiny crystal of sapphire,
or whatever it may be, is of the requisite quality.

No industry owes more to scientific research than the
motor-car industry. Those who drove motor-cars twenty
years ago will remember that one of the greatest diffi-
culties in those days was the weakness of the tyres;
punctures were distressingly frequent, and it was not
unusual for a tyre to burst. For the infinitely more
reliable tyre of to-day we are indebted partly to the
X-ray.

Sir William Bragg 43

A startling discovery made through these X-ray
methods is that of the exact size of the carbon atoms in
the diamond. (Every boy knows that the hardest of
precious stones is made of the same material as charcoal
or graphite.) It has been found that the atoms of carbon
in the diamond are each 1*54 hundred-millionths of
a centimetre in diameter. Each carbon atom in the
diamond is at the centre of gravity of four others. These
four lie at the corners of a four-cornered pyramid, and
the first carbon atom is at the same distance from
each of the others. In this simplicity and regularity of
structure we have the secret of the intense hardness of the
diamond.

Carbon atoms generally arrange themselves in long
chains which are the skeleton structure of fats and oils,
or else in rings each containing six atoms. In graphite
(blacklead) these rings lie in flakes which slip over one
another very easily. That is why a lead pencil writes so
easily and why graphite is such a good lubricant.

Carbon atoms are the basis of dyes, explosives, and
many drugs, as well as of foods and fuels, and of our own
bodies. X-ray photography is of the greatest value in
the investigation of substances such as naphthaline and
anthracene, which are of the first importance in the dye
industry.

It is Sir William Bragg's opinion that we may one day
be able to go far beyond our present level of investigation
and that by the development of X-rays we may be able
to see many thousand times farther than we can see
to-day. But this goal will not be attained without hard
work. In the Royal Institution, where Sir William kindly
gave an interview to the author of this chapter, the work
goes on steadily, special apparatus having been built for it.

It was in 1923 that Sir William became Director of the
Royal Institution, the most famous of the learned
societies of Great Britain. It corresponds to the Academie

44 Master Minds of Modern Science

of France and the Lincei of Italy. It is a scientific club
with a very large membership, and is housed in a fine
building at the top of Albemarle Street, Piccadilly.

The lecture-theatre is well known to schoolboys be-
cause of the Christmas lectures given there. In 1929
this theatre was pulled down, and it is now being re-
built.

The Royal Institution was founded in 1799 by Ben-
jamin Thompson, Count von Rumford, who wrote a
pamphlet entitled : Proposals for forming by Subscrip-
tion in the Metropolis of the British Empire a Public
Institution for diffusing the Knowledge and facilitating the
General Introduction of Useful Mechanical Inventions and
Improvements, and for teaching by Course of Philosophical
Lectures and Experiments the Application of Science to the
Common Purposes of Life.

Count von Rumford's idea was to bring Science and Art
closer together, to have a place where scientists and people
engaged in manufactures could meet, and where they
might join in improving farming, commerce, and comfort
in the home. What was in his mind was the idea of a
great central school of Science combined with an institute
of engineering. He suggested that there should be models
of such things as fireplaces, kitchen utensils, laundry
appliances, brewers' boilers, distillers' coppers, limekilns,
spinning-wheels, and all sorts of ploughs and farming
implements.

He suggested lectures on such subjects as the manage-
ment of domestic fires, preserving ice for summer use, the
tanning of leather, and many other useful and practical
subjects. His ideas were so well received that at the first
meeting, presided over by Sir Joseph Banks, he had fifty
subscribers of fifty guineas each, and it was decided that
the annual subscription should be two guineas. A house
was taken in Albemarle Street, and in 1800 the Institution
received a Royal Charter.

Sir William Bragg 45

The first lecturer was the famous Sir Humphry Davy,
who was also made Director of the Laboratory. He had
a room in the house and a salary of a hundred guineas a
year.

The Institution fell on hard times; thev subscriptions
that had totalled eleven thousand pounds in 1800 dropped
to three thousand pounds in 1802. It seemed that the
whole establishment was going to pieces, but Davy came
to the rescue. He gave a lecture in which he stated the
reasons for the existence of the Institution, and stated
them so brilliantly that every one began to talk of
the Institution and its work. His lectures were printed
and read everywhere, subscriptions poured in, and the
Institution was saved. But von Rumford was offended ;
he left London and never returned. After that the indus-
trial element declined and the Institution became more
and more the home of Science. Professors carried out their
researches in the laboratories, and lectures were given on
Art as well as on Science.

Davy worked very hard. He would come at ten or
eleven in the morning and sometimes stay till four the
next morning. His lectures always attracted crowds, and
it is a proof of his popularity that when he fell ill in 1808
receipts fell from four thousand to fifteen hundred
pounds. It was Davy who gave Michael Faraday his
start. Faraday was a young bookseller who listened to
Davy's lectures and made notes. He sent the notes to
Sir Humphry, who wrote him a courteous reply and after
interviewing him gave him a post as assistant in the
laboratory. In 1825 Faraday first lectured on those
electro-magnetic experiments which have made him
famous; in 1835 ne was given a Civil List pension of
three hundred pounds, and in 1864 he was offered, but
declined, the Presidency of the Royal Institution.

Another great lecturer in Albemarle Street was John
Tyndall, who became Superintendent after the death of

46 Master Minds of Modern Science

Faraday. It was after Tyndall's death that Lord Ray-
leigh became Professor of Natural Philosophy.

We have written about Sir William Bragg's discoveries
and about the great Institution over which he presides,
but as yet have written nothing about Sir William him-
self.

The story of Sir William's scientific career begins a
great many years ago, on an occasion when two young
men were walking together in Cambridge. One was
William Bragg, Third Wrangler, just ready to leave the
university, the other was J. J. Thomson. Thomson
asked Bragg if he had seen that there was an opening for
a Science lectureship in Adelaide University in Australia,
and suggested that he might try for the post.

Bragg at once made inquiries, found that the very last
day for entries had been reached, and so wired his applica-
tion. Shortly afterward he was sent for and interviewed
by an Australian gentleman, who told him presently that
he was the chosen candidate. This gentleman was Sir
Charles Todd, who gained world fame by driving the great
trans-continental telegraph line across the waterless
desert of Central Australia. His daughter afterward be-
came Lady Bragg.

At Adelaide young Bragg found a small but well-
equipped laboratory, and it was there that he began
his researches. After spending many years in Adelaide,
Bragg was recalled to England to take up the position at
Leeds University to which we have already referred. As
well as the Nobel Prize, Sir William has received the
Barnard Gold Medal of Columbia University, the Rum-
ford Medal of the Royal Society, and many other
distinctions.

Sir William makes Science seem easy ; he expresses his
thoughts in simple language, and for this reason his Christ-
mas lectures to young folk have always been popular.
He says that scientific research and experiment are

Sir William Bragg 47

' jolly ' occupations — that one is always finding some-
thing out and that there is no crossword puzzle which can
rival in interest the practical working out of a puzzle in
chemistry. He likes to see younger people keen on
Science, because the future of the nation depends to such
an extent on scientific efficiency. But he gives this word
of warning: " It would be a mistake to suppose that
because scientific work is jolly it is therefore easy.
Much hard work has to be done before there is any ease
about it."

CHAPTER IV
THE WIZARD OF THE GARDEN

The Story of Luther Burbank

WHY does a thistle grow spines? Why do so
many plants put out sharp spikes and crooked
thorns? The answer is simple. The thorns
are put out simply for the purpose of protecting the plant
from animals that would otherwise devour it. Says
Luther Burbank:

If we invite Mr Thistle or Mr Cactus into our garden and
patiently and earnestly convince him that all marauding
animals will be kept out it will not be very long before some
member of his tribe will see fit partly to discard some of these
exasperating pins and needles and put on a more civilized suit
of clothes. By careful selection from this one varying indi-
vidual others will be produced which will be absolutely spine-
less, to remain so as long as the marauders do not disturb them.

Here in a few sentences you have the first secret of the
plant wizard, Luther Burbank, a man to whom every
gardener, every grower of fruit and flowers and vegetables,
owes a great debt, just as every grower of wheat owes a
similar debt to the English Garton brothers for their
improvements in cereals. That secret is selection.

We propose to explain what is meant by selection and
to tell of the other methods by which this wonderful man
attained his remarkable results, but first we will explain
why we choose Luther Burbank out of many similar
geniuses as a typical hero of modern science.

Luther Burbank was born in Lancaster, in the state of
Massachusetts, in the year 1849, ano^ was the thirteenth

48

Luther Burbank 49

of fifteen children. People talk of thirteen as an unlucky
number, and certainly Luther had his share of ill-luck.
It was plain from the very first that he was a plant -lover.
When he was only three years old he made a pet of a
little cactus plant in a pot, and carried it everywhere
with him. When one day he, plant in hand, got knocked
down, the pot broken, and the earth scattered, he wept
bitterly, yet at once set to work to re-pot and mend the
poor broken little plant. It is an interesting coincidence
that one of his biggest works in later life had to do with
the cactus family.

He was born a gardener, but his parents put him into
an engineering-shop in which his uncle was interested,
and where the boy worked to the best of his ability.
Whatever his job Luther always did his best. Luckily for
the boy, this uncle had a garden and a greenhouse, and
on half-holidays Luther was allowed to work among the
plants. He used to thin out carefully the bunches of
grapes, and he raised a number of grape seedlings. So he
carried on until when he was sixteen he brought to his
uncle an invention for improving a machine in the factory,
an invention so valuable that the owners of the factory
offered him a big salary if he would devote all his time to
similar inventions. The boy did not hesitate.

" It's plants I love," he said, " not machinery. The
one thing I want to do is have a nursery garden of my
own."

The owners and Luther's uncle were much disappointed,
but the lad's mind was made up, and his uncle, seeing
how keen he was, promised that he would not oppose his
wish. The result was that before he was twenty years old
young Burbank was owner and manager of a small nur-
sery garden. He got his capital — part of it, at any rate —
by the sale of a new variety of potato which he had grown
in his uncle's garden from seed.

The nursery garden grew and expanded rapidly.

50 Master Minds of Modern Science

Within five years the profits were five thousand dollars a
year, and before long they had risen to ten. All his spare
time the young man devoted to raising better varieties
of ordinary plants, and his nursery soon became famous
for its magnificent potatoes. Profits went up until they
reached four thousand pounds a year, but nearly all these
profits were spent by Burbank on various experiments.

In the year 1893 Burbank startled his friends in Massa-
chusetts by suddenly selling out his big and flourishing
business. It had long been in his mind that this Northern
climate, with its long, cold winter, was not the best for
his experiments, and after a visit to California he decided
that the soil and climate of that state promised far greater
opportunities. He made up his mind to start a new
business at Santa Rosa, and there he went with a small
stock of his already famous Burbank potatoes, but without
more money than was sufficient to buy a few acres of land.

He found Calif ornia ideal for the raising of new varieties,
and plunged into his work with tremendous energy. Too
much energy, for he became so keen on producing new
sorts of fruits, flowers, and vegetables that he neglected
the paying side of the business, so that before long he
became very short of money. It takes years to produce
new varieties of plants, and sometimes these years are
wasted and the expectations of the grower are not
realized. Like most geniuses, Luther Burbank now had
a very bad time. He said :

I have known what it is to feel the pangs of hunger, I have
slept in noisome places when I could call no roof my own ; I
have done the most repugnant and disagreeable work so as to
earn a pittance to keep body and soul together ; I have fought
off fever when I had not the money to pay for a daily pint of
milk which stood between me and possible death ; I have denied
myself all the minor luxuries of life and most of its comforts,
while for years I did not even own a microscope, so important
and indispensable an instrument in my work.

LUTHER BURBANK AMONG HIS FLOWERS

5o

Luther Bur bank 51

Worse than the sufferings of his body were those of his
mind. His neighbours, who saw him raising thousands of
plants and then consigning all, or nearly all, to a bonfire,
thought he was crazy. He was held in derision by his
relatives, in pity by his friends. Scientific men denounced
him as a charlatan, a producer of spectacular effects,
a seeker for the uncanny, a misleading prophet. One
clergyman actually preached against him, calling him a
" foe to God." Remember, please, that Luther Burbank
was no longer a young man, that his health was broken,
and that he had so little money that he could never afford
to hire the labour he needed or buy the fertilizers. Often
he could hardly pay the taxes on the land. Yet he never
lost heart, and year after year he toiled away, growing
thousands of new plants of one particular sort at a time,
testing them, then ruthlessly destroying all those that
failed to come up to his expectations.

In the production of one of his most famous fruits, the
well-known Primus berry, which is a cross between the
blackberry of California and the raspberry of Siberia, he
secured five thousand seedlings from the many crosses
made, and though the fruits of some of these were mar-
vellous in appearance, not one was found to be of any
commercial value, and all the plants were grubbed up and
destroyed. No fewer than nine hundred thousand berry-
bushes, mostly two years old, were grubbed up and burned
in a single season because Burbank did not consider them
fit to live.

It was not until the year 1899 that the genius of this
great man was first recognized. In that year the Associa-
tion of American Agricultural Colleges met in San
Francisco, and a number of the representatives paid a
visit to the Burbank Gardens at Santa Rosa and his
farm at Sebastopol, where they saw his new sorts of
potatoes, plums, nuts, and grapes, and were immensely
interested. Within a few days accounts of this visit, with

52 Master Minds of Modern Science

photographs, appeared in scores of different papers all
over the country, and in a month the plant wizard was
famous.

Now what a change came over the scene! Visitors
began to pour in, and letters in amazing numbers. Three
years later more than six thousand visitors, many coming
from the farthest points of the earth, visited the gardens
at Santa Rosa, and the number of letters received some-
times exceeded three hundred a day. Better still, the
Carnegie Institute recognized the work of Luther Bur-
bank and voted him a sum of two thousand pounds a year
for ten years to help him carry out his experiments.

Now let us turn to the fascinating world of wonders
which Burbank's patient experiments have opened up to
the world of farming and gardening, and also to those
who like good fruits for dessert.

As we have said, his first novelty was the Burbank
potato, which he produced long before he went to Cali-
fornia. He got it by hybridizing the flower of one potato
with pollen from another and growing potatoes from the
seed so produced. This is a long and tedious process, for
in the first season potatoes produced from seed are little
larger than peas, and it takes three years to raise them
to marketable size. The Burbank potato is beautifully
white and so productive that it is reckoned it has
added a value of no less than three and a half million
sterling to the yearly production of potatoes in North
America.

Next came the Burbank plum, a large, handsome,
luscious fruit which was so different from other plums
that at first the growers, canners, and shippers would
have nothing of it. It is now nearly forty years since it
first came into being, and it is grown more widely than
any other plum in North America.

Not content with merely producing new varieties,
Burbank went on to cross different fruits, and presently

Luther Bur bank 53

produced what he called a ' plumcot.' This is a com-
bination of the American wild plum, a Japanese plum,
and the common apricot. It is hardy like the wild
plum, has a delicious flavour, and its flesh is firm so that
it will stand packing and travelling.

Plums were always a favourite subject for Burbank's
experiments. He was successful in producing a number
that had no stones, and others with stones so soft they
could be cut in two with a knife, but his greatest triumph
in this line was a new prune four times the size of the
French prune — from which it sprang — and very much
richer in sugar. Fifty years ago France supplied prunes
to almost the whole world, but to-day, thanks to Burbank,
California has an enormous trade in this particular
commodity. Another plum that Burbank created has the
flavour of a pear.

At one time there were growing in the garden at Santa
Rosa three hundred thousand distinct varieties of plums,
differing one from another in foliage, in form and colour
of fruit, in flavour, and in all other qualities, sixty
thousand peaches and nectarines, between five and six
thousand almonds, two thousand cherries, two thousand
pears, one thousand grapes, three thousand apples, twelve
hundred quinces, five thousand walnuts, five thousand
chestnuts, between five and six thousand berries of all
descriptions, and many thousands of other fruits and
flowers and vegetables.

1 Colossal ' is the only word to apply to such an enter-
prise, and one wonders how any one individual could
possibly handle such a business. For it must be remem-
bered that each one of all these thousands of trees and
vines had to be watched by Burbank himself, its habit of
growth, size, shape and flavour of fruit produced carefully
observed. Yet the skill of the man was such that the
task was never beyond him, and a visitor who watched
him at work wrote of him :

54 Master Minds of Modern Science

With aids to bring him the plants, he passes them on with
such rapidity that a hundred thousand may be decided on in a
single day. If all these plants had to be tested in the usual way
each would have to be set out by itself, each would have to be
cultivated and cared for for four or five years, each would need
to be grafted. In a single day this one man accomplished what
could be reached otherwise only by years of waiting and by an
enormous attendant expense. ... As the plants [plum seedlings]
came before him they were instantly separated into three classes,
good, mediocre, and worthless. Then all were planted to
decide the matter, and when they produced fruit it was found
that Burbank's verdict had been right in every single case.

To Burbank, as he once said, plants had faces, and he
read them as easily as the head of a big business reads the
faces of his clerks and workmen. His judgment was
severe, for no plant that had not real quality or beauty
was allowed to survive, and every autumn the smoke
from many bonfires drifted across his gardens.

Many of the achievements of Luther Burbank savour so
strongly of the miraculous that if he had lived three cen-
turies earlier he would probably have been burned at the
stake as a wizard. Take, for instance, his work on the
cactus. As we all know, the cactus is a desert plant.
There are many different varieties, but all are marked by
thick, fleshy leaves covered with the most deadly thorns,
by brilliant blossoms, while many bear a fruit which is
quite eatable, but, like the rest of the plant, covered
thickly with needle-like spines. The cacti thrive in
sandy, stony, waterless deserts where no other plant
except spinifex or mulga can take hold.

Burbank began by taking away the thorns. In his
tamed cacti not one remains. He then took away the
hard, woody substance of the leaves, so that these juicy
leaves became good forage for oxen, horses, or mules.
He proceeded to breed the fruit to a perfection never
before dreamed of. Those who have eaten it say that it

Luther Bur bank 55

has a mixed flavour of peach, melon, and pineapple. A
single Burbank cactus plant three years old produced six
hundred pounds of food, for the leaves candied like lemon
rind or ginger were found to be delicious, or they could be
boiled to provide a vegetable.

Burbank has taken roses, blackberries, and gooseberries
and induced all these plants to shed their thorns. At the
same time he has improved their fruits both in size and
flavour. He has created a white blackberry that is large,
luscious in flavour, and beautiful to look at. It is com-
pletely thornless. You can rub the stalk against your
cheek and find it smooth as velvet.

His experiments with the poppy were amazing. He
took the common garden poppy, which is an annual,
crossed it with the Oriental poppy, which is a perennial,
and produced a new race of poppies of wondrous beauty
and size. In the course of this work he had at one time
in his garden two thousand poppy plants not merely
unlike in colour and habit of growth, but resembling in
form and foliage nearly every order of plant known. The
perfect poppy which he eventually evolved had a bloom
ten inches across.

The useful walnut has one disadvantage in that it is a
very slow-growing tree. Burbank created a new walnut
which, at thirteen years old, was six times the size of the
average twenty-eight-year-old walnut-tree. He tackled
the Spanish chestnut, and produced a dwarf tree which
began to bear a crop of nuts at eighteen months old and
when it was only three feet high.

He turned his attention to that common inhabitant
of all gardens, the rhubarb plant. Rhubarb, as every
gardener knows, is only fit for use in spring and early
summer, but Burbank has grown a rhubarb which yields
every day in the year and whose stalks are of excellent
quality. Its size may be judged from the fact that the
leaves average four feet in length by three across. This

56 Master Minds of Modern Science

rhubarb had as its original parent a wild Australian
rhubarb. It has been extensively grown in America and
Great Britain, and one of Burbank's customers for this
plant was the late King Edward.

One of the strangest things Burbank ever did was to
take the odour out of onions. We all know that many
cooks cannot handle onions because they make tears
stream from their eyes. The California wizard went
to work and in five years produced an absolutely odourless
onion, which was large, tender, and wholesome. But most
of us are so wedded to the old strong-smelling type of bulb
that this particular novelty had little success.

In the realm of flowers Burbank produced many new
things. One is a new gladiolus, called the California,
which blooms all round the stalk like a hyacinth. He
experimented with the arum or calla lily and produced a
miniature form of this exquisite bloom which is less than
an inch in diameter. Perhaps the best known of all his
new flowers is the Shasta daisy, one parent of which is the
common field daisy. Yet the Shasta is a beautiful giant
with a magnificent bloom from five to seven inches in
diameter. Another of his triumphs is a monster amaryllis
with blooms ten inches in diameter, bright with the most
glorious colours.

Some one visiting his gardens once said to him :
" Mr Burbank, you do marvels in changing shape,
colour, and size of flowers, but could you take a flower
with an unpleasant odour and make it sweet-smelling? "

The wizard smiled. " I might try," he said. He did
try. He took the dahlia, that handsomest of autumn
flowers, but having an odour which to most people is
somewhat offensive, and within a few years changed it
so that its showy blooms were almost as sweet as those
of the clove carnation.

There does not seem to be anything that this amazing
man would not try, and little that he was unable to do.

Luther Burbank 57

We have spoken of his swiftly growing walnut, but he
did more with the walnut than increase its speed of
growth. He created one with a thinner shell. So thin
was the shell that he found the marauding birds were
able to drive their beaks through it and extract the
kernel. This would not do, so he reversed the process
and bred back until he had a nut of just the right shell-
thickness.

He crossed peaches and nectarines and made the
resulting tree yield fruit earlier than either of its parents.
He produced nectarines with yellow flesh and rich scarlet
skins which are said to be the most beautiful and perfect
in flavour of all the peach tribe. In all, Luther Burbank
produced more than two thousand entirely new varieties
of fruit, flowers, and vegetables, an advance without
parallel in the history of gardening.

And how, you will ask, were these wonders brought
about? Very simply. A watchglass and a camel's-hair
brush were his principal instruments, these being used to
remove pollen from one bloom and insert it into another.
For the rest, genius and patience.

" All my triumphs/' he said himself, " have been
gained by carefully and patiently observing the laws of
nature and by experiment.' ' Selection combined with
breeding explains the secret of his success.

To begin with, he might breed together two separate
flowers in order to create what may be called a working
basis, sprinkling the pollen of one flower on the stigma
of another. The two plants might come, one from South
America, the other from Mongolia. Each plant had its
characteristics, its habits, its structure, its hereditary
tendencies, its own special life distinct from others, and
this identity the plant had preserved for thousands of
years. United, the two plants between them produced
seed, which was planted and grew.

From these seeds might come plants resembling one of

58 Master Minds of Modern Science

its ancestors or very different from either. Sometimes
there appeared a whole series of monstrosities unlike
anything that ever before had grown from the earth.
But among all these freaks Burbank's keen eyes might
single out one or two that looked promising, and these were
kept and cultivated until they in their turn bloomed and
seeded. In the end it might be that no more than a single
plant was saved out of hundreds, and that this one was
merely promising. Then it would be crossed with some
other plant, and their progeny in turn tried out. The
Shasta daisy, of which we have spoken, was obtained by
crossing a common American daisy with an English
daisy and crossing the hybrid thus obtained with quite
another daisy from Japan.

Burbank's patience was as amazing as his genius.
Months and years of toil often resulted in nothing, yet he
was never discouraged. Take, for instance, his experi-
ments with the native Californian dewberry. He treated
the blossoms of this plant with pollen from the apple,
quince, pear, cherry, hawthorn, strawberry, and other
fruits, and eventually secured five thousand seedlings.
As he said himself, stranger plants were never seen.
Some had strawberry, some raspberry leaves, some
prickles, some none. But of the whole five thousand only
two bore fruit. These fruits looked promising, but
imagine the disappointment of the inventor to find that
neither had seeds. All were destroyed. No wonder he
said with his whimsical smile, " Most of my plants are
raised for the brush pile."

Luther Burbank worked for the sheer joy of working,
and even when seventy years old still spent fourteen hours
a day in his garden. You cannot take out a patent for a
new plant as you can for a new sort of tin-opener or shoe-
horn, and though the plant wizard made large sums of
money by selling his novelties, all that money went back
into his experiments. He confesses to having put two

Luther Burbank 59

hundred and fifty thousand dollars (£50,000) of his own
earnings back into the work.

In his earlier days he suffered from neglect and poverty ;
later, when he became famous, he suffered almost equally
from popularity. From 1904 onward his grounds were
overrun with visitors, the number averaging six thousand
yearly. His grounds were overrun with people from
dawn till dark. Some of his most precious plants died for
lack of care, and even on Sundays and holidays he was
allowed no rest. Even his sleep was disturbed. Letters
piled up beyond the possibility of answering, and even
telegrams remained unopened. For days together he was
forced to take his meals standing. This went on until
his health gave way and he was forced to put a notice on
his gates, " Positively no visitors allowed," and to hire an
assistant who stood in a little office built just outside the
gate and whose sole duty was to deal with visitors and
take orders for seeds, bulbs, or trees.

It is pleasant to know that Luther Burbank lived to
enjoy world-wide fame and success. When he died in
1926 at the age of seventy-seven his name was known
throughout the civilized world and his plants had taken
root in every country.

CHAPTER V

THE DISCOVERERS OF RADIUM

The Story of the Curies

THERE is no such thing as pure radium. The
metal can be isolated, of course, but if that is
done it almost immediately forms a compound
again. Radium resembles sodium in having such a fierce
affinity for oxygen that when isolated it is at once
oxidized by the air. What is generally referred to as
radium is actually chloride of radium. It resembles
small crystals of common salt which may be crushed into
a fine powder, but it is so powerful and terribly destruc-
tive a substance that it has to be kept in a glass tube
wrapped with lead foil. Lead is impervious to the rays
emitted by radium, but glass alone is not.

The story of Becquerel's burn illustrates the tremendous
potency of radium. Some little time after Mme Curie
had succeeded in extracting small quantities of radium
salts from the mineral pitchblende, M. Becquerel, the
original discoverer of radio-activity, visited London. He
carried in a waistcoat pocket a little glass tube containing
a mere speck of the newly found substance, a speck little
larger than the head of a pin. It was so precious that he
kept the tube always about his person.

In about ten days' time he became aware of a sore spot
on his side exactly where the radium tube pressed against
it, and he found that this place was actually burned. The
rays emitted had destroyed some of the cells of his flesh.
Despite the best medical attention, the deep and painful
sore thus caused took weeks to heal.

It has been found that a tube of radium suspended a

60

The Curies 61

few inches over the heads of a family of young mice
rapidly kills them, and the effect upon the larvae of grubs
of meal-worms is still more astonishing. These radium-
ized grubs never turn into beetles, but remain worms for
the rest of their existence.

Doctors soon realized that rays which had so powerful a
destructive action might have great value as a curative
agent. The first use to which radium was put was the
cure of warts. The common wart, though most people
think little of it, can become a very serious trouble. It
may occur, for instance, on the sole of the foot and make
the sufferer quite lame, or on the eyelid, with danger to
the sight. Warts have been known to appear on the
tongue, and even under a fingernail.

A surgeon, of course, can cut out a wart, but it is very
apt to return. Dr Abbe began to experiment with two
and a half grains of radium supplied by Mme Curie,
and soon found that one thirty-minute application of
radium would cure any wart. What is more, there is no
scar left as is the case when the surgeon's knife has been
used. Dr Abbe had as a patient a girl with a beautiful
voice. A wart developed on her vocal cords. It was cut
out, but came again, and a second time the same thing
happened. The poor girl began to lose her voice, and,
worse still, the growth increased in size until it threatened
to choke her. Radium was used — simply held over the
wart for about half an hour. Within a very short time
the wart began to disappear. The girl was able to breathe
comfortably, her voice came back, and before long she
was as well as she had ever been in her life. When
doctors realized what radium could do in removing warts
they began to try its effects on more dangerous growths,
and to-day radium is the chief weapon with which
doctors fight that most terrible disease, cancer.

Since those early days many discoveries have been
made. Radium is now known to emit three different

62 Master Minds of Modern Science

kinds of rays, which are called alpha-, beta-, and gamma-
rays. In the chapter on Sir Ernest Rutherford's work we
shall tell of the use he has made of alpha-rays for break-
ing up atoms. They were alpha-rays that burned M.
Becquerel. Beta-rays have quite a different action.
They increase growth, and it has been found that plants
can be stimulated by these beta-rays into a most amazing
luxuriance.

Of one hundred rays given out by radium ninety are
alpha-rays, nine are beta-rays, while only one is a gamma-
ray, yet these gamma-rays are the most wonderful of the
three. It has been discovered that they travel with the
velocity of light — that is, in round numbers, at a speed of
one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles a second —
and that they have a tremendous power of penetration. A
sheet of paper will cut off the alpha-rays, a sheet of tinfoil
will stop the beta, but the gamma will penetrate half an
inch of solid steel, and it is these gamma-rays that have
such a marvellous effect upon what are called malignant
growths.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing is that they have
what is termed a selective quality. They pass through
healthy tissue, leaving it unharmed, and only attack the
diseased tissue. We do not know the cause of cancer,
whether it is a germ or a parasite or a poison, but what-
ever it is the gamma-rays of radium will attack it, break
it down, and in many cases effect a complete cure. Very
large doses of gamma-rays can be used without harming
the patient, but the difficulty is that there is not nearly
enough radium chloride in existence for the purpose for
which it is so sadly needed.

And this brings us back to what is really the subject of
our chapter, the beginnings of radium. Pierre Curie, the
son of a Parisian doctor, was born in the year 1859. His
father was a remarkable man. Instead of bringing up his
sons on the usual conventional lines he encouraged them

THE LATE PROFESSOR CURIE

63

The Curies 63

to think for themselves, he taught them to love nature,
and to try to get their knowledge first-hand. Pierre and
his brother Jacques were very happy boys and very good
chums.

Jacques was a man of action, but Pierre was a thinker
and a mathematician. We may say here that you cannot
be a sound scientist unless you are fairly good at mathe-
matics. In his spare time Pierre liked wandering in the
country, and sometimes he would spend half the night
alone in the woods, savouring the sweet smells and
revelling in the beauties around him.

When he was only nineteen Pierre got his degree in
physics, and became an assistant in the Sorbonne. He
was interested in electricity; he and Jacques together
did some good work in this direction. Four years later
we find that Pierre Curie had risen to be chief of the
laboratory at the new School of Industrial Physics in
Paris, and that he had earned a reputation as a first-class
teacher who was extremely popular with his pupils. So
he carried on for thirteen years, enjoying a very friendly,
happy, and busy life. Then came a great change, for he
fell in love with one of his pupils.

This lady was of Polish birth, and her maiden name was
Marie Sklodowska. She was born in Warsaw in 1867.
Her father was a teacher of Science, but the laboratory in
which he worked was very poorly equipped. The college
authorities in those days thought little of Science, and
Marie's father had actually to pay for a good deal of the
apparatus out of his own pocket. This left him so badly
off that he could not afford an assistant, and he was grate-
ful to his little girl when she insisted on coming in and
washing test-tubes and tidying up for him. The child
grew up in the laboratory, and soon began to take the
keenest interest in her father's work. Even when she
went to school during the day she always came to the
laboratory in the evenings to help.

64 Master Minds of Modern Science

At that time Warsaw was sorely oppressed by her
Russian masters, and there began one of the movements
for Polish independence. Marie herself was one of the
rebels, but the movement failed, and Marie was driven
from her home, and fled to Paris. She was only twenty-
two, she had no friends, no money, and only her brains
and industry to save her from starvation. She rented a
garret in a poor quarter, lived on bread and milk, and
made her slender living by giving lessons.

After a while she obtained work at the Sorbonne. It
was mainly a matter of washing bottles and preparing
furnaces for chemical experiments, but she did the work
so well and gave evidence of so much knowledge that
presently she attracted the notice of the head of her
department, whose name was Gabriel Lippman, and of
the great Henri Poincare, who is mentioned in another
chapter of this book as one of Einstein's first converts.
These two found out who she was, wrote to her father
about her, and presently, to her great joy, Marie became
a student under the gentle and clever Pierre Curie.

Marie was a handsome girl with beautiful fair hair and
eyes between blue and grey. She had and has a very
gentle yet firm manner and a charming voice. Pierre
Curie was tall and stooping, with a brilliant smile. Both
were poor, yet both were devoted to their work. As we
have said, they fell in love, and in 1895, when Pierre was
thirty-six and Marie twenty-eight, they were married.
They could not afford a servant. Pierre swept the floor,
Marie cooked the simple meals, but they were extremely
happy. They did not go out much, and often they spent
the evening quietly together, talking over some problem
of Science.

In 1895, the year they were married, the whole world
was stirred by Rontgen's discovery of X-rays capable
of penetrating flesh and many other substances, and of
affecting a photographic film even through black paper.

The Curies 65

A year later Becquerel, who was a colleague and friend of
the Curies, discovered other radiations (from compounds
of the very heavy metal uranium), and these, like X-rays,
could penetrate opaque substances.

The Curies were intensely interested, and Mme Curie
began the work of testing all known elements to see
whether any others, apart from uranium, showed signs of
emitting these extraordinary rays. She used a little
instrument called the electroscope, which is fitted with
leaves of fine gold-foil. These are electrified, and any
radio-active substance causes these leaves to collapse.
But the leaves do not collapse at once, and the rate at
which they do so can be used to measure the radio-
activity of the substance being tested. In testing a
sample of pitchblende, which is the mineral from which
uranium is extracted, Mme Curie was astonished to notice
that the amount of radio-activity shown was four times
as much as could be expected.

The Curies agreed that this indicated the presence of
some hitherto undiscovered element which was enor-
mously more powerful than uranium. They decided to
collaborate in trying to find this new element.

The next question was how to get enough pitchblende
for their purpose. Certainly they had not money to buy
it. Then the Austrian Government kindly sent them a
whole ton of pitchblende from its own mines in Bohemia.
It was a handsome present, for this ore is worth more
than two thousand pounds a ton. Then began the
colossal task of trying to reduce this mass of intensely
hard rock and of searching through it for the unknown
element.

The method employed was what is called fractional
crystallization, and the work had to be done over and
over again, first in a foundry, then in an old wooden
building used as a laboratory. Weeks passed, and still
the pair worked unceasingly, testing and testing as they

66 Master Minds of Modern Science

went on. The ore had to be boiled, filtered, decanted,
and crystallized, over and over again. At last a strongly
radio-active substance was obtained. Mme Curie called
it polonium, after her own native land. But this was not
the end of the search, for it was clear that there was
something even more powerful connected with the barium
residue of the mass they had treated.

Mme Curie kept on steadily, and at last in 1902 suc-
ceeded in isolating a salt of radium. The amount ob-
tained was just about enough to fill a small salt-spoon.
The work had taken four years, and had been not only
difficult, but also dangerous, for Pierre Curie's hands were
in a sad state as the result of handling tubes of radium.
At that date no one had yet realized the danger of the
rays emitted at such enormous speed.

In 1903, before the Paris Faculty of Science, Mme Curie
read a paper on her researches, and woke up next day to
find herself famous. She received her doctor's degree,
and was besieged by reporters and photographers. The
latter she dodged as best she could, for Mme Curie is
modest.

A few months later the Curies visited London at the
invitation of Lord Kelvin ; the Davy Gold Medal of the
Royal Society, one of the greatest honours Science can
bestow, was awarded them. Later in the same year
another reward came their way; this was the Nobel
Prize, a sum of nearly six thousand pounds, a fortune to
two people of tastes as simple as theirs.

While in London, M. Curie lectured on radium before
the Royal Institution. His hands were so sore and blis-
tered that he was unable to dress himself, yet he managed
to handle his apparatus, and his lecture created a tre-
mendous sensation. To prove that radium throws off
heat continually he took two glass vessels, one containing
a thermometer and a tube of radium, the other a thermo-
meter but no radium. The thermometer in the former

MADAME CURIE

Madame Curie continued her late husband's work for the good of

humanity.

Photo by Henri Manuel and L.E.A.

66

The Curies 67

vessel was seen to register constantly 5*4 degrees Fahren-
heit higher than the latter.

He also showed how the yellow powder of zinc sulphide
bursts into a brilliant glow under the stimulus of radium
emanation. It was through this experiment that Sir
William Crooks devised his spinthariscope, which allows
one actually to see radium breaking up and flinging off a
never-ceasing shower of atoms in a myriad of tiny blazing
stars.

M. Curie also proved that all substances may be ren-
dered radio-active by being exposed to the emanation of
radium. Lead, rubber, wax, celluloid — fifty substances
in all — were so tested. Another very interesting point he
made was that radium provides an easy means of dis-
tinguishing real diamonds from imitations, since it causes
the real stones to glow with a brilliant phosphorescence,
while the sham stones remain unaffected.

A result of these new discoveries was that in 1904 a
new position was created specially for M. Curie at the
Sorbonne, and his clever wife was appointed " chief of
staff " under him. The post carried a fair salary, and for
the first time in their lives these two hard-working
geniuses found themselves comfortably off. They already
had one daughter, and now a second was born, and for a
time their life was both busy and happy.

Then came disaster. On a day in 1906 Pierre Curie
went out to lunch with a few intimate friends. He was
very gay and happy, for, as he told them at lunch, he was
now going to give up teaching and to devote all his time
to research. He left his friends and started homeward on
foot. As he crossed the crowded street he was knocked
down by a carelessly driven dray and killed on the spot.

Poor Mme Curie suffered terribly, but she was too
strong a character to succumb altogether, and after a
time she went back to the laboratory and to work. She
told her friends that while life remained to her she would

68 Master Minds of Modern Science

carry on with the researches which she and Pierre had
begun together. Very wonderfully she carried out her
promises, and in 1910 she isolated radium — that is, she
obtained it in its pure state — and determined its atomic
weight. She published her wonderful treatise on radio-
activity, and in 191 1, for the second time, she was
awarded the Nobel Prize, and made a member of the
Swedish Royal Academy. The French Institute, simply
because it had never yet admitted a woman, refused to
make her a member, but the French Government placed
her at the head of its new Radium Institution, and in
1914, when the Great War broke out, appointed her as
the head of all radiology in the military hospitals.

When radium was first discovered by the Curies the
world at large jumped to the conclusion that this sub-
stance was going to work miracles for mankind. It was
not only to cure all sorts of skin diseases, but to afford a
new source of power. If these expectations have not yet
been realized it is largely because the supply of the
element is so small and its cost so enormous. It is true
that radium exists almost everywhere in all hard rocks,
also in sea-water, but the amounts are very small. Even
in good pitchblende radium exists only to the extent of
one part in two million. Thirty tons of pitchblende yield
only one-tenth of an ounce of radium, and the work of
extracting it from this ore is very long and very costly.

Some curious calculations have been made relative to
the amount of radium in sea-water. A cubic mile of sea-
water contains a little over a tenth of an ounce. A box
each side of which measured 1*97 miles filled with water
from the Atlantic Ocean would give just one ounce of
radium. In all the years that have elapsed since the first
discovery of the metal no means have been discovered of
greatly increasing the supply of it, and hospital authori-
ties all over the world are complaining that they have
not nearly enough for use in fighting the dread disease

The Curies 69

of cancer. In Britain a Radium Commission has been
formed to deal with the problem. This has its offices in
Adelphi Terrace, London. So enormous is the cost of
radium that a pound of it (if any such amount were
obtainable) would be worth more than five million
sterling. It is indeed the most costly thing in the world
and far above the price of diamonds or rubies.

Yet it is possible that in the depths of the earth there
may exist great stores of this immensely precious and
powerful substance. Years ago Sir Ernest Rutherford
suggested that the heat of the earth may be due not to
the fact that it is a molten mass which has been slowly
cooling for millions of years, but to the presence, in its
heart, of large quantities of radium. For the heat given
off by radium is very great ; it is estimated that thirty-
two tons of radium used in the furnaces of the Mauretania
would propel that great ship at the same speed as the
hundreds of tons of oil fuel used daily during her voyages
— and that it would do so indefinitely.

Yet even supposing that we were to find some method
of procuring radium cheaply and easily, it is doubtful
whether we could use it industrially, for the danger of
handling it would be terrible. A single pound of radium
placed in an ordinary room would probably blind and
kill any living creature that came near it.

CHAPTER VI

UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE FROZEN SOUTH

Sir Edgeworth David's Discoveries in the Antarctic

THE search for truth makes men embark on
strange quests. While one scientist works in his
laboratory, seeking to split the atom, another
may be risking his life journeying to the ends of the
earth in order to measure a mountain, or seeking some
scrap of knowledge which will help us to understand
why there are wet and dry seasons. To some, scientific
research means gazing through powerful microscopes
month after month, hunting with infinite patience for
the secret which eludes them. To others, their scientific
work means leaving civilization for long periods, and
pitting their strength against the forces of wild nature,
in the company of intrepid explorers, whose work would
be incomplete were not the scientist there to interpret
the secrets of the hitherto untrodden regions to which
they penetrate.

Of all the explorer-scientists of our generation, one of
the greatest is undoubtedly Sir Edgeworth David, the
discoverer of the South Magnetic Pole, and the leader of
the first party to climb Mount Erebus, the highest peak
in the Antarctic. It was Sir Edgeworth David also who
collected and brought back much valuable information
about coal in the Antarctic, and about the effects of
climatic conditions there upon the weather experienced
in other regions of the earth. His too is the credit for
some remarkable calculations concerning the past of the
South Polar region and its future possibilities ; these, by the
way, reveal nightmare possibilities for the rest of the world.

70

SIR EDGEWORTH DAVID

7o

Sir Edgeworth David 71

Such a record, achieved in the face of terrible weather
in a part of the world about which very little is known
even to-day, is one of which any man might well be
proud. To be the first man to reach the South Magnetic
Pole — the point to which all compasses turn in the whole
Southern Hemisphere — Edgeworth David had to haul a
loaded sledge for 1260 miles across the great snow desert.
But his discoveries seem even more remarkable when we
consider that he was fifty years of age at the time when
he went south with Shackleton ! Yet he carried out his
work on the Ice Barrier, under the most trying conditions,
without a day's sickness. How many other men, one
wonders, could thus leave a kindly climate and the com-
parative ease of a laboratory and turn themselves into
explorers, braving the worst climate in the world, at an
age when many are thinking of ease and comfort ?

Sir Edgeworth David is a Welshman who has for thirty-
nine years occupied the Chair of Geology at Sydney
University, New South Wales. He is an acknowledged
world-authority on dynamical geology, glaciation, and
other branches of Science which sound fearsome, though
really they are enthralling, for they deal with the earth
and its minerals, climate, and the changes which have
occurred in the earth's long history.

It was in 1908 that Professor Edgeworth David
accepted an invitation from Sir Ernest Shackleton, who
was forming a new expedition to the Antarctic, to accom-
pany his ship, the Nimrod, as far as winter quarters at
the Great Ice Barrier, so that he might there ' on the
spot ' give the expedition the benefit of his advice before
returning to Australia, after shore-parties and supplies
had been unloaded. With him were two brilliant young
scientists, Douglas Mawson, now famous in the annals
of exploration, but then a young man of twenty-eight
years of age, beginning his distinguished career as an
explorer, and Leo Cotton, aged thirty. Cotton was to

72 Master Minds of Modern Science

return with Professor David, while Mawson remained at
winter quarters to assist with the scientific objects of the
expedition during the absence of the ship.

The voyage began on New Year's Day 1908, a day of
blue skies and summer heat. Tugs crowded with well-
wishers kept the Nimrod company as she crept out of Christ-
church, New Zealand, and turned her nose to the south.

It was a happy send-off, but within a few hours of
sailing the ship was wallowing in heavy seas, and had
developed a corkscrew roll which proved too much for
the scientists on board. Nearly all were violently sea-
sick, and unable to leave their bunks.

Conditions were cheerless enough. The sleeping quar-
ters were in a part of the hold which a few months before
had been filled with blubber and seal-skins caught off
Newfoundland. The aroma of fishy fat still permeated
the atmosphere. There was no ventilation and only one
small lantern. As the storm outside increased the seas
swept the decks and found the weak points, soon pene-
trating to the sufferers below. If they left their soaking
bunks, there was nowhere else to go. The ward-room
was awash, the decks unsafe, the tiny vessel loaded to
the last inch with stores and equipment. As one who was
on board told the authors, a geologist was seen washing
about in the scuppers, quite indifferent as to whether the
next wave carried him overboard or not.

These were only the mild beginnings of the discomforts
endured by these men, unused to sea-life, for the bad
weather lasted ten days. The tremendous seas carried
away the forward bulwarks at both sides, and even a
part of the bridge rails. The pumps were at work con-
tinually, but despite strenuous efforts, in which the
scientists joined, the water at one time rose so high that
it flooded the stokehold and threatened to put out the
boiler fires.

Life became a matter of changing wet clothes for

Sir Edgeworth David 73

others less wet. It was cold and raw, with frequent rain-
storms, and the light clothing which the scientists had
worn when leaving the tropical heat of New Zealand at
midsummer had to serve until it went to pieces on their
bodies. Worst trial of all was the lack of sleep. For ten
days these scientists, straight from the luxuries of
civilized life, endured sea-sickness, cold, wet, and sleep-
less fatigue in a small ship of two hundred tons which
often rolled at an angle of fifty degrees. And they did it,
not for adventure, as the others on board, but because
they wanted to solve some of the secrets which awaited
them in the Great White South beyond the storms.

None stood the battering better than Edgeworth David,
despite his fifty years, and when on January 15th the first
ice was sighted, and the sun came out, he was still fit
and encouraging the others. As one of his companions
on that voyage told the authors : " Despite the gruelling,
the Professor was an incurable optimist. His super-
human energy put fresh heart into some of the younger
men. I have seen him at the pumps for hours on end,
wet through. And when his spell came to an end, he
would sit down in his soaking clothing and write out the
meteorological report as carefully and precisely as though
he were in his study in Australia/ '

Thirty-eight days after entering the ice the Nimrod
reached the spot chosen by Shackleton for his winter
quarters, and the shore-party was landed at Cape Royds.
According to plan Professor David should have returned
to New Zealand with the ship, but the fascination of the
Southland was too much for him, and there was jubilation
among the members of the expedition when Shackleton
announced that Professor David had decided to remain
and assist with the scientific work before them.

The Professor had not been long ashore before he
decided upon his first task. He would measure a moun-
tain, one which had never been accurately surveyed. He

74 Master Minds of Modern Science

proposed to Shackleton that he should attempt to reach
the summit of Mount Erebus, the highest peak in the
Antarctic, which had never been climbed, and there take
observations of temperature and wind currents.

Mount Erebus has loomed large in the history of Polar
exploration. Standing as the sentinel at the gate of the
Great Ice Barrier, it forms a magnificent picture, rising
from sea-level to a height of over 13,000 feet. It is an
extinct volcano, and at the top an immense depression
marks the site of the old crater, while beside this is an
active cone often wreathed in smoke or steam. The
ascent of such a mountain would have been difficult in
any part of the world ; in the Antarctic temperature and
weather combined to make it a formidable task.

A climbing party was selected, consisting of the three
scientists, Professor David, Mawson, and Mackay, with
a supporting party of three other members of the expedi-
tion. They carried ten days' provisions. All recognized
the scientific value of the attempt and all were determined
to reach the crater.

During the ascent the parties encountered terrible
blizzards, with temperatures as low as thirty degrees below
zero. In five days they reached the summit, and there
the Professor made some interesting observations, and
for the first time the height of the mountain was scientifi-
cally calculated. This had been variously estimated.
Sir James Clarke Ross, who named the mountain in 1841,
estimated its height to be 12,367 feet. Captain Scott, on
his first expedition in 1901, made two estimates, one
being 13,120 feet and the other being 12,922 feet. The
latter figure appeared in the Admiralty chart of the
region.

Professor David's observations revealed that the rim of
the main crater of Erebus was 11,350 feet above sea-level,
and that the height of the summit was 13,355 feet.

The party had to face severe conditions on the return

PROFESSOR EDGEWORTH DAVID PHOTOGRAPHED IMMEDIATELY AFTER

HOISTING THE UNION JACK AT THE SOUTH MAGNETIC POLE

Professor David is in the centre. With him are Dr (now Sir) Douglas Mawson

and Dr Forbes Mackay.

Reproduced from "The Heart of the Antarctic''1 by Sir Ernest Shackleton,
by permission of Lady Shackleton

75

Sir Edgeworth David - 75

journey, but they reached winter quarters safely — the
only casualty being one case of frostbite.

The coming of the long Antarctic winter prevented
further expeditions for some months, during which the
usual routine was carried out, while the scientists worked
in their various spheres compiling records.

But they were anxious to begin the real work that
awaited them — and none more so than the scientist who
was the veteran of the party, and who had remained in
excellent health throughout the dark months. Before
the sun returned Shackleton, Professor David, and a
third member of the company set out on a preliminary
sledge journey, taking with them a fortnight's provisions.
While out they had to face extreme temperatures, even
for the South. At one time the thermometer registered
sixty-one degrees below zero, or ninety-three degrees of
frost. At this extreme of cold the greatest care must be
taken not to expose any part of the body to the air, or
frostbite will result. All returned safely after a journey
which gave Professor David a vivid idea of sledging on
the Ice Barrier and prepared him for a bigger task which
he had decided to attempt — the discovery of the South
Magnetic Pole.

The Magnetic Poles are not fixed points, but a knowledge
of the exact position of this point of magnetic attraction,
revised from time to time, is necessary to enable sea
captains, whose compasses are controlled by its influence
within the Southern Hemisphere, to discover their posi-
tion with greater precision than would otherwise be
possible. Our earliest knowledge of the point of attrac-
tion within the Southern Hemisphere depended upon
observations made in 1841 by Sir James Clarke Ross, the
famous Antarctic explorer after whom the Ross Sea is
named. Between that date and 1902, when Captain
Scott made renewed observations at a distance while on
his first expedition, the South Magnetic Pole had moved

76 Master Minds of Modern Science

two hundred miles eastward. Professor David wished
actually to reach the Magnetic Polar point itself, and so
to check these observations further, thus for the first
time providing mariners with exact information concern-
ing the point to which their compasses swung south of
the equator.

There was also another reason in Professor David's mind
when he started out on the long trek on October 5th,
1908, accompanied by Dr Mawson and Dr Forbes Mac-
kay. He wanted to take possession of the South Mag-
netic Pole in the name of Britain, and hoist the Union
Jack there.

It was a formidable task, for all three men had to drag
behind their backs over two hundred and forty pounds.
And remember that the Professor was fifty years of age !
No wonder that several members of the expedition felt
that he was taking an undue risk — that he should have
been content to advise the others, and remain at the base.

For days and weeks they sledged steadily on — up the
glaciers and on to the plateau, 7000 feet above sea-level.
Several times they narrowly escaped being hurled to death
down crevasses which opened in the ice at their feet. But
good fortune was with them, and on January 15th, one
hundred and two days out, observations taken by Mawson
showed that they were nearing their objective.

The observations made with their compasses that day
showed the angle to be only fifteen minutes off the ver-
tical, the dip being 890 45', whereas at the Magnetic Pole
itself the dip is 900. The same evening it was 890 48'.

It should be explained that the compass familiar to
everybody is mounted on a vertical pivot and can there-
fore swing in a horizontal direction only. These com-
passes are controlled by magnetic force coming from the
earth at the point of attraction, and if they were taken
to the Magnetic Poles, where the magnetic force is
vertical, they would be unaffected and useless.

Sir Edgeworth David 77

For this reason the compasses used in the Antarctic
are of the dip circle variety, consisting of a magnetized
needle swinging on a horizontal axis, and the readings are
taken in degrees from the vertical, which in turn show
the approximate position of the compass in relation to
the Magnetic Pole by which it is affected.

Though scientists have discovered how to measure the
position of any part of the Southern Hemisphere in rela-
tion to the centre of magnetic attraction, very little is
known about the Magnetic Poles or the forces which
govern them. To quote one authority :

The Magnetic Poles are not fixed spots, but are constantly
travelling onwards, executing an unknown path and apparently
completing a circle in a period of many hundreds of years. In
addition to this onward movement of a few miles a year, there
is a lesser daily oscillation.

That is the yet unsolved mystery of the mighty force
which controls the pocket compass treasured by nearly
every boy. And it was a desire to investigate one aspect
of that mystery — the exact position of the South Magnetic
Pole in the year 1909 — that took Professor David and
his companions on their long march.

A dip of 890 48' on the compass told the party that they
were nearing the Magnetic Pole itself. The next morning
they were away early, determined to reach the exact site
of the Pole that day. And at 3.30 p.m. on January 16th,
1909, in latitude 720 25' south and longitude 1550 16' east,
Professor David and his companions bared their heads
and hoisted the Union Jack, while the Professor uttered
these words : " I hereby take possession of this area con-
taining the Magnetic Pole for the British Empire.' J

Thus was fulfilled the wish of Sir James Clarke Ross,
who had reached the North Magnetic Pole in 1831 and
ten years later made the first observations concerning the
exact position of the Magnetic Pole in the Southern

78 Master Minds of Modern Science

Hemisphere, and who hoped that a British subject might
complete the work which he began.

The return journey was begun, and after hard travelling
for fifteen hours a day the scientists reached the point
at which it had been arranged for the ship to pick them
up. They were days beyond their time, which worried
both them and the party aboard, for if they missed the
ship they would be compelled at tremendous risk to
sledge over the sea-ice to Cape Royds.

They arrived in time, and were taken on board after
covering a distance of over 1260 miles without any
assistance from dog-teams or supporting parties. And,
we may add, the Professor was as fit at the end of the
hard journey across the great snow desert as he had been
when setting out — a remarkable achievement.

This account of the journeys made by Sir Edgeworth
David during that expedition by no means completes
the scientific work wThich he accomplished while in the
South. Some of his other discoveries were referred to
by the Professor himself in a lecture which he after-
ward delivered at the Royal Institution in London.

He referred then to the existence of a vast coalfield,
probably at least 1000 miles in length and from fifty to
eighty miles in width — perhaps the largest unworked
coalfield in the world — which was discovered in what is
known as the Australian sector of the Antarctic. The
expedition of which he was a member discovered seven
seams of coal at the head of the Beardmore Glacier, of
which at least one seam was of workable quality.

Later discoveries, the Professor pointed out, prove that
when the numerous coalfields in this region were formed
there was probably little if any ice at the South Pole, the
whole continent being covered with a growth of dwarf
trees, probably of conifers and low shrubs. The evidence
on the American side of Antarctica indicates that at
three or more subsequent epochs what is now a land of

Sir Edgeworth David 79

eternal ice and snow was clothed with abundant vege-
tation.

Equally interesting were Professor David's investiga-
tions concerning the depth of the Antarctic ice-cap and
his speculations as to the fate of the world if the South
Pole became warmer. Whereas most continents are sur-
rounded by a submerged platform one hundred fathoms
below sea-level, Antarctica has a platform two hundred
fathoms deep. This the Professor attributes to the weight
of the 5,000,000 square miles of Antarctic ice-cap, which
has depressed Antarctica the additional six hundred feet
below normal depth.

He suggested that because of this the thickness of the
ice-cap could be measured, for the basic rock material of
the continent is three times as heavy as ice — therefore to
depress the whole of Antarctica 600 feet three super-
imposed layers of ice each of that thickness would be
necessary. Thus the average thickness of the Antarctic
ice-cap is approximately 1800 feet.

The thickness of this ice-cap and the problem of whether
it will increase or thin out in the future are matters of
enormous importance to the world. The ice-cap extends
for 5,000,000 square miles, and represents more than one-
thirtieth of the whole area of the oceans of the world. It
can be stated, therefore, that for every thirty feet in
thickness of ice melted off the Antarctic continent by
any change in climate, the sea-level of the whole world
would be raised one foot, thus submerging all wharves,
docks, and warehouses and all tracts of country below
that level.

Geological evidence shows that this danger cannot
entirely be dismissed. In most parts of Antarctica the
volume of ice is lessening rapidly, and the ice was formerly
at least eight hundred feet thicker than it is at present. At
that time the sea-level all over the world must have been
some twenty-five feet lower than it is to-day. Not the

80 Master Minds of Modern Science

least interesting piece of scientific work which still awaits
future explorers will be the completion of the evidence on
which these figures can be examined by a search for
information concerning the past and present thicknesses
of the ice-cap, and the determination of the areas over
which it is waning, together with its rate of movement
seaward, and the source of the snows that feed it.

The more immediate task awaiting the scientist in the
Antarctic, however, is the further study of meteorological
conditions there. The South Polar region is the greatest
refrigerator of our planet, and though its effects are
passive compared with the sun's heat — the latter being
the main controller of both weather and climate on the
earth — Antarctic weather conditions have a very distinct
effect upon climate in general. Sir Edgeworth David is
of those who believe that long-range weather forecasts
may be made possible by the results of further scientific
investigations in the Great White South.

CHAPTER VII

THE STORY OF GREENWICH OBSERVATORY

Sir Frank Dyson, Astronomer Royal

A BOY, asked what he knew about astronomers,
said, " They discover new stars and generally live
a long time/' The second part of his answer may
have been right, but the first was hardly correct. That
is the popular idea of the astronomer — that he spends
hours on clear nights at the eye-piece of a mighty tele-
scope, searching the starry sky.

Actually the professional astronomer is seldom thus
employed. He has little time or opportunity for search-
ing the night sky or making discoveries. His work is
something between that of an engineer and an accountant.
He makes observations — thousands of them — and records
them with the most extreme care.

Our own Royal Observatory, standing on top of a small
steep hill in Greenwich Park, was built simply to help
sailors in their navigation when out of sight of land, and
that in a wide sense remains its object and constitutes the
work of the Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank Dyson, and his
corps of hard-working assistants.

To-day you go down to Southampton and board a
steamer for New York with the knowledge that the ship
will carry you there along a certain line ruled across the
Western Ocean almost as definitely as a railway track.
You take it as a matter of course that every ship on the
sea shall find her way direct to her destination, probably
without giving a thought to those who have made this
possible.

Yet less than two hundred years ago the great problem

F 81

82 Master Minds of Modern Science

before every ship's captain out of sight of land was to
know where he was. Latitude — that was easy enough,
for it could be found by observation of the sun at midday
or of the Pole Star at night ; but longitude was a very
different matter. You will remember that Christopher
Columbus started across the Atlantic, not in the hope of
discovering America, of which he knew nothing, but with
the idea of finding a new route to India, for one thing
he did know was that the earth was round. After many
days he sighted the Bahama Islands, which are actually
in sixty-six degrees west longitude, but he was so hope-
lessly out in his calculations that he believed he was
among islands in the China Seas, two hundred and thirty
degrees west from Spain.

And such blunders were made for a very long time after
Columbus. In the eighteenth century Commodore Anson
wanted to make the island of Juan Fernandez in order to
get fresh water and fruit for his crew, who were dying of
that terrible disease scurvy. He got into its latitude
easily enough, and sailed eastward, though as a matter
of fact he was already east of the island. In consequence
the first land he sighted was the mainland of South
America, and he had to turn round and sail westward for
days, losing many poor fellows whose lives might other-
wise have been saved.

To go back to the time of Columbus, the discovery of
America caused such a rush of adventurous voyagers in
that direction that the need for some means of finding
their longitude became most pressing. Clever men all
over the world tackled the problem, and in 1598 Philip III
of Spain offered the huge prize of one hundred thousand
crowns to anyone who could solve it, while the Dutch
followed with an offer of thirty thousand florins.

The only man who came anywhere near a solution was
the great Galileo. With his telescope he observed how the
moons of Jupiter pass behind the planet, and he suggested

Sir Frank Dyson 83

that if ship-masters would observe these occupations
they could make certain of the exact time and there-
fore of their longitude. In practice this method failed to
work because the rolling deck of a small ship makes a
very poor observation platform, and also because the
disappearance of one of these moons does not happen
instantaneously, but takes some time.

Longitude may be expressed as the difference between
the local time of the place where the observation takes
place and the local time of the place chosen as the stan-
dard meridian, or longitude nought, which is Greenwich.
That, you may say, is simple enough. Why not carry a
good watch ? Quite so, but please remember that there
were no time-keepers in those days except pendulum
clocks, and these, of course, could not be trusted on board
ship. There were no chronometers.

About the middle of the seventeenth century a new
idea was mooted. The moon moves regularly and quickly
among the stars, and it was suggested that if a table were
drawn up of its distance from a number of fixed stars at
definite periods for a long time in advance, this would be
a good guide for the navigator.

This plan came to the ears of Charles II, who was
extremely interested in scientific matters, and he at once
desired some of the leading scientific men of the time to
examine it and see if it were practicable. The Reverend
John Flamsteed was selected to inquire into it, and
presently reported that the scheme was a good one, but
that at present there was no table of the fixed stars
sufficiently reliable for the purpose. Whereupon the King
appointed Flamsteed his Astronomer Royal and ordered
the building of Greenwich Observatory.

Now we must say a little about Flamsteed. He was a
Derbyshire boy, born in 1646, and was educated at the
free school in Derby. He was always weak and sickly, so
that even " one day's short reading caused him a desperate

84 Master Minds of Modern Science

headache/' yet that penalty never discouraged him, and
he read everything that came his way. Also he learned
mathematics from his father, who was an expert in this
subject. An eclipse of the sun in 1662 interested the boy
deeply and turned his thought to the study of the heavens,
and in 1665 the appearance of a comet made him keener
still. This delicate, sickly lad drew up a catalogue of
seventy stars, calculating their ascensions, declinations,
etc., for many years in advance; he attempted to deter-
mine the mean length of the tropical year and the dis-
tance of the earth from the sun.

In 1669 he sent some of his calculations to the Royal
Society, and though he sent the paper unsigned the secre-
tary found out who he was and wrote him a charming
letter, signing it " your very affectionate friend and real
servant." In 1670 his father sent him up to London, and
he also visited Cambridge, where he met the great Isaac
Newton himself.

This, then, was the young man who at the age of
twenty-nine was appointed first Astronomer Royal at the
munificent salary of one hundred pounds a year, and with
no provision at all for instruments. As for his observa-
tory, as at first built, it cost but five hundred and twenty
pounds, yet its designer was Sir Christopher Wren. Its
materials came from a gate-house of the Tower of London
which had recently been pulled down, and the bricks from
old Tilbury Fort. The actual money was obtained from
the sale of spoiled gunpowder. It was just a small
dwelling-house with an upper room to use as an observa-
tory, but Flamsteed's royal patron failed to provide
either instruments or an assistant.

The Royal Society lent Flamsteed a little money, and
he was helped also by his friend, Sir Jonas Moore. Then
he set to work and built instruments for himself. It must
be understood that telescopes in the modern sense of the
word did not then exist, and that Flamsteed's principal

Sir Frank Dyson 85

instrument was a mural quadrant of fifty inches radius.
None of his instruments are now at the Observatory, but
the dwelling-house of the Astronomer Royal still bears
the name of Flamsteed House.

In 1684 Lord North gave Flamsteed the living of
Burstow, in Surrey, and this added something to his
miserably small income, yet even so he was forced to
take private pupils in order to make ends meet. He
had in all no fewer than one hundred and forty of these.
It was bitter hard work for a man of Flamsteed's poor
health and weak constitution, and how hard he worked
may be gathered from the fact that in the thirteen years
ending 1689 he made no fewer than twenty thousand
observations, and revised the whole of the star-tables
then in use.

Then his father died, and left him money enough to
make life somewhat easier, and he was able to engage an
assistant, Abraham Sharp, a brilliant mathematician and
a most capable maker of instruments.

But fresh trouble was brewing. So far Flamsteed had
not published his observations. He wished to finish them
first and to correct them thoroughly. Sir Isaac Newton,
however, began to press him to publish, and in the end
there was a sharp quarrel between the two. The Royal
Society turned upon Flamsteed, and Flamsteed com-
plained with good reason that he was being robbed of
the fruit of his labours.

In 1712 the work at last appeared in print. Four
hundred copies were issued, but it was, says its author,
full of errors, and he himself managed to get back three
hundred copies, which he burned " as a sacrifice to
heavenly truth/'

Flamsteed died in 1719, and was succeeded by Edmund
Halley, who was also from a Derbyshire family. Like
Flamsteed, Halley had taken to astronomy as a boy, and
when he was still quite a young man had travelled to the

86 Master Minds of Modern Science

island of St Helena, where he spent a year and a half,
observing the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. In 1678
he had become a member of the Royal Society, and, young
as he still was, had had the honour to be chosen to lead
a discussion, the subject of which was whether more
accurate observations of the place of a star could be
obtained by the use of sights or by the use of a telescope.
This is good proof of the primitive state of telescopes in
the seventeenth century.

It was Halley to whom we owe the publication of Sir
Isaac Newton's Principia, certainly the greatest scientific
work the world had yet seen, and it was Halley who took
such interest in the behaviour of the magnetic compass
that William III gave him a captain's commission in the
Navy, and placed him in command of a small vessel called
a ' pink/ so that he might study this subject. Study it
he did, making long voyages far into the Southern Seas,
as well as doing much work relative to the tides around
British coasts. He was a good friend to Flamsteed, and
at the latter 's death was chosen to succeed him.

[Halley was then over sixty years of age, and he came
to an observatory where there were no instruments, for
Flamsteed's widow had removed all her husband's
property. Halley managed to get a grant from the
Government, however, and made a transit instrument
and a large quadrant, both of which still hang in the
Observatory.

Halley's name is best remembered in connexion with
Halley's comet. This great comet passed flaming through
the solar system in the year 1682, and Halley, after com-
puting its path, began to make investigations with the
object of discovering whether this comet could have
visited our system at any previous epoch. He found that
it closely resembled in appearance and orbit a comet
which had appeared in 1607 and another seen in 1531 ;
he decided that this was the same comet, with an orbit of

Sir Frank Dyson 87

seventy-five to seventy-six years. He therefore predicted
its return in 1758 or early in 1759. The prediction was a
memorable one, because it was the first attempt to foretell
the appearance of one of these mysterious bodies, whose
visits seemed guided by no fixed law, they being always
regarded as visions of awful import. On Christmas Day
1758 the comet was detected, and in the following March
each night was lighted by its flaming splendour.

Halley remained at his post until his death, and was
succeeded by James Bradley, already known through his
efforts to fix the distance of the sun from the earth. In
1719 he was convinced that it could not be more than
one hundred and twenty-five millions or less than ninety-
four millions of miles. This lower limit has since been
proved to be almost exact. But Bradley's greatest dis-
covery was what is called the ' aberration of light/ In
1667 Roemer, a Danish astronomer, had discovered that
light does not travel instantaneously from place to place.
Aberration is an apparent alteration in the position of a
fixed star, arising from the motion of the earth in its
orbit, combined with the time taken for light to travel.

You can look at it in this way. When rain is falling
straight down, a drop entering the top of a stationary
tube goes right through and comes out at the bottom.
But if the tube be carried forward, still in the same
upright position, a drop entering the top will strike the
side a little way down. Bradley's great discovery was
that light from a star acts in similar fashion.

Bradley did an immense amount of valuable work at
Greenwich. He observed the positions of more than three
thousand stars, he determined the exact longitudes of
Lisbon and New York, and his last work was the obser-
vation of the transit of Venus (the passage of the planet
Venus across the disc of the sun) in 1761.

The next Astronomer Royal of note was Nevil Mas-
kelyne, who was an ancestor of the well-known conjurer

88 Master Minds of Modern Science

of that name. He was the first man to weigh the earth ;
this he did in 1774. When travelling in Scotland, he
measured the deviation of a plumb-line from the vertical
caused by the attraction of the mountain Schiehallion.
Maskelyne did more work for navigation than any of his
predecessors, and it was during his long tenure of office at
Greenwich that the Government offered a reward of
twenty thousand pounds for a clock or watch that would
go perfectly at sea, notwithstanding the tossing of the
ship and the great changes of temperature to which it
might be subjected.

This prize was won by John Harrison, a Yorkshireman
born in 1693, who as early as 1726 constructed a time-
keeper ' compensated ' against changes of climate. For
years he toiled at his time-keepers, until at last he made
a chronometer which in a voyage to Jamaica in 1761-62
determined the longitude within eighteen miles. But it
was not until 1773 that Harrison, then an old man,
received the full amount of the reward. His original
chronometer is still preserved at the Observatory, and not
long ago Commander Rupert Gould, R.N., succeeded in
making it go again after many years of rest.

Maskelyne first published the long-desired Nautical
Almanac, and superintended its publication until his
death. He lived until 1811, and was succeeded by John
Pond, who was famous for the accuracy of his observa-
tions. He ran the Observatory with an iron hand, which
did not make his assistants either happy or useful.

His successor was George Airy, perhaps the greatest
organizer who was ever in charge at Greenwich. Indeed,
he entirely reorganized and almost rebuilt the Observa-
tory ; he installed new telescopes, and it was under him
that photography began to play a part in astronomical
observation. The eye of the camera never tires, and it is
entirely by this means that the present marvellous star
charts of the heavens have been compiled.

Sir Frank Dyson 89

Airy was a strong man, perhaps somewhat selfish, but
he placed the work of the Observatory before all personal
considerations. We may quote words from his auto-
biography :

The Observatory was expressly built for the aid of astronomy
and navigation, for promoting methods of determining longitude
at sea, and more especially for determination of the moon's
motions. All these imply, as their first step, the formation of
accurate catalogues of stars and the determination of the
fundamental elements of the solar system. ... It has been
invariably my own intention to maintain the principles of the
long-established system in perfect integrity, varying the instru-
ments and the modes of employing them ... as the progress
of science might require.

It is to Airy more than any of those who preceded him
that the great reputation of Greenwich Observatory is
due. A famous foreign astronomer once said :

Greenwich Observatory has, during the past century, been so
far the largest contributor to the determination of geographical
positions on sea or land that if this branch of astronomy were
entirely lost it could be reconstructed from the Greenwich
observations alone.

In 1836 Airy proposed the creation of the magnetic
and meteorological department of the Observatory, with
a system of regular two-hour observations. It was from
this small beginning that we now have our marvellous,
world-wide system of weather forecasting, which grows
and improves with each successive year. Airy again it
was who in 1873 formed the solar photographic depart-
ment, to which was presently added the spectroscope, that
simple yet marvellous instrument by which light is
analysed and the composition of the heavenly bodies
studied.

One of the many remarkable uses of spectrum analysis
is that we are able thereby to measure the rate of approach

90 Master Minds of Modern Science

or recession of a star. For instance, we know that
Arcturus is hurrying away from the solar system at a
rate of about twenty miles a second, while another star
is approaching our system at the terrific speed of about
fifty-five miles a second.

Airy was the first Astronomer Royal to busy himself
with important work outside the Observatory. On three
occasions he made long journeys to study eclipses of the
sun ; he went to America to help in settling the boundary
between Canada and the United States ; and he made an
expedition to Harton Colliery, near South Shields, in order
to study the decrease in gravity observable in the descent
of a deep mine.

Airy lived to be over ninety. He was succeeded by
W. H. M. Christie, who did a great deal in setting up new
instruments, including two fine new telescopes. During
his period the new library was built, as well as the Transit
Pavilion and the Magnetic Pavilion out in the Park. The
Observatory has indeed grown greatly since its founda-
tion by Charles II. Flamsteed's little domain was only
twenty-seven yards long by fifty deep, and consisted of
little more than a dwelling-house with one fine room,
the original ' observatory/ above it. To-day the en-
closed ground measures about two hundred yards by
sixty, and contains a large number of buildings and a
garden.

We have all heard of ' Greenwich time/ which sets the
standard not only for Britain, but for the world. One
of the most interesting places in the Observatory is the
room in which are kept the clocks. This room has double
doors and is kept at a constant and rather warm tempera-
ture. The special clock is the Short t clock made by the
Synchronome Company. It is a two-clock combination,
a free pendulum on one wall electrically connected with
a slave clock on another wall. The mechanism is far too
intricate for the writer to describe. It is enough to say

SIR FRANK DYSON, ASTRONOMER ROYAL, DEMONSTRATES ONE
OF THE GREAT TELESCOPES AT GREENWICH OBSERVATORY

TO EX-KING AMANULLAH

90

Sir Frank Dyson 91

that the free pendulum acts in such a way that should
the clock itself err even to the two-hundredth of a second
it is instantly corrected by the pendulum of which it
is the slave. This marvellous clock is of English make,
and has been installed during the office of the present
Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank Dyson.

A second clock in the same room automatically sends
time signals to the great radio station at Rugby, whence
they are wirelessed to all parts of the Empire. Navigators
on all the seas receive these time signals by wireless, so
that these clocks may justly be said to be the most
important in the world.

The work done at Greenwich is still largely that of
taking regular observations, such as observing the occul-
tation or hiding of stars by the moon, the exact time and
place of their disappearance and reappearance. You
might suppose that this sort of thing was no longer
necessary and that the moon's orbit was now perfectly
known. But this is not so. If the earth and the moon
were the only two bodies in the universe the problem
would be simple. But the earth, the sun, and the moon
are members of a triple system which is complicated by
the faint pulls exercised by the planets, and the result is a
problem of amazing intricacy. Calculations of the moon's
movements need, therefore, to be compared with observa-
tions, and the task is endless.

One of the great triumphs of systematized observation
was the discovery of the planet Neptune. The observed
movements of Uranus were found to be out of accord
with its computed movements, and simply from this fact
Adams and Leverrier were able to state that there must
be another planet outside the orbit of Uranus. It was in
1845 that Adams sent his calculations to Airy, showing
that a new planet should be searched for, and in Septem-
ber 1846 Neptune was discovered by Dr Galle, of Berlin
Observatory. Airy has been blamed for failing to search

92 Master Minds of Modern Science

for the new planet from Greenwich, but at that time the
best telescope at Greenwich was an equatorial of only
six and three-quarter inches aperture, housed in a very
small and inconvenient dome, an instrument quite un-
fitted for the work.

At present there is no lack of fine telescopes at Green-
wich. The difficulty is that our climate is a very poor one
for astronomical observation. According to our records,
we have only one hundred and forty-one fine days out of
the three hundred and sixty-five. That is why most
of the great discoveries in modern astronomy have been
made either in North America or South Africa. As Sir
Frank Dyson said to the writer, the climate of the Pacific
slope is almost ideal for observation of the heavens, while
an observatory such as that of Mount Wilson has the
additional advantage of being built sufficiently high (five
thousand seven hundred feet) to be above mist, fog, and
low-lying cloud.

Another advantage enjoyed by the American astrono-
mers is the possession of telescopes of a size and power
unknown elsewhere. These have been given by men of
enormous wealth such as Carnegie and Yerkes. At Mount
Wilson is the largest telescope in the world. It is a
gigantic reflector one hundred inches across. The mirror
is thirteen inches thick and weighs four and a half tons.
The moving parts of this telescope weigh one hundred
tons, and are driven by a powerful clock mechanism when
following the sun or stars.

It must be remembered that the rapid movement of
the earth has to be counteracted if a telescope is to re-
main focused on one particular part of the heavens.

The Mount Wilson telescope resembles a great naval
gun, and is in a revolving dome of one hundred feet
diameter. This telescope is about two and a half times
more powerful than the sixty-inch which was previously
the largest in existence, and has achieved important

Sir Frank Dyson 93

results. For instance, a star in Capella, hitherto shown
as single even by the most powerful telescopes, was broken
up and shown to be composed of two bodies revolving
around one another in a period of one hundred and four
days. The diameter of Betelgeuse has been measured
and found to be two hundred and fifteen million miles.
These figures will be better appreciated if we imagine
Betelgeuse in our sun's place. Then this planet would
be inside Betelgeuse and not half-way to its outer
surface.

Not content with the one-hundred-inch reflector, the
Californian Institute of Technology is at present endea-
vouring to construct one of two hundred inches. This will
cost at least a million pounds, but if successful it should
add several hundred million more stars to those already
known ; yet even so it is unlikely to solve the problem of
whether Mars is inhabited.

The largest telescope at Greenwich is of only thirty
inches aperture and is wholly devoted to the work of
photographing stars. Much is being done nowadays in
measuring the distances and temperatures of the stars.
You might suppose it was impossible even to guess at the
weight of a star lost in the depths of space, yet, as Sir
Frank Dyson pointed out, if you know the distance of a
pair of twin stars and their bulk, it is possible to calculate
their weight with considerable accuracy. Again, the
spectroscope enables astronomers to estimate the heat of
stars. The spectroscope is used to collect and analyse the
light collected by the telescope, and according to the pro-
portion of light at the blue or red ends of the spectrum
the heat of the star can be estimated. In brief, the
greater the degree of blue the hotter the star.

In the Observatory are many photographs of the
spectra of stars, but the pictures of greatest interest to
the layman are those of solar eclipses, showing the
immense prominences or flames which appear on the edge

94 Master Minds of Modern Science

of the disc of the darkened sun. Of these the most
interesting is that of the eclipse watched on May 20, 1919,
at Sobral, in Brazil, which definitely proved Einstein's
theory that light was bent in passing through a magnetic
field.

Sir Frank Dyson himself has been on several of these
expeditions to observe total eclipses. On one occasion,
with a party of astronomers, he was taken to Morocco
in a cruiser, the Suffolk, and he mentioned the fact
that the present Admiral Beatty was then captain of
the ship.

Sir Frank, through whose kindness this chapter has
been made possible, is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, where he was Second Wrangler and Smith's
Prizeman. He was Chief Assistant at Greenwich from
1894 to 1905, and then became Astronomer Royal for
Scotland. In 1910 he went back to Greenwich as
Astronomer Royal, a position which he has now held for
twenty years.

LIBRARY^

;
lC^/\4» a. a. ft . ..•

CHAPTER VIII \^6sSt'

THE MASTER OF RELATIVITY
77^ Wor& awrf Li/fe 0/ Albert Einstein

IN 1831 Urbain Leverrier, a young man of twenty,
was admitted into the Polytechnic School of Paris.
Five years later he distinguished himself by writing
some clever papers on chemistry and astronomy, with
the result that he was offered the post of teacher of
astronomy in the Polytechnic. He soon became known
for his original work in this science, and was elected a
member of the French Academy. His principal work was
careful observation of the movements of the planets,
especially of Uranus, which at that time was believed
to be the last and outermost of the solar system, but
Leverrier by his calculations decided that there must
be still another planet farther out in space.

Shortly after Leverrier had written a paper announ-
cing his belief in the existence of this planet, it was
discovered by another astronomer, Gottfried Galle, of
Berlin. Neptune, as it is named, though eight times
larger than the earth, revolves at a distance of three
thousand million miles from the sun, and is therefore so
tiny a speck that it had hitherto escaped observation.

Now there is another planet which, like Uranus, has
shown a slight irregularity in its movement. This is
Mercury, the innermost planet of our system, a tiny body
only three times the size of the moon ; it circles around
the sun in a year which is only eighty- eight of our days.
It is so near the sun that it is very rarely visible to the
naked eye.

Mercury's irregularity is a very small matter, yet the

95

g6 Master Minds of Modern Science

most careful observations extending over more than a
century made it certain that this irregularity did exist.

The irregularity noticed was this. The perihelion of
Mercury had advanced during the century between forty
and fifty seconds of arc farther than it should have
advanced.

Here it may be well to explain the meaning of peri-
helion. A planet revolving around the sun does not
travel in a perfect circle, but in an ellipse — that is, in an
elongated curve of which one axis is longer than the
other. The perihelion of a planetary orbit is at one of
the end points of the major or longer axis. The orbit
of the planet, while always the same in relation to the sun,
is not of course the same in space, for the sun itself is
moving rapidly in one direction, dragging its attendant
planets with it.

Now the question which puzzled astronomers was the
cause of this irregularity in the perihelion of Mercury.
For long they were of the opinion that there must be
another undiscovered planet even nearer to the sun than
Mercury, but search as they might this could not be found.
Another suggestion was that there was a ring of cosmic
matter distributed around the sun which disturbed Mer-
cury's orbit, but this theory too was presently abandoned.
It remained for Albert Einstein to supply a key to the
puzzle of Mercury's curious behaviour, and this he did
in a paper read in November 1915 before the Prussian
Academy of Sciences.

What is Relativity ? There is no need to be frightened
by the word, which in itself is simple enough. There are
comparatively few things in this world that are absolute.
The number of people in a room, the number of coins in
a purse, the number of bricks in a wall — these are absolute.
But it is easy to find simple instances of relativity.

Imagine two brothers, Jim and Bill, each with one
hundred pounds in his pocket. Settle both in London,

PROFESSOR EINSTEIN

Photo by Hoppe

96

Albert Einstein 97

and they are equally rich. Now transfer Bill to New
York. Bill is no longer as rich as Jim, because prices in
New York are higher than in London. Therefore the
pound is not an absolute standard of wealth, but is
relative to the place where it is to be spent.

Simpler still is relativity in direction. If you are in
London you say rightly that York lies to the north, but
if you are in Edinburgh York is south of you. The direc-
tion of every place in the world is relative to your position
at the time of speaking.

Now with some trepidation we will go a little farther.
In 1887 two scientists, Michelson and Morley, carried out
an experiment by which they proved that speed causes
contraction in a moving object. Take a rod moving at a
very high speed. At first it is at a right angle to the line
of motion, but as it moves we imagine it to be turned so
that it lies along the line of motion. In its second position
the rod is shorter than it was in its former. The speed of
our planet in its journey around the sun is nineteen
miles a second, and a rod travelling at this speed contracts
one part in two hundred millions.

This seems so small a matter as to be hardly worth
notice, for, applied to the earth itself, it means a con-
traction in its diameter of only two and a half inches ; yet
we may say that it is on the base of the Michelson-Morley
experiment that Einstein has built up his tremendous and
revolutionary Relativity and Quantum theories.

The experiment has been repeated by several observers
since 1887, with great care and accuracy, and the con-
traction of moving bodies, now known as the Fitzgerald
Contraction, is of enormous importance in modern
physics.

The substance of our rod matters not at all. It may be
wood or steel or lead. Whatever its substance its con-
traction is the same. Each time that you change the
position of a foot-rule by holding it in line with the earth's

98 Master Minds of Modern Science

movement it contracts by a two-hundred-millionth part
of its length.

Nineteen miles per second seems a great speed, but we
have all been travelling at that speed all our lives.
Indeed, we have been travelling faster, for our planet has
two additional movements — its spin on its axis, and the
speed at which it is being carried through space by its
master, the sun.

Please do not imagine that there is anything strange
about this contraction. A rod of steel or wood may seem
to us a solid object, yet it is of course nothing of the sort,
for it is merely a swarm of molecules in active motion,
separated one from another by quite considerable spaces.
Every time that its position is changed changes are made
in the magnetic forces which hold its particles together,
and their delicate balance is upset. Really the wonder
is not that there is a change, but that the change is so
small.

Now you will begin to understand that measurement of
length or distance is relative to direction.

Increase the speed of our planet. Make it one hundred
and sixty-one thousand miles per second, and your rod,
when turned, will contract to half its former length. So
far as known, there is no planet which moves at such
a speed as one hundred and sixty-one thousand miles a
second, yet we have observed a nebula which is moving
at one thousand miles a second, and if there were a planet
in this system moving at the same speed its inhabitants
would find that even this rate of speed was enough to
upset entirely the accuracy of their measurements.

Now perhaps you will think that we are going to give
you a simple explanation of Einstein's theories, and tell
you why it is that he has come to the conclusion that
space is " finite yet unbounded/ ' We are sorry. We
cannot do it. We have applied to several scientists who
themselves do understand the Relativity and Quantum

Albert Einstein 99

theories, but in each case the reply given has been the
same: " It is impossible to explain Relativity except in
terms of algebra." One went on to say further:

This doctrine has to do with the relationship between physical
and mathematical events and can therefore be explained only
in mathematical terms. It is impossible to present it in any
form which can be understood by those who have not a fairly
advanced knowledge of algebra.

Still, Einstein's theory of space is not so difficult as
the idea to which mankind has been accustomed for
centuries — the idea that space is infinite. The human
mind is baffled by infinity or eternity, but it does seem
able to cope with Einstein's conception of curved space.
It is possible that before the end of the present century
boys and girls will understand Relativity and marvel at
their grandparents' inability to do so.

Einstein's theory of Relativity, by the way, is not a
reversal of Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravity unfolded
in his Principia Mathematica in 1687. Einstein's great
intellect has simply capped Newton's theory with what
he calls an " elliptic interval." While Newton's equa-
tions of motion state the true conditions of motion only
approximately, Einstein's, as stated in his epoch-making
paper of 1915, give them with absolute accuracy. Seated
in his study, Einstein proved that Mercury's perihelion
should advance forty-three seconds in one hundred years,
thus solving at one stroke the problem that had been
puzzling astronomers for so long.

Einstein's achievement went farther still. During his
investigations he came to the conclusion that light -rays
do not travel in dead straight lines as had hitherto been
believed, but that they curve under the influence of a
' gravitational field ' such as the sun. For the moment
there was no means of proving this startling statement,
which Einstein made with the calmness of conviction.

ioo Master Minds of Modern Science

He knew that the opportunity would not arrive for nearly
four years — that the world would have to wait for his
proof until the total eclipse of the sun on May 29, 1919.
Although, at the date of his lecture, all Europe was
plunged in the horrors of the Great War, Einstein's state-
ment caused a tremendous sensation and was eagerly
discussed in all countries. Scientists everywhere awaited
anxiously the time of test.

At last the War was over and the great day approached.
Telescopes and cameras were ready at several points along
the line of total eclipse, one point being a small island
called Principe, off the coast of Africa. You will under-
stand that it is only when the disc of the sun is obscured
by the passage of the moon that the stars closest to the
sun become visible, and so only then can they be photo-
graphed. These photographs would enable astronomers
to learn whether the rays from stars passing close to the
great bulk of the sun were actually bent. The proof
would be secured if the distances of these stars, as recorded
on the photographic plate, were greater than could be
expected from their actual positions.

The eclipse came and passed, and within a few weeks
Einstein's theory was proved to be perfectly correct.
Newspapers all over the world proclaimed to their readers
that light -rays did bend. A new truth had been estab-
lished, and Einstein was rightfully acclaimed as the
greatest and most original thinker of the twentieth
century.

You may wonder why the phenomenon was not
observed long ago. The reason is that the bend or
deflection is almost infinitesimal. Einstein stated that it
would be found to be seven-tenths of a second of arc.
This corresponds to the thickness of a match seen at a
distance of about nine hundred yards. One's wonder is
divided between the brain that could calculate so tiny a
deflection and the instruments that could detect it.

HOW LIGHT IS BENT BY GRAVITATION

This diagram helps to demonstrate the Einstein theory of relativity. It shows

the results of observations made on the occasion of the total eclipse of the sun

in 1919, which proved the accuracy of Professor Einstein's great discovery.

Reproduced from " The Sphere " by permission

100

Albert Rin stein 101

Einstein's later work is even less easily understood by
the ordinary mind than the results which we have been
describing, but he is always at work, and it is not too
much to say that he has changed profoundly man's
conception of the universe of which this earth of ours is a
part.

Our readers may care to know something of the life-
history of this astonishing man. He was born in Ulm, a
city of Wurttemberg, best known for its wonderful
cathedral, the spire of which towers to the great height of
five hundred and thirty feet. One of his earliest memories
is of his father showing him a compass. Albert Einstein
was only five years old at the time, yet the metal needle
swinging surely toward the north stirred in him a strange
wonder. The house he lived in was small, but it had a
charming garden, and the boy was very happy there. He
did not show signs of his genius very early in life. In fact,
he was so late in learning to talk that his parents were
troubled, and even when he was big enough to go to
school he was still a shy, quiet, rather solitary lad. Cer-
tainly he did not like his school, for it was run on regular
Prussian lines, with masters stiff as drill sergeants. He
seems to have worked well and steadily, but the only
study for which he showed a real love was music. From
his first school he went to the more advanced Gymnasium
in Munich, and there he met a teacher who introduced him
to Greek literature and to poetry, both of which attracted
him.

About this time he became interested in algebra. An
uncle of his lived in Munich, and one day Albert asked
him : " What is algebra ? "

The uncle's reply was: "Algebra is a great help to
the lazy mathematician. If you do not know a certain
quantity you call it x and treat it as if you do know it.
In the long run you find what it really is." From that
time onward Albert Einstein was never happier than when

102 Master Minds of Modern Science

solving problems. He read book after book on mathe-
matics and geometry, and shot so far ahead of his school-
mates that when he was only fifteen his mathematical
master vowed that he was already fit to go to the
university.

Then a great happiness came into his life, for his parents
moved to Italy. The boy delighted in the beauties of the
Apennines and walked for miles over the great and splen-
did hills. He loved the sun and the brightness that
surrounded him. At seventeen he was admitted to the
Technical School at Zurich, in Switzerland, where young
men are trained as teachers, but the fact that he was not
Swiss by birth prevented his gaining such a position, and
he became a private tutor.

All through these years he was reading deeply in his
spare time and discovering things for himself. Presently
he obtained a position in the Swiss Patent Office as
technical expert. This was very helpful, and his powers
developed steadily, until in 1905 he began to publish
papers on profound scientific subjects, which at once
attracted the attention of thinkers and brought him a
professorship at Zurich. In 191 1 he was given a professor-
ship at Prague, but he soon came back to Switzerland, of
which country he has become a citizen.

One of the greatest of French physicists, Henri
Poincare, spent a year in struggling with Einstein's new
theory of Relativity, and although he confessed that he
found it extremely difficult to understand, he became one
of the young man's warmest admirers.

Albert Einstein reached his fiftieth year in 1929. He is
very happily married, and leads as quiet a life as the world
allows him to lead. Allowed, we say, because it is the
penalty of his fame that he is swamped with letters and
requests for interviews. He has no laboratory — just a
quiet upstairs room where he sits with a few books and
a writing-pad and develops his theories. But he is no

Albert Einstein 103

hermit, and he loves his violin, an instrument on which he
is a fine performer. For an outdoor hobby he thinks there
is nothing like sailing. As he says himself: " The only
things that give me pleasure, apart from my work, are
my violin, my sail-boat, and the appreciation of my
fellow-workers/'

He cares little for money and still less for titles or
decorations. He does not even want praise. But he does
value affection, and he has a very keen sense of fun.

CHAPTER IX

AN EXPERIMENTER WHO IS HIS OWN RABBIT

J. B. S. Haldane and his Adventures

SAYS Mr Haldane :
When I was about twelve my father was very interested
in diving. There was some talk at the time of the dangers
of going down to any considerable depth, dangers which my
father pooh-poohed. He said that any healthy boy could go
down to forty feet, and he proceeded to try the experiment
with me. My only training for this experience was a short
sojourn in a compressed-air chamber, which taught me the
necessity of ' swallowing ' when pressure increased. If you do
not do this you get a pressure on the ear drums which causes a
most disagreeable crackling. Next day I was put into a diving
suit and sent down to a depth of forty feet, where I stayed for
half an hour.

It was not altogether a pleasant experience, for the dress was
too small and leaked horribly, and by the time I was pulled up
I was wet to the neck and most bitterly cold.

Of all the scientists who have been good enough to
grant interviews to the authors of this book, none began
his scientific career at an earlier age than J. B. S. Haldane,
for his father, the famous author of Mechanism, Life, and
Personality, began to use his son for certain harmless
experiments at the early age of four, and when the boy
was no more than eight he was already taking notes for
his father in the laboratory. At nine he went down coal-
mines, for his father at the time was Director of the
Doncaster Coal Owners' Research Laboratory. This was
dangerous work, sometimes done under rotten roofs and
in bad air and with one eye fixed on a canary in a cage,

104

y. B. S. Haldane 105

carried for the purpose of proving whether the air were
breathable or not. On another occasion Haldane accom-
panied his father down a Cornish tin-mine. They were
crossing a plank spanning an abyss when suddenly their
light went out.

" Luckily/' said Mr Haldane drily, " one has no sensa-
tion of giddiness in the dark."

An experiment in which he took part at a tender age
was one which involved his being shut up in an air-tight
box, a sort of coffin, that left only his head free. This was
done with the object of getting a quantitative record of
expansion when the subject was breathing certain mix-
tures of gas.

An adventure which amused him considerably was a
short voyage in a French ship from Tilbury to Dunkirk.
The vessel was full of rats ; and the French authorities,
who were in the throes of a plague scare, had asked
Haldane Senior to test a new system for gassing rats.
The forecastle was hermetically closed and the gas turned
on. When it was opened again J. B. S. and a friend of his
own age amused themselves by plunging into the still
poisonous air and seeing who could collect most dead rats
and cockroaches before choking.

J. B. S. Haldane has persisted in his habit of experi-
menting on himself. During the War he was employed
on problems arising out of the ventilation of submarines.
On one occasion he and a companion were voluntarily
imprisoned in a steel cylinder seven feet high and five in
diameter. The manhole was then closed and screwed
down, and an engine began to suck out the air through a
pipe. The air inside became very cold and filled with
mist. In five minutes it had reached a pressure corre-
sponding to that of a mountain-top twenty-two thousand
feet high. Mr Haldane began to observe his own
symptoms. He was breathing rapidly and deeply, and
his pulse was one hundred and ten, but the breathing

106 Master Minds of Modern Science

soon calmed down, and he felt better. But he began to
wonder at his companion ; his lips were purple, and he
was making silly jokes and trying to sing. Haldane found
that he could not stand without support.

His companion suggested a whiff of oxygen from a
cylinder they had with them, and to humour him Haldane
took a few breaths. The result was startling. The
electric light seemed to become so brilliant that it looked
as if the fuse would melt, while the noise of the pumping
engine apparently increased fourfold. At the end of half
an hour the pumping ceased and the prisoners were
set free, none the worse save for a slight headache. But
Mr Haldane states that his notebook, which should
have contained records of his pulse beat, was full of state-
ments— very illegible statements — to the effect that he
was feeling much better, but that he believed his com-
panion to be drunk.

Oxygen, it seems, is the only cure for mountain sickness.
General Bruce's party carried oxygen cylinders during
their ascent of Mount Everest. But the effect on those
who take oxygen under such conditions is to make them
oddly quarrelsome. One of the few residents at the
summit of Pike's Peak, an American mountain greatly
favoured by the tourist, is a sheriff who finds plenty of
work in dealing with quarrelsome visitors. Above sixteen
thousand feet oxygen is almost a necessity; it was
always supplied during the War to the crews of high-
flying bombing machines and airships. Oxygen, says
Mr Haldane, has a great future as medicine, and
properly administered it may halve the death-rate from
pneumonia. But it must be given continuously, perhaps
for as long as three days and nights on end, and it must
not be breathed pure, for in that state it is a slow poison.

A subject in which Mr Haldane takes great interest
is ' water-poisoning.' It sounds perhaps rather absurd
to talk of poisoning by pure water, yet this is quite pos-

y. B. S. Haldane 107

sible. The writer was once out fishing on Dartmoor on
a blazing hot day. He became extremely thirsty, and,
finding a spring of ice-cold water welling from the hill-
side, drank, not wisely, but too well. In a short time he
collapsed in agonizing cramp.

About the hottest place in England is a deep coal-mine.
There is one under Salford nearly a mile deep, with a
temperature so torrid that the men work in boots and
bathing drawers, and drip with sweat during the whole
shift. It is on record that one man lost eighteen pounds'
weight in the course of a shift. So long as these men did
not drink more than a quart of water during a shift no
harm came to them, but if this amount was exceeded —
and of course it often was — they suffered from appalling
cramp, sometimes in the stomach, sometimes in the back
or shoulders. The reason, as explained by Mr Haldane,
was that they had taken too much water for the salt
concentration in their blood. Blood, as we all know, is
as salt as sea-water, and large amounts of fresh water
alter its content.

The miners were then provided with drinking-water in
which a certain amount of salt had been dissolved. To
anyone less thirsty than they it would have been a nasty
beverage, but they drank it by gallons and asked for more.
And now there is no more cramp and very much less
fatigue. The cramp of stokers, and of gas- and iron-
workers, can be prevented in the same way.

J. B. S. Haldane is a bio-chemist — not a doctor, but
one who takes a part in developing or creating remedies
for diseases. As he says himself, a bio-chemist provides
chemical splints for damaged organs. Now most people
have an idea that all drugs are tried out upon animals
such as dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and rats. It would
surprise them to learn how often the chemist tries
experiments on himself, how often he acts as his own
rabbit.

108 Master Minds of Modern Scie?ice

On one occasion Mr Haldane wanted to know what
happened to a man when he became very acid or
very alkaline. Many of us know by unpleasant experi-
ence what it is to be too acid. The acid stored by the
digestive organs is hydrochloric, and anyone who gets
too acid suffers from that peculiarly distressing form of
indigestion known as heartburn. This actually has
nothing to do with the heart, but the sensation is very
disagreeable, and the commonest and most obvious
remedy is an alkaline substance such as bicarbonate of
soda.

Mr Haldane and one of his colleagues made themselves
alkaline by over-breathing and by eating up to three
ounces of bicarbonate of soda. The use of bicarbonate
for this purpose is obvious enough, but the resource of
over-breathing is less so. We all know that the lungs
supply the body with oxygen, and remove the carbonic
acid which is formed by the process of digestion. If you
over-breathe you get rid of too much carbonic acid, which
is the factor regulating your rate of breathing. You blow
it all out, and the results are curious and unpleasant.
You get ' pins and needles ' in your hands, feet, and face,
and if you persist the hands become stiff and the wrists
bend. On one occasion, after an experiment in over-
breathing, Mr Haldane suffered for no less than an
hour and a half from spasms of hands and face. When
conducting an experiment of this kind the experimenter's
chief trouble is that he is very apt to fall sound asleep, and
so he requires a helper to prod him into wakefulness
again.

These experiments threw much light on a disease called
tetany (not tetanus, which is quite different and much
more dangerous), of which the symptoms are cramp of the
hands, feet, face, and sometimes of the windpipe.

So much for making oneself alkaline ; achieving great
acidity was a much more difficult and dangerous matter.

jf. B. S. Haldane 109

Sitting in an airtight room and so increasing the amount
of carbonic acid in the blood was one way ; this ended in
a very bad headache, but the result was only temporary,
and Mr Haldane wanted something which would keep
him acid for several days at a time. The obvious
method was to drink a large quantity of hydrochloric acid,
but hydrochloric acid is a violent poison ; taken pure, it
will not only burn out one's inside, but actually dissolve
one's teeth. The strongest solution that can safely be
taken is one part in one hundred of water, and even a
pint of that is too stiff a dose for most people.

After considering the matter our experimenter decided
upon eating a quantity of ammonium chloride, which
would break up inside the body, liberating hydrochloric
acid. He took an ounce a day for two or three days, and
after this, he remarks casually, he remained breathless for
another two or three. His blood lost ten per cent, of its
volume, his weight dropped seven pounds in three days,
and his liver went very wrong. This experiment, which
Mr Haldane has described in a paper entitled " On being
One's Own Rabbit," had valuable results, for since it
was carried out babies suffering from tetany have been
given small doses of ammonium chloride, and the trouble
can then be cleared up within a few hours.

We have described these experiments at some length
because it is worth while to point out that bio-chemists
do not depend upon animals for the testing of their new
theories, but are constantly making tests upon them-
selves. You may possibly have heard of the so-called
' Poison Squad ' at the Federal Bureau of Chemistry in
Washington, U.S.A. It consists of volunteers — all expert
chemists — who test various adulterated food products
seized by Government agents, and eat them under the
inspection of doctors who are experts in toxicology (the
science of poisons). More than one of this devoted band
has become seriously ill, and one, Robert Vance Freeman,

no Master Minds of Modern Science

died as the result of absorbing poisons from adulterated
food.

The eight people who ate wild-duck paste sandwiches
at Loch Maree in 1922 all died of a kind of paralysis
which began in their eyes and spread until they were
unable to breathe. The poison in this case came from a
bacillus called botulinus. This, says Mr Haldane, is the
most poisonous of all known substances which can be
taken by the mouth — so deadly that one man could carry
enough of it to poison the entire human race. This poison
is made by a bacillus which can only live where there is
no oxygen, and is therefore found chiefly in tinned foods,
but occasionally in the interior of sausages and hams.
Happily it is killed by cooking.

It was Professor Bruce- White of Bristol University who
solved the riddle of the death of these unfortunate people
by detecting the poison. While every large town in Britain
has its own analyst who examines suspected foods, the
more difficult analyses are largely in the hands of half a
dozen men at the Bristol Laboratory. They are inun-
dated with samples of cheese, ham, brawn, meat pastes,
tinned salmon, and other foods that are under suspicion.
In some cases these chemists do not hesitate to taste the
suspected samples, and on one occasion Professor Bruce-
White made himself very ill by tasting some Canadian
cheese which had caused poisoning outbreaks at Dover
and at Warrington.

The list of men and women who have risked their lives
for Science — and often lost them — is a very long one.
One of the most famous was the late Professor Maxwell
Lefroy, whose principal triumph was the defeat of the
death-watch beetle, which does so much harm to old
buildings. It was during a search for a new form of
poison gas to destroy the house-fly that he was killed.
That was in 1925. Earlier in the same year he had been
very nearly killed. When he recovered he was asked what

y. B. S. Haldane in

led up to the accident. His answer was : " I am surprised
and sorry that the matter received so much publicity,
because such accidents are part of the normal daily risk
of our work and we do not think very much about
them."

A splendid example of devotion was given by an English
nurse, Miss Mary Davies, at the American hospital at
Neuilly, in France, during the War. Dr Taylor, of the
Imperial Cancer Research Institute, had been experi-
menting with a quinine preparation for the cure of that
terrible malady gas-gangrene, but in using guinea-pigs
had been unable to obtain definite results. He needed a
case of gas-gangrene not complicated by other forms of
infection.

Nurse Davies, who had studied at the Pasteur Institute,
had seen some two hundred fatal cases of the disease.
Without saying a word to anyone, she took a room near
the hospital, and two days later sent a note to Dr Taylor
begging him to come. He came and found that she had
given herself an injection of the culture of gangrene which
he himself had been using. Within two hours symptoms
of gas-gangrene developed. The doctor at once injected
his quinine preparation, and in twenty-four hours the
patient was out of danger. The risk taken by Nurse
Davies was terrific, but it was indirectly the means of
saving many lives.

Another nurse, Miss Clara Maas, of the American
Ambulance, gave her life in a similar experiment. She
allowed herself to be bitten by a mosquito infected with
yellow fever. Though treated with serum by Dr Caldas,
she died. She was one of several people who allowed
themselves to be infected with the same deadly disease.
Of these, three died, but it is largely owing to their self-
sacrifice that yellow fever, once the plague of the Southern
States, has now been practically conquered.

Dr Houston of the Metropolitan Water Board is another

ii2 Master Minds of Modern Science

who took a grave risk for the sacred cause of Science, for
he drank raw Thames water containing typhoid bacilli.
Experiments had proved that ' cultivated ' strains of the
microbe possessed great vitality, but tests with bacilli
taken direct from typhoid cases showed that these were
not so hardy. The ' wild ' microbe is not always easy to
obtain, but Dr Houston was able to get a supply from a
sufferer who had himself infected forty different persons.
The bacilli perished rapidly when placed in samples of
raw Thames water, but Dr Houston regarded the result
as a negative test and decided upon a positive one. He
therefore drank half a pint of the infected water, which
at a rough estimate contained two hundred and eighteen
million typhoid bacilli. We are happy to be able to add
that he was none the worse.

Among the many queer experiments carried out for the
purpose of testing scientific theories was one conducted at
the London Hospital, where a medical student allowed
himself to be suspended by the heels from a hook in the
ceiling. Professor Leonard Hill had been conducting a
series of experiments on blood pressure, and wished to
discover how far the healthy human heart is able to
nullify the effect of gravity on the blood streams of the
body.

Professor Hill said :

When a healthy man stands upright the blood pressure in
the vessels of the neck is about equal to a column of one hundred
and twenty millimetres of mercury. The pressure in the
vessels of the lower leg is, however, much higher on account of
the actions of gravity on the vertical column of blood, and is
equal to one hundred and ninety millimetres of mercury. In
theory if a man is turned upside down the leg pressure should
fall to one hundred and twenty and that in the neck rise to
one hundred and ninety. To find out if this really did happen
we suspended a student for three minutes from the ceiling.
We found that, although the leg pressure dropped to about

J. B. S. HALDANE

Photo by Vaughan and Freeman

113

y. B. S. Haldane 113

fifty, there was no corresponding rise in pressure in the neck
and arm vessels. In other words, the healthy heart was able
to nullify the effect of gravity.

There is no special risk in hanging upside down for
three minutes — nothing more is involved than a certain
amount of discomfort. The sleepless tests which were
conducted in Washington in 1925 must have imposed
a more severe strain upon the students who carried
them out. Eight undergraduates volunteered. Six com-
pleted sixty hours without sleep and two completed
eighty-five. The object was to test the change in mental
and physical condition caused by lack of sleep.

Every week there are similar instances of self-sacrifice
in the interests of Science, but as a rule we hear nothing
about them. They pre taken as a matter of course by
scientists of all nations, and even when news of some
desperate experiment leaks out the names of the experi-
menters are usually concealed. It is known, for instance,
that several British laboratory workers inoculated each
other with living cancer germs in order to test the
theories of Doctors Gye and Barnard, but the names of
these astonishingly brave men were never made public.

Amateur as well as professional scientists have shown
immense courage in their work. Mr Haldane mentions
one of these in a paper called Scientific Research for
Amateurs. He describes the swim of the young French-
man Norbert Carteret through the cavern of Montespan.
Here was a stream flowing out through a cave in which
had already been found traces of a long-vanished race.
Flint tools and bones had been discovered, and it oc-
curred to Carteret that if he could force his way up this
stream he might make important finds. Carrying matches
and candles in a waterproof case, he waded up the swift,
ice-cold river to the spot where the roof met the water ;
then after taking a long breath he dived and swam

H4 Master Minds of Modern Science

desperately against the strong current until he found air
once more above him.

He was now in a section of the cave which had been
sealed off from the world by water for many thousands of
years, and, walking, swimming, and diving, he carried on
for more than a mile, when once more he came out into
daylight. The results were of the greatest importance, for
he discovered a number of rude statues of unbaked clay,
of a type hitherto unknown. Superb powers of diving
and great courage were needed for this really amazing
venture.

Research of the kind mentioned in this chapter is now
being carried on in every part of the world, and by people
born in every continent. Sir Ernest Rutherford, whose
story is told elsewhere in this book, was born in New
Zealand; Bose is a Hindu; Hata, the man who helped
Ehrlich in his great medical discoveries, was a Japanese ;
Mendeleeff and Metchnikoff were Russians ; Banting, of
insulin fame, is Canadian ; while small countries such as
Denmark and Switzerland, and new countries such as the
Argentine Republic, are all producing good men, ready to
suffer as well as work in the cause of Science.

But we have wandered quite away from the original
subject of this chapter. Mr Haldane is a man of
many parts, and his interests embrace plant as well as
animal life. One of his pursuits is the genetic study of
plant life, and the writer found him in the large garden
where he is the head of the Genetical Department.

This garden, at first sight, resembles that of one of
those advanced seedsmen who work on the production of
new varieties of fruits and flowers, yet very soon a big
difference is discoverable. While it is true that a large
number of new varieties of plants are produced, many of
these are quite unfit for sale. For instance, there is a
large glass-house devoted entirely to primulas ; it contains
about one hundred and fifty different varieties all obtained

J. B. S. Haldane 115

from the original Primula sinensis which came from China
about a hundred years ago. Some of these are very-
beautiful, others are freaks. One, for instance, has a
great bunch of leaves around each head of blossom ; in
another the flowers are represented by small green knobs.
These crosses are being studied from the point of view of
pure Science. There is a laboratory in the garden, and
here new varieties are dissected, their colouring matter
analysed, and much information obtained which will
serve both Science and the scientific grower.

In another house there were plum-trees in full bloom.
The windows of this house were carefully screened with fine
wire gauze so as to prevent any insect entering, for this
might cause the pollination of one bloom from another.
These blossoms were being artificially crossed, and each
branch bore a separate label showing the exact nature of
the crossing.

Odd discoveries are made now and then. One concerns
the crocus and an aphis. If there is one form of insect
more pestilent than another in the eyes of the gardener it
is the aphis or green fly. It ruins roses, destroys broad
beans, and it will settle like a plague on everything in the
greenhouse. Ask the average gardener if he can imagine
any use for the green fly and his language will be pungent
enough to shrivel the leaves ; yet one of these aphids has
been proved to have a real use, for through it certain
crocuses assume that beautiful marbling which is so
greatly admired and so difficult to obtain. Now that the
secret is out marbled crocuses are likely to become much
more plentiful and cheaper than they have been in the
past.

Like all or most scientists, Mr Haldane is a very modest
man.

" I am," he said, " a rotten observer. If I have any
merit it is that of being able to devise experiments which
will clear up problems.' ' He has a great admiration for

n6 Master Minds of Modern Science

the manual skill of men like Aston, who matches the great
billiard-player Lindrum in his dexterity.

Mr Haldane has another talent of which he did not
speak, an invaluable gift of putting down the things he
has observed in English which the layman can not only
understand, but enjoy. The essays contained in his book
Possible Worlds, from which he has kindly allowed
information to be drawn for this chapter, are as interesting
as any romance, and delightfully written.

CHAPTER X

HOW THE CHEMIST WENT FARMING

Sir Daniel Hall and his Experiments

A POET has spoken of " dead earth." Take up a
handful of soil from your garden and examine it.
You are holding a very large number of particles
of rock broken up by frost and rain, and mixed with a
certain amount of decayed or decaying animal and
vegetable matter. Apparently it is all dead enough, yet
put a pinch of that soil under a powerful lens and you
will see millions of living creatures, which multiply with
immense speed. These are bacteria, and the top layers of
the soil are full of them. Three or four feet down, how-
ever, they almost cease to exist, and below a certain depth
the soil is dead indeed.

Without these tiny atoms of restless life no plant could
grow. Although they are invisible to the naked eye, they
are precious beyond gold, for without them our planet's
surface would be as dead as that of our satellite the moon.

But plants, you say, do not live on bacteria. That is
so, yet certainly they cannot live without them. Put a
cartload of stable manure on your garden in the spring,
and how much of it is visible when you do your next
winter's digging? Practically none, and you say the
plants have used it.

But a plant cannot eat manure. It can only feed upon
it after it has been converted into something else. The
agents for that conversion are the tiny living creatures
named bacteria. They are almost incredibly small. Most
of them average between one twenty-five-thousandth
and one fifty-thousandth of an inch in diameter,

117

n8 Master Minds of Moder?t Science

yet they multiply so fast that under perfect conditions
one of them might in a day become the ancestor
of 280,000,000,000,000.

Bacteria are responsible alike for the flavours of butter
and tobacco and for the smell of a dead mouse. Their
most important job is the breaking down of manure and
other organic substances into food for plants. One race
of bacteria turns the dead plants into humus, another into
nitrate and into the other substances on which plants live.
Even such tough stuff as wheat straw is broken down by
them and converted into plant food.

One of the things that scientists have found out is
exactly what plants do live upon. They have discovered
precisely how a plant feeds and under what conditions of
food, moisture, and warmth it most quickly reaches its
full growth. The first step in this direction was the
analysis of plants.

Take a living plant and reduce it to its elements ; it
will be found that water is its most important constituent ;
next comes carbon. Of the dry matter of the plant fully
half is carbon; oxygen and hydrogen compose most of
the remainder, with a certain number of other elements,
one of them being nitrogen. The amount of nitrogen is
small, being only about one-fiftieth of the dry matter, yet
nitrogen is so important that no plant can exist with-
out it. The remaining ash is formed of a number of
other elements, phosphorus, silicon, chlorine, and the
metals potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron, and
manganese.

Interesting, no doubt, you will say, yet crops were
grown long before people had any knowledge of these
facts. Our ancestors also used manures to make their
crops grow. That is true. Such things as dung and leaf
mould, chalk and marl, have been used from time im-
memorial, but they were used blindly.

So far as we know, the first artificial manure to be used

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SIR DANIEL HALL

ITS

Sir Daniel Hall 119

was bones. Bones make useful manure because of the
phosphorus they contain, but bones lie in the soil a very
long time before they rot down and form plant food. An
important discovery of the nineteenth century was that
of the chemist Liebig, who found that bones when
treated with sulphuric acid made a splendid plant food ;
an almost greater discovery was that of Henslow, who
found that coprolite, a mineral found first in Cambridge-
shire, could be used like bones for making superphosphates.
Of this one manure the world now makes and uses more
than six million tons a year.

The three foods which plants need most are nitrogen,
potash, and phosphorus. Without these foods our gar-
dens and fields would be deserts, and we should starve.
Formerly the farmers got enough of these substances
from the old-fashioned manures, but during the past one
hundred and fifty years the population of the world has
nearly trebled. In the year 1780 the people of this planet
numbered only a little over six hundred million ; to-day
it is reckoned that there are more than seventeen hundred
million, and if Science had not stepped in to help the
farmer these multitudes would not have enough food
to eat.

There are many ways in which the scientist has helped
us, but none is more important than his provision of
artificial food (fertilizers) for our crops. It was in
England that agricultural science had its birth, and
Englishmen have done a great deal to increase the
world's food-supply.

Most people have heard or read of the Rothamsted
Experimental Farm, the most famous place of its kind in
the world. Rothamsted, which is near Harpenden, in
Hertfordshire, belonged to John Bennet Lawes, who was
born in 1814. He was educated at Eton and Oxford.
Experiments in chemistry were his favourite amusements
as a boy. In 1834, when only twenty, he took up the

120 Master Minds of Modern Science

management of the home farm at Rothamsted, comprising
about two hundred and fifty acres, and one of the first
things he did was to turn an old barn into a laboratory.

Lawes began his experiments by planting wheat, oats,
etc., in pots, feeding them with different manures and
noting how they grew. One of the first new manures he
used was animal charcoal, which was then a waste pro-
duct. He found that it was much more efficient if first
treated with sulphuric acid, and this led to the discovery
of superphosphate of lime, which worked wonders on the
turnip crops.

Lawes found that he needed a trained chemist, and
engaged Dr J. H. Gilbert. The two worked together for
fifty-seven years, and few partnerships were ever of so
much service to mankind. For one great thing which
they did was to work out the proper rotation of crops.
No gardener dreams of planting cabbages in the same bed
two years in succession. Cabbages take so much out of
the soil that it does not pay to grow them on the same
plot twice running. It is better to follow with peas or
potatoes, and to grow cabbages on another bed. That had
been known for a long time, but Lawes and Gilbert
showed exactly what a crop of wheat or barley or turnips
took out of the ground, and why beans should follow
wheat. They also worked on pasture, showing exactly
what effect different fertilizers had on the milk yield of
cows grazed on fertilized and unfertilized fields, and
the value of differently treated grass lands for fattening
stock. The problem of what the landlord ought to pay
to an outgoing tenant as compensation for unexhausted
manures was another of those worked out at Rothamsted.

For his services to agriculture Lawes was made a
baronet, and honours came to him from all over the world.
He lived to be eighty-five, and before he died set aside
one hundred thousand pounds so that the Rothamsted
Farm experiments could be continued. Sir Daniel Hall

Sir Daniel Hall 121

has written a book on these experiments, which is full of
interesting tables showing the different crops given by
the use of different manures. For instance, hay. Hay
grown on unmanured land at Rothamsted over a period
of forty-seven years averaged only twenty-three hundred-
weight to the acre. Hay grown with a complete mineral
manure but with no nitrogen gave thirty-nine hundred-
weight to the acre, but hay on a plot fully manured ran
to no less than sixty-four hundredweight per acre.

One patch of land at Rothamsted has been cropped for
years without being given any fertilizer at all, and the
nitrogen loss has been noted. The nitrogen goes on
dwindling year by year. Another field has been allowed
to lie fallow for twenty-five years. The self-sown grasses
and weeds are never taken away, but allowed to rot
where they lie. This land is improving, and the amount of
nitrogen contained in it is increasing. What is happening
is that a kind of bacterium called the azotobacter is able
to work among the dying vegetation and to fix a certain
amount of nitrogen from the air.

A few years ago efforts were made to ' domesticate ' the
azotobacter and inoculate soil with it. But as yet this
experiment has not been very successful, and Sir Daniel
Hall says, " The picture of the farmer carrying the manure
for a field in his waistcoat pocket and applying it with a
hypodermic syringe is still a vision of the future/ '

Air, as we all know, consists largely of nitrogen gas, and
since supplies of nitrogen from other sources have been
running short the scientists have invented ways of getting
nitrogen from the air for use on the land. In the great
plant at Bellingham, near Darlington, thousands of tons of
nitrates are manufactured yearly from the air by an
electrical process ; in Norway and Germany there are large
factories for the same purpose. At Bellingham nitrate of
ammonia is combined with chalk into what is called nitro-
chalk, which is a most valuable fertilizer.

122 Master Minds of Modern Science

Fertilizers, though immensely important, are not the
only concern of the agricultural chemist. For instance,
the texture of the soil makes a deal of difference to the
growth of crops. Every gardener knows the value of a
fine tilth — that is to say, of breaking up and powdering
the soil properly before sowing his seeds. Sir Daniel and
others have tested various soils and shown that sandy
soil, which the farmer calls light, is actually heavier than
heavy clay. The latter weighs only just over sixty-six
pounds per cubic foot, while the sand weighs seventy-nine
pounds. The reason for the difference is that there is
more air space between the very small grains of the clay
than between the heavier grains of the sand.

Again, the farmer talks of ' warm ' and ' cold ' soils.
Soil temperatures do vary greatly, for a well-drained loam
absorbs more heat than a wet, heavy clay or a pale chalk.
Experiments set forth by Sir Daniel in his book The Soil
show how land should be treated in order to gain the
greatest share of the sun's warmth, and the temperatures
required for the best growth of various plants. Wheat,
for instance, begins to grow at a temperature only eleven
degrees above freezing-point ; it makes its greatest growth
between eighty- three degrees and eighty-four degrees;
but if the temperature rises above 108*5 growth ceases
altogether. The melon refuses to start growing until a
temperature of 65*4 degrees has been reached, does best
at 91*4, and refuses to grow in a heat above 111 degrees.

The farmer or fruit-grower has always known that
certain soils are better than others for certain crops.
For example, the Vale of Evesham grows the best plums
in England, while Kent has soil best fitted for cherry
orchards. The agricultural chemist has pointed out the
reasons for these peculiarities, and has helped the farmer
to find the best soils for such new crops as sugar-beet.

Let us turn from the soil to the plant. In another
chapter of this book we have given some account of the

Sir Daniel Hall 123

work of Luther Burbank, who has tamed wild plants
and improved cultivated varieties. Plant-breeders have
done an immense amount of good work in evolving
new strains of common crops, so that the farmer of the
twentieth century has a far wider variety from which to
select than had his father. But even more valuable has
been the work done in producing varieties of disease-
resisting plants.

' Rust ' is the great foe of the wheat-grower, and it has
been reckoned that in the past at least fifteen per cent, of
the world's wheat crop was lost through this one disease.
The spores travel on the wind and so cross whole conti-
nents. Professor Biff en is one of those who have evolved
new strains of wheat able to withstand the attacks of
rust. He has also produced wheats that are strong in
the stalk and therefore not so liable as the older varieties
to be ' laid ' by heavy rains. This is important, for at
present no farmer dares to fertilize his wheat-fields to the
full extent — that is, to get the utmost possible crop — for
if he did so the wrheat would grow so tall and the ears
would be so heavy that a summer thunderstorm would
flatten out the whole field and make harvesting a most
costly and difficult matter.

Australia is now growing large quantities of wheat on
land where the rainfall is small and uncertain. There
Farrer has bred wheats suitable for these dry conditions.
In Canada Dr Charles Saunders has obtained fast-grow-
ing, quick-ripening wheats which have added millions to
the value of Canadian soil. It is not so long ago that the
forty-ninth parallel — that is, the northern limit of the
United States — was regarded as the northern limit of
the wheat-field. Farmers who started grain-growing in
Canada were looked upon as lunatics.

1 Marquis ' wheat, originated by Dr Saunders, has
changed all that, and to-day farmers are growing this
particular wheat well above the fifty-third parallel of

124 Master Minds of Modern Science

northern latitude — that is, more than four hundred miles
north of the line fixed fifty years ago. Within less than
a man's lifetime Canada has become the granary of the
Empire, and each year sees the wheat-line creeping
farther and farther north. In 1929, we are told, wheat
of a new variety called ' Garnet ' was actually ripened in
Alaska.

Another country which has a large wheat-belt is India,
and there Mr and Mrs Howard are breeding new varieties
to satisfy the requirements of the local growers.

The potato becomes more and more important as an
article of food both for man and beast. But the potato
is liable to various diseases, the worst being the terrible
wart disease, for which there is no known remedy. Here
again the plant-breeder has come to the rescue by breed-
ing new varieties of immune potatoes — that is, potatoes
that do not take the disease at all.

Investigations made at Rothamsted have shown that
different varieties of potatoes vary greatly in their feeding
value, some containing as much as twenty-six per cent,
of dry matter, others only nineteen per cent. A ton of
the former are therefore worth twenty-eight hundred-
weight of the latter from the point of view of food. It is
easy to see how valuable this discovery is, say, to a pig-
farmer.

Seventy or eighty years ago nearly all gardeners saved
their own seed. They had to, for the seeds from the
seedsmen were shockingly bad. In fact, there was actually
a big trade in dead seeds, that were no more use than
dust or sand. Even if the seed was good it was mixed
with all sorts of pestilent weed seeds which came up with
it and fouled the land. One of the many debts that the
farmer and gardener owe to the scientist is the fact that
nowadays seed bought from any reliable seedsman is live
and clean.

All seeds nowadays are tested scientifically before being

Sir Daniel Hall 125

sent out. The process is this. A pinch of seed is sprinkled
on a small sheet of soaking wet blotting-paper and put
into the germinator, a sort of oven in which exactly the
right degree of warmth is kept up. Within a few hours
or days a peep into the germinator will show that the
seed in bulk is all right if its representatives have ' passed
their exam.' and are sprouting gaily. Thus the exact
proportion of germination is ascertained — that is, how
many seeds in each hundred can be expected to sprout.

Nearly thirty years ago Professor S. Lestrom, of
Helsingfors University, began experiments to find out
the effect of treating growing plants with electricity.
During 1902-3 he had experimental fields near Newcastle
in connexion with the Durham College of Science, in
Germany near Breslau, and in Sweden at Alvidaberg,
where he grew plants of different kinds under electrical
treatment. He came to the conclusion that strawberries
showed a considerable increase in yield under this treat-
ment, wheat a much smaller yet perceptible increase,
potatoes and beet still less. He declared that electrical
treatment was useful on well-tilled land, but of no value
on poor, unfertilized soil.

Since that date many experiments have been made in
what is called electro-culture. In 1921 electrical stimula-
tion of plant growth was tried at Rothamsted. Currents
of fifteen thousand volts were passed over growing barley
on a network of wires suspended ten feet above the
ground. Similar experiments have been made at Salford
Priors, near Evesham, where a small grant was made by
the Board of Agriculture toward the cost of the apparatus.

There are three ways of using electricity to help the
growth of plants. One is to sink plates in the ground and
gently shock the roots of the plants growing between
them. Lord Kelvin, hearing of this plan, smilingly sug-
gested that perhaps it was the turning up of the soil in
order to sink the plates that did the plants good. A

126 Master Minds of Modern Science

second method is to turn night into day by means of
electric light. This was tried at the Royal Botanic
Gardens by the late Mr Thwaite, and it worked well.
At the end of four days tomato plants grown under the
electric light were four inches higher than those in another
house where the plants had not been so treated, while
chrysanthemum plants thus treated were two inches
taller.

The third and more usual method is to run overhead
wires above the field or plot and pass the current through
these at a high potential. When there is no wind one can
hear the fizz of the charge coming off the wires, and in
the dark there is a faint glow visible.

The writer asked Sir Daniel Hall whether electrification
was going to help the farmer. He answered that he did
not know. That passing a current through overhead
wires does increase the growth of the plants beneath the
wires seems beyond doubt, but at present the cost of the
installation is very heavy, and the benefit obtained does
not appear to compensate for the money spent. In any
case, electricity will not serve as a substitute for fertilizer.
As Sir Oliver Lodge once said: " Stroking a plant is not
equal to feeding it."

But if electro-culture is still more or less in the air, the
electric farm — that is, the farm run by electric power — is
a notable success. There are already some eight hundred
of these farms in the country. At a small two-men farm
of seventy acres, where the cows are milked by machinery,
the saving over hand-labour is eleven pounds thirteen
shillings a year. On separating the milk the saving is
five pounds sixteen shillings. On pumping water the
saving is six pounds eight shillings and fourpence, and on
chaff-cutting nearly two pounds.

But the largest increase of profit is in the electrified
poultry-yard. In a hen-house lighted and heated by
electricity the yield of eggs in winter is increased fifty

Sir Daniel Hall 127

per cent., while growing chicks treated with ultra-violet
rays are at nine weeks old twice as heavy as others grown
in the ordinary manner. Incubators can be worked
safely and economically by electricity, and the electric
brooder has been proved a great success.

Another interesting use of electricity in farming is its
use for making hay without sunshine. As soon as the
grass is cut it is stacked in the rick, with iron cylinders
placed in proper positions according to the size of the
rick. Air from an electric fan is then forced through the
rick for about an hour a day for nine days, and hay of
excellent quality is the result.

Within the past one hundred and fifty years the death-
rate among the people of this country has fallen from
seventy per thousand to fewer than fourteen per thousand.
This is due to the medical scientists who have discovered
ways of preventing and curing infectious diseases such
as smallpox, typhus, scarlet fever, and diphtheria. In
similar fashion the agricultural scientist has cut down the
death-rate among our domestic animals. There is now
less foot-and-mouth disease in Great Britain than in
any other country, while such diseases as swine fever
and anthrax have been checked. At New Haw, near
Weybridge, the Ministry of Agriculture has a research
station, the purpose of which is to investigate the diseases
of livestock, to find out how they are caused and how
they can best be prevented. Diseased animals arrive
there from every part of the country, and are kept under
observation. Many of these diseases are extremely
infectious and can be communicated to human beings.

Seven scientists are in charge of this station, where all
sorts of curious experiments are carried out. For in-
stance, some of the ground is deliberately poisoned, yet
on this land fat turkeys roam quite happily. The sheds
at New Haw are built of corrugated iron with a frame-
work of metal. When it is necessary to disinfect a shed

128 Master Minds of Modern Science

it is filled with straw which is soaked in petrol and fired.
The shed is red hot when the fire dies down, and it is fairly
safe to say that the germs have all been destroyed.

Sir Daniel Hall, who has very kindly provided most
of the material for this chapter, was originally a young
chemist interested in gardening. In 1890 he began his
career by lecturing on matters of interest to farmers. In
1894 he was appointed first principal of the well-known
agricultural college at Wye, and, as he says, he has grown
up in the movement.

He became a director of the Rothamsted Experimental
Farm, about which he has written a most interest-
ing book, and during the War he was brought by Lord
Prothero into the Ministry of Agriculture. At present he
spends a good deal of his time in the interesting garden at
Merton where Mr J. B. S. Haldane carries out his plant
experiments.

Some of the data in this chapter are the result of the
work of Mr R. Borlase Matthews, of Greater Felcourt,
himself a distinguished scientist, to whom also we offer
our acknowledgments.

CHAPTER XI

SOLVING THE RIDDLES OF SPACE
The Achievements of Sir Oliver Lodge

ON a December day in 1904 a tall man in a long
brown overcoat stood in a courtyard of Birming-
ham University. The air was thick with one of
Birmingham's worst brand of winter fogs; not even a
London ' particular ' is thicker than the really bad Midland
fog. The tall man was Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of
Birmingham University, who was engaged in examining
certain strands of wire which passed upward and
vanished in the impenetrable gloom a few feet overhead.

Presently there came from somewhere near by the
vicious crackle of a powerful electric discharge, and great
jagged sparks shot to and fro between the spherical ter-
minals of an apparatus in the research laboratory out-
side which Sir Oliver was standing. Men pulled the
terminals apart, and as the discharge was transferred to
the outside wires there came from above a sharp fizzling
like the sound of water dropping on red-hot metal.

Then a strange thing happened. The solid fog-bank
thinned. There was no wind to drive it away. It simply
thinned, and the outlines of the lofty University building
gradually developed like the image on a photographic
plate. The fog turned to cloud, the cloud to mist, and
high overhead there became visible the insulators in which
the wires terminated. When the current was shut off the
biting fog crept back and in a few minutes filled the space
which had been so strangely cleared. A second experi-
ment of the same kind was made a little later at Liver-
pool. One discharging pole was erected, and a thick

1 129

130 Master Minds of Modern Science

fog was quickly cleared for a distance of sixty feet all
around.

For centuries fog has been one of man's worst enemies,
and for many years scientists have discussed ways and
means of fighting it. In 1870 Professor Tyndall showed
that a dust-free space was formed over a hot body such
as a red-hot poker. At first it was thought that the heat
simply burned up the dust particles or that the rising
currents of air blew them away, but a little later Lord
Rayleigh proved that the explanation was not as easy as
this. In 1883 Sir Oliver Lodge took up the problem, and
with the help of the late Professor Clark he proved that
what actually happened was a bombardment of the dust
particles by molecules, and further experiments proved
that this is an electrical action.

What is a fog? It is caused by particles of dust on
which, when the air is still, condense tiny drops of water-
vapour. Smoke on one side, mist on the other, and a
town fog is a combination of the two. Electrify a cloud
and it turns to rain. Sir Oliver Lodge proved similarly
that if you electrify a fog the dust or smoke in it is
precipitated — it falls to the ground. So came about the
interesting experiments which we have described; these
prove that if the supply of electric power be sufficient,
even the densest fog can be cleared away.

From his student days Sir Oliver Lodge has taken a
keen interest in weather, especially in electrical pheno-
mena, and one of his most interesting books, written in
1892, deals with protection against lightning. (It is called
Lightning Conductors and Lightning Guards, and is pub-
lished by Pitman.)

The lightning conductor was in existence, of course, long
before Sir Oliver's time, for the first was erected by
Benjamin Franklin on his own house in Philadelphia in
the year 1752. Most of us know something about light-
ning conductors ; at least we know that they are made of

SIR OLIVER LODGE, F.R.S.
A recent portrait.

130

Sir Oliver Lodge 131

copper or iron with a sharp point at the top, and that
the lower end is connected with a metal plate buried in
damp ground. The object is twofold : first to drain away
the electricity from passing clouds and so render them
harmless; secondly, when this is impossible, to receive
the flash and convey it to earth without harming the
building to which the conductor is attached.

For many years after Franklin first used it the light-
ning conductor was not generally adopted, but by the
middle of the last century it was used on all church spires,
factory chimneys, and similar tall buildings, and it was
supposed to afford complete protection. But while con-
ductors doubtless saved many lives and buildings, pro-
tected buildings were sometimes struck.

Several of these are mentioned in Sir Oliver's book.
There was an instance at a house in Wavertree, where
lightning struck a church which had a conductor, and at
the same time a gas pipe was melted in an underground
cellar of the house opposite, and the gas was fired. On
May 14, 1889, Mangalore Lighthouse, off the east coast
of Madras Province, in India, was struck, one man being
killed and two injured. In this case a spark was actually
seen to rise from the floor inside the lighthouse. The
man who was killed was standing near a coil of galvanized
iron fencing-wire which lay inside the room; this was
only five feet from the conductor, though separated from
it by the outside wall.

These and other similar events gave people the idea
that lightning conductors were of little use, and then it
was that Sir Oliver Lodge began to make a special study
of the subject.

Clerk Maxwell had already pointed out that there is
only one perfect protection against lightning, that being
to enclose the chamber in a metallic cage or sheath
through which no conductor is allowed to pass without
being thoroughly connected to it. But of course this

132 Master Minds of Modern Science

method is too costly for ordinary use, though it might
be applied to a powder magazine or dynamite factory.

Sir Oliver pointed out that the danger lies not so much
in the opposing charges of electricity in cloud and earth,
but in the vast store of energy in the stratum or layer
between the two (what is called the dielectric). To
dissipate such a volume of energy suddenly by means of
a thick rod of copper is not the safest way, for an electric
discharge is very likely to overshoot itself and not to be
exhausted in a single swing. Sir Oliver says :

The hastily discharged cloud, at first supposed positive, over-
discharges itself and becomes negative ; then again discharges
and over-discharges till it is positive as at first, and so on with
gradually diminishing amplitude of swing, all executed in an
extraordinarily minute fraction of a second, but with a vigour
and wave-producing energy which are astonishing.

It was usual formerly to use a thick and costly copper
rod, copper because it is the best conductor of electricity,
but Sir Oliver showed that a thin iron wire may actually
be better. Its extra resistance dissipates some of the
energy and tends to damp out vibration sooner. A side
flash is less likely to occur from thin iron than from stout
copper. He proved also that metal tape is electrically
better than a round rod, but that four detached and
well-separated wires are better than either.

Sir Oliver's experiments have been of very great help
to the British Post Office, and to telegraph, telephone,
and cable companies, in showing them how to protect
their wires and cables from the effects of lightning.
Besides proving that iron is better than copper for this
purpose, he demonstrated that several points are prefer-
able to a single point, that conductors should be con-
tinuous and all unavoidable joints soldered; that high
lightning rods are not of special value ; that greater sur-
face should be given to earth connexions ; and that both

Sir Oliver Lodge 133

deep and shallow earths are required. Also he proved
that it is most necessary to inspect all lightning rods at
regular intervals.

It was his work on lightning conductors that drew Sir
Oliver's attention to the investigation of wireless waves,
and it may be news to some of our readers that it was he
who invented the coherer which made possible the success
of Marconi's early experiments in wireless. This is what
the great Hertz himself said :

Professor Oliver Lodge, in Liverpool, investigated the theory
of the lightning conductor, and in connexion with this carried
out a series of experiments on the discharge of small condensers
which led him on to the observation of oscillations and waves
in tones. Inasmuch as he entirely accepted Maxwell's views and
strove to verify them, there can scarcely be any doubt that if
I had not anticipated him he would also have succeeded in
obtaining waves in the air and thus also in proving the propaga-
tion of electric force.

In other words, it was largely by chance that Sir Oliver
did not achieve the honour of being the originator of
practical wireless telephony. As it is, he is one of the
great living authorities on this subject, and has both
written and lectured widely upon it. But Sir Oliver's
special subject is ether — perhaps the greatest of all
puzzles to the average person without scientific training.

" Many physical phenomena," says Chambers s En-
cyclopedia, " are supposed to be due to the propagation
of a state of stress or motion through a medium filling all
space. Such a medium is called an ether." Yes, but our
difficulty is that ether appeals to none of our senses. It
cannot be seen, felt, smelled, tasted, or tested by any
chemical process known to man. It has no weight,
apparently no substance. How, then, can man appreciate
its existence?

Man, indeed, can only appreciate it indirectly. Sir Isaac

134 Master Minds of Modern Science

Newton said it was impossible to conceive of direct action
at a distance, yet light and radiant heat reach us from
the sun more than ninety million miles away, while wire-
less electric waves travel at the same speed as light, and
there is no appreciable interval between the striking of a
note on a piano in London and its reception by a listener
at Edinburgh or Plymouth.

In his book The Ether of Space (published by Benn)
Sir Oliver Lodge says :

No form of ordinary matter, solid, liquid, or gaseous, is
competent to transmit a thing with the speed of light. For
the conveyance of radiation or light all ordinary matter is not
only incompetent, but hopelessly and absurdly incompetent.
Yet it is transmitted — for it takes time on the journey, travelling
at a well-known and definite speed, and it is a quivering or
periodic disturbance falling under the general category of
wave motion.

Gravity too depends upon the existence of some such
medium as ether. The power of gravity is enormous, and
of it Sir Oliver says : " The force with which the moon is
held in its orbit would be great enough to tear asunder a
steel rod four hundred miles thick with a tenacity of
thirty tons per square inch."

Sir Oliver continues :

The question is often asked, " Is ether material ? " . . . Un-
doubtedly the ether belongs to the material or physical universe,
but it is not ordinary matter. I should prefer to say that it is
not ' matter ' at all. It may be the substance or substratum
or material of which matter is composed, but it would be con-
fusing and inconvenient not to be able to discriminate between
matter on the one hand and ether on the other. . . .

The essential distinction between matter and ether is that
matter moves in the sense that it has the property of locomotion
and can effect impact and bombardment ; while ether is
strained and has the property of exerting stress and recoil. All

Sir Oliver Lodge 135

potential energy exists in ether. It may vibrate and it may
rotate, but as regards locomotion it is stationary . . . abso-
lutely stationary, so to speak ; our standard of rest.

Now comes the question, how is it possible for matter to be
composed of ether ? How is it possible for a solid to be made
out of a fluid? A solid possesses the properties of rigidity,
impenetrability, elasticity, and such like; how can these be
imitated by a perfect fluid such as the ether must be ?

The answer is they can be imitated by a fluid in motion.

Sir Oliver goes on to give examples :

A wheel of spokes, transparent or permeable when stationary,
becomes opaque when revolving, so that a ball thrown against
it does not go through, but rebounds. ... A silk cord hanging
from a pulley becomes rigid and viscous when put into rapid
motion ; and pulses or waves which may be generated on the
cord travel along it with a speed equal to its own velocity, so
that they appear to stand still. ... A flexible chain, set
spinning, can stand up on end while the motion continues.

A jet of water at sufficient speed can be struck with a hammer
and resists being cut with a sword. A spinning disc of paper
becomes elastic like flexible metal and can act like a circular
saw. ... In naval construction steel plates are cut by a
rapidly revolving disc of soft iron.

We would like to quote further from Sir Oliver's
explanation of the nature of ether, but space does not
permit, and in any case the reader can turn to the book
from which we have given these extracts. We think at
any rate that he comes nearer than any other writer to
elucidating a subject which perhaps no human brain can
completely grasp.

Now it may be interesting to give some short account
of the career of this man of many interests and many
talents. He was born at Penkhull, near Stoke-upon-Trent,
in the year 1851. In 1928, at the age of seventy-seven,
he was presented with the freedom of the city of Stoke,
and in his speech on that occasion gave some reminiscences

136 Master Minds of Modern Science

of his early days. He went to school at the age of eight,
but when only fourteen had to leave in order to help his
father, who was head of a prosperous business. He said :

I used to keep accounts for my father, who traded in lead,
clay, cobalt, and other potters' materials. I used every scrap
of my time, and was recently looking at an old diary in which
I put down every hour that I had wasted. I worked on mathe-
matics and physics. I had a longing for knowledge. I used to
work thirteen hours a day when I had a holiday from business.
I even worked in trains and tramway cars.

He told a little story of his very early days which shows
what sort of boy he was. At the end of the Crimean War
a captured Russian gun arrived at Stoke.

My father placed me by it when they were about to unveil
it and told me to stay till he returned. I thought the gun was
going to be fired and I stood like the boy on the burning deck.
My father went away eating, rejoicing, and speech-making.
When he got home late at night my mother said, " Where's the
boy? He has not come back." Father replied, " Oh, I forgot
all about him." So he ran down and found me still there.

This was good, considering that Sir Oliver could only
have been a very small boy at this time.

" I do not suppose I was ever cut out for business/' Sir
Oliver told his audience. It was hearing Tyndall lecture
at the Royal Institution which opened his eyes to this
fact and made him realize, with a thrill never since for-
gotten, that Science was his mistress. Working at odd
times and in the evenings, he prepared himself for the
Matriculation Examination of London University, and
without any help from anybody passed with flying colours.
Not content with this very real triumph, he went on to
work single-handed for the Intermediate Examination,
and this too he passed, gaining first-class honours in
physics.

Sir Oliver Lodge 137

At the age of twenty-one he threw up his business
career and entered University College. It was a struggle
— a very hard struggle — for he had no money and had to
support himself by giving lessons to those better off than
himself. The extent of his success is indicated by the
fact that within five years he had his degree (Doctor of
Science) and was able to marry. Before he was thirty
years old he was Professor of Physics at the new Uni-
versity College of Liverpool.

That was in 1881. Six years later he was made a
Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the next year received
the honorary degree of LL.D. from St Andrews. The
famous Scottish university, it may be said, is by no
means prodigal of such honours. Since that time Sir
Oliver has had similar honours from the universities of
Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, London, Edinburgh — indeed,
from nearly every great seat of learning in his own
country and from many abroad as well. In 1900 he was
chosen as the first head of the University of Birmingham,
and in 1902 received the honour of knighthood at the
coronation of King Edward.

In describing an interview with Sir Oliver, in the
Strand Magazine, Augustus Muir says : "Sir Oliver Lodge
has brought Science right to the front door of the ordinary
man.,: This is very true, for Sir Oliver has the un-
common gift of being able to put difficult subjects into
simple and understandable language. The millions who
have listened to his broadcast talks will all bear witness
to this.

Sir Oliver has now retired, and lives at Norman ton
House, on Salisbury Plain, a charming old place not far
from that wonderful relic, the sun temple of Stonehenge.
A river flows at the bottom of his garden, and in this
garden is a revolving sun parlour where in good weather
its owner works. For although he has nominally retired
it is not in Sir Oliver's nature to relax altogether ; he has

138 Master Minds of Modern Science

written ten books since his seventieth birthday, and he
has others in the making.

Yet it must not be supposed that Sir Oliver's life is all
work and no play. That may have been so during his
early years when it was all that he could do to make ends
meet, but later he learned to play golf and croquet.
Later still he took up dancing, which, as he rightly says,
1 refreshes the machine ' after a day's work and induces
sleep. He is keen also on music and on art. The late
Lady Lodge was a painter of more than ordinary merit.
Sir Oliver's eldest son too is an artist, and also a sculptor,
poet, and critic.

Two of his sons, F. B. and Alec Lodge, are known to
every motorist as the inventors of the celebrated Lodge
plug, while Lionel and Noel Lodge are at the head of the
Lodge-Cottrell Company, which does business in Birming-
ham. They extract large quantities of zinc, tin, and
other valuable material from the smoke of furnaces and
factories, and the origin of the process which they use is
none other than that mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter — their father's invention for precipitating fog by
electricity.

CHAPTER XII

INVENTION EXTRAORDINARY

The Story of Archibald Montgomery Low

IF Professor Low had not been a scientist and inventor
he might have made his fortune as a conjurer, so many
are the apparent miracles originating in his fertile
brain. As readily he might have written romances like
The Time Machine, or books such as those of Jules
Verne, for none has given more thought to the future.

You may look up Professor Low in a reference book
without getting any idea of the many inventions which
this remarkable man has to his credit ; these inventions
number over a hundred, and some are of first-rate im-
portance.

In the reference books we find :

Professor A. M. Low, A.C.G.L., M.IA.E., F.C.S., F.R.G.S.,
F.I.P.L., D.Sc, F.R.A., formerly Honorary Assistant Professor
of Physics at Royal Artillery College, Technical Director of the
Low Engineering Company, Ltd., Member of Council and Chair-
man Technical Committee of Institute of Patentees, consulting
engineer, and probably the most popular of the professors or
doctors connected with the wireless industry. Born in Eng-
land. Educated at St Paul's School and Central Technical
College, South Kensington. Served in the War as Major in the
Royal Flying Corps, being Officer Commanding the R.F.C.
Experimental Works. He was responsible for the design of
wireless torpedo sending gear, the audiometer for photographing
sound, the Low two-stroke forced induction engine, and the
silencing of the London Underground Railway.

These facts, as usual, give little indication of the
romantic story that lies behind them.

139

140 Master Minds of Modern Science

Professor A. M. Low's life has been dominated by an
interest in physical research, by an interest in motor-cars,
and by an incurable habit of inventing things. He has
invented all sorts of things, some of them * queer/ like
his special cigarette for motorists — having ash which will
not drop off and get into the eyes — or the whistle which he
devised for signalling to his dog in a key pitched too high
for the human ear to detect it, although its note is heard
by the dog as surely as a blare liable to wake up all
the neighbours. Such inventions are his hobby.

The cigarette for motorists is typical of these 'brain-
waves/ Dr Low noticed that his motoring friends could
not smoke when driving a car at high speed, or when a
wind was blowing, because the ash from the cigarette
entered their eyes. He thought the matter over and at
length produced the motorists' cigarette — an ordinary
cigarette so treated that while the tobacco is unharmed,
the ash solidifies as it burns, with the result that when
smoked the whole cigarette can be discarded, with the
hardened ash still intact. The Professor has also pro-
duced a box for attachment to the dashboard which
automatically lights a cigarette each time that one is
taken from the container.

Another invention was a pair of garage doors that dis-
turbed the Professor's neighbours by unlocking them-
selves mysteriously — really in response to a blast on a
motor horn. This apparent miracle was made possible
by a violin string attached to a delicate mechanism inside
the door. As soon as a certain note sounded the violin
string vibrated, and this operated an electric switch,
which in its turn unlocked and opened the doors.
Through this contrivance Professor Low would drive
up to his garage, unlock the doors, and enter without
leaving his driving seat.

Yet another invention perfected by Dr Low for use in
his own home was an early application of the principle

Archibald Montgomery Low 141

of the light-sensitive selenium cell. By shining a light on
a certain portion of a door it is possible to unlock and
swing open the door, untouched by human hands. The
explanation is simple. Inserted in the door was a selenium
cell. When under a ray of light its electrical resistance
altered, and this change in turn operated a catch and
caused the door to swing wide.

Just as baffling to the uninitiated, and more valuable
scientifically, was a method of photographing air-cooled
engines by invisible heat rays which the Professor
developed, thus enabling local overheating of the engine
to be discovered while the engine was actually running.
Other experiments which he carried out had for their
object the increasing in efficiency of artificial light — at
present only about 2 J per cent, of the possible light is
actually ' trapped ' and used, a striking instance of the
embryonic state of our scientific knowledge.

Inventions such as these, however, are little more than
the Professor's hobby. His real achievements have been
in the fields of scientific research connected with internal
combustion (motors), wireless, and sound.

Professor Low was the first man to take a photographic
record of sound. This he did by means of an instrument
called an audiometer, which records faithfully the
strength of every sound coming into contact with the
sensitive diaphragm inside it. The diaphragm has a
very small mirror attached, reflecting a tiny beam of
light on to a strip of photographic paper. The paper is
traversed on a slide, and as it moves the beam of light
traces an area which is increased or reduced as the sounds
are intensified or softened. Silence is registered in a
straight line; thus the degree and type of divergence
from the line reveals the amount of sound photographed
and its characteristics.

This machine was used during experiments carried out
a few years ago as part of an attempt to reduce the noise

142 Master Minds of Modern Science

on the London Underground Railways. In a special
experimental train it located the three main sources of
noise — wheel and rail shock, motor and gear noises, and
general loose rattle. These were partly eliminated by
filling the hollow roof with asbestos material, by dividing
the windows into smaller areas, and by fitting hoods over
the wheels, thus deflecting the noise above the level of
the ventilating windows.

There was then, as many of our readers will remember,
a deafening rattle on the cars, which made conversation
practically impossible while the train was in motion, but
in the present rolling-stock, embodying the noise-reducing
devices, it was found possible to hear the tick of a watch
held one foot from the ear. The important change was
not in the mere volume of the noise, but in the elimination
of its more harmful elements.

Twenty years ago it would have been impossible to
reduce noise in this way. For our present ability to track
almost any noise to its source we are indebted to Pro-
fessor Low and his audiometer.

The Professor believes that this problem of noise will
attract increasing attention in the near future. Our
cities become noisier every year, and an enormous amount
of nerve strain is caused by noises that are quite prevent-
able. Professor Low says :

The future will find noise-reducing devices in use on all
traffic, while the same process will be carried into the home
and every walk of life. Office windows can be provided with
sound deflectors, public buildings and dwelling-places can be
1 proofed ' to noise.

There is confirmation of this in the new London studios
of the British Broadcasting Corporation ; although in the
heart of London, these are absolutely sound-proof, the
audition rooms being ventilated by a method which
admits fresh air but no sound. Many London buildings

PROFESSOR A. M. LOW, WITH THE AUDIOMETER WHICH HE
INVENTED TO PHOTOGRAPH NOISE

143

Archibald Montgomery Low 143

have been audiometrically treated, and the process has
now spread to aviation, shipbuilding, and the design of
talkie theatres. Machinery also can be tested for noisy
and wasteful operation.

The achievement with which Professor Low's name
will always be associated is the wireless-controlled tor-
pedo ; this and not the audiometer provided his greatest
thrill.

We have mentioned that as Major Low he commanded
the Experimental Works of the Royal Flying Corps during
the war. His dream at that time was to perfect a pilot-
less aeroplane which would be in fact a flying bomb or
torpedo, directed by wireless from the ground.

The general opinion, when he spoke of his idea, was
that it was fit only for the pages of a novel. But Pro-
fessor Low had been experimenting for years with
wireless and television. For the latter he demon-
strated an apparatus before the Institute of Automobile
Engineers in 19 14. He knew more than his critics about
the part which wireless was going to play in their lives
within a few years, and, something more difficult to pre-
dict at that time, the part which wireless would play in
another war if one came.

For two years the Professor toiled to produce an
aeroplane that could be controlled entirely by wireless.
Like many another inventor, he faced disappointment
after disappointment. Often the pressure of other work
forced him to abandon the experiments. But always he
returned to them. The aeroplane was proving itself the
weapon of the future, and Professor Low felt certain that
if Britain did not develop an air machine controlled by
wireless some other nation would do so, perhaps before
the Great War had ended.

At last the Professor produced a machine which he
believed would be a success. It was wheeled out of its
hangar into the middle of the flying ground. Then the

144 Master Minds of Modern Science

mechanics, after a last examination, left it standing there
with engine ticking over.

Professor Low stood before the controls, some distance
away. Was it possible for him to control that machine
while it was untouched by human hands ? " We'll see,"
he said to the officer standing beside him, and pressed a
button. Instantly the engine that drove the wireless
torpedo spluttered to full speed, faltered for an instant,
and then settled down to a steady hum. Dr Low touched
a switch and the machine began to move, gathering
speed with every minute, until at length it actually took
to the air from its directing rails, being given initial
impetus by compressed air, a method adopted years
after by the U.S.A. Navy. For some moments the
machine flew, directed from that same switchboard on the
ground. It was uncanny. Then suddenly, over-elevated,
it crumpled up and crashed to the ground. No matter,
for the first wireless-controlled torpedo in the world had
been successfully launched.

As Professor Low told the authors :

At that moment I realized that I could succeed in achieving
selective wireless control over a flying machine at a distance.
Sir Henry Norman, one of the greatest authorities of the day,
stated at the time that I had solved the problem of wireless
control within the limits of vision. I saw more than that — I
saw the possibilities of a manless aeroplane being controlled or
located by wireless even if unseen by the human eye.

Discussing that remarkable achievement in the light
of more recent developments, Dr Low mentioned that in
the successful experiments with wireless control con-
ducted later in the War no power was sent to the torpedo
or other machine. That procedure had not been de-
veloped sufficiently for use in actual warfare. Wireless
control was exercised to influence operative power within
the machine controlled. Dr Low said :

Archibald Montgomery Low 145

Such apparatus has usually been constructed in two distinct
ways. The first is the more or less obvious method of using
different wave-lengths to affect different controls of, for example,
an aeroplane. The rudder might be turned to the right by
sending a radio signal of three hundred metres, or to the left
by transmitting a radio signal at two hundred metres wave-
length. The disadvantage of this method is that accurate
selection by an apparatus which is subject to vibration and
travelling at high speed, and which can be ' jammed ' by the
enemy, is almost impossible to-day.

To overcome this difficulty, various mechanical selec-
tors have been designed. Some are operated by sound,
various sensitive strings being stretched to respond to the
different rate of vibrations, and these vibration rates
being transmitted by wireless, when the trembling string
in turn switches on power to the particular control which
it is designed to operate.

The most accurate device yet discovered is based upon
the running of a motor at the transmitter end of the con-
trol and another at the receiver end, at speeds which are
carefully synchronized.

This device can be readily understood by first imagining
a pencil which is allowed to roll down the side of a sloping
table. It will be found that to make this pencil climb up
the gradient when it is trying to run down all the time
it must be struck upward at a definite rate. If the
pencil is pushed down the table by a spring which has a
well-defined strength behind it, the rate at which the
pencil must be knocked to make it climb will vary
according to the natural tension of the spring. This
principle has been exploited in a mechanism called a
' pecker/ Wireless signals are sent out from the trans-
mitter to the controlled aeroplane or torpedo at various
rates, timed by a clock device, and each of these rates
corresponds to the adjustment of the pecker receiving the
signals in the controlled mechanism. Contact by wireless

K

146 Master Minds of Modern Science

is thus obtained, and the action of the pecker in turn
controls the aeroplane. By having a row of such instru-
ments in the machine which it is desired to control from
a distance, any motion can be secured by transmitting
signals at the predetermined rate, and as this rate can
be varied every time the machine takes the air — by ad-
justing the mechanism — interference with the control by
enemy hands is not easy. Dr Low says :

In some of the early experiments it was possible to launch a
model aeroplane by means of a compressed air gear, and for
the engine to be throttled down in mid-air or for a machine to
loop the loop entirely by wireless control. But an almost
insuperable difficulty at present is the speed at which controls
must be applied, and the difficulty of determining the exact
position of the machine when out of sight.

In the far future it may be achieved by radio means, but at
present it has been partially solved by allowing the radio
control (from a distance) to operate a gyroscope, rather than
to set the control itself. By this means water torpedoes have
been directed with considerable success, being controlled by a
pilot in an aeroplane as far as ten miles away, who sets the
course by means of a radio-controlled gyroscope, electrically
driven, and mounted in the torpedo itself.

For these machines there is a possible future. They can be
used to procure photographic records of countries or areas over
which flying with pilots might endanger life. They might
serve to operate postal air services flying at great height over
prescribed routes, or with slight alteration to record and
transmit the actual photographs as taken by a camera carried
in the wireless controlled aeroplane, and mechanically worked.

Since the Armistice released him from his Air Force
duties Professor Low has followed carefully the various
developments in ' f rightfulness/ such as we may expect
will be utilized by armies in the event of the peoples of
Europe permitting another war to occur. We mention
some of the terrible possibilities which Dr Low's trained

Archibald Montgomery Low 147

vision foresees, because this indication of what another
war will mean is the best possible argument for world
peace. Professor Low says :

Cities will be protected against aerial attack in many ways,
rays of wireless power being directed at vital parts of the
machines from the ground, or from other aeroplanes. Vortex
clouds of poison vapour will be released at a sufficient height
to render them innocuous to those below, but deadly to the
pilots of any machines that entered their zones. Protective
rings of radio heat will be used to crumple up invading aero-
planes.

Another new weapon used to disable aircraft will be electri-
cally controlled rockets operated on a strong wire. This will
be most useful, for to-day an aeroplane striking the telephone
wires is often crashed to the ground.

Poison gas will be introduced in many new and terrible
forms, also waves of radio heat; and the equipment of the
fighting men and women will need very careful attention by
scientific chemists to supply the necessary protection. Deadly
germs will also be pressed into service in every possible way to
harass both combatants and non-combatants.

The use of the wireless-controlled torpedo at sea, equipped
with radio-sighted periscopes, will render necessary travelling
' jamming ' stations, which will patrol the coast and send out
sufficiently powerful disturbances to paralyse all controls at a
distance of several miles.

There will be great activity underground, both for protective
purposes and because the introductions of wireless sight and
light will mean that night affords no cover. Government and
other important centres will be underground; there will be
scientifically constructed shelters, comfortably equipped, elec-
trically heated and lighted throughout. Electrically heated
suits will be worn during cold weather, enabling the wearers to
plug themselves in at different points for shelter. Advanced
boring machinery will tunnel underground at high speed, for
constructing shelters and trenches.

Summing up this prophecy of future war, which is

148 Master Minds of Modern Science

based upon present developments, Professor Low foresees
a dramatic change in the methods both of attack and
defence.

Only recently it was reported from Copenhagen that a
Norwegian inventor was bringing forward a defence scheme for
Denmark which will dispense with conscripts. The whole
defence would be electrical, chemical, and technical, and could
be controlled by a small staff of experts. That may be taken
as one of the first steps towards the scientific development of
attack and defence that must be expected in the future.

Dr Low, however, has not confined his predictions
about the future to warfare. Before television had been
achieved he was forecasting the day when the business
man would be able, by wireless sight and sound, to trans-
act his business from his own home, without coming to
a city at all.

He expects the factory of the remote future to be
worked by wireless power, transmitted without cables to
any part of the country.

Even the problem of how to feed the expanding popula-
tions of the world may be solved in the same way, for
one of the scientific questions which Professor Low is now
investigating is the broadcasting of heat. Already he has
succeeded in melting a nail by heat broadcast from a spot
two feet away. Can that achievement be repeated over a
distance of thousands of miles ? If that can be achieved
— and, remembering wireless itself, who will say that it
cannot? — then perhaps it will be possible to warm the
polar regions, and to open up that vast territory for
farming and cultivation.

It is a weird dream, but scarcely more strange to us
than an aeroplane would have seemed to Julius Caesar.

Before many decades have passed the dream may have
been realized, and herds of cattle be grazing over lands
now the home of the polar bear and the blizzard.

Archibald Montgomery Low 149

One more prediction — a forecast for to-morrow rather
than the remote future — is Professor Low's idea as to
how the motor-car will develop during the next few years.
It should be remembered, by the way, that he is a Vice-
President of the Junior Car Club and the Auto-Cycle
Union, and that he was awarded the degree of Doctor of
Science by an American university for research carried
out in connexion with the internal combustion engine
and for original investigation into acoustical problems.
The Professor believes that we differ from savages only
in that we speed up our life and obtain more comfort in
order to allow our brains to be less enthralled bv our
bodies. For that reason he welcomes the prospect of
motor-car development outstripping all present ideas
on that subject:

The changes in the bodywork of cars will be great ; the pre-
vailing model will be stream-lined, flexible, totally enclosed,
with its four or six disc wheels shrouded. The engine of the
present, with its dirt, noise, smell, and constant need of atten-
tion, wastes over 80 per cent, of the money expended on it;
this state of affairs will not be tolerated by the engineer of the
future. The heat now given to jacket and exhaust will cer-
tainly not all be allowed to go to waste. The engine of the
future will most probably be of the injection type or the petrol
steam turbine, totally enclosed and certainly not requiring
attention more than once a year. The largest touring cars, if
of reciprocating type as to engine, will not be of more than
1000 c.c, and the combination of steel and aluminium will be
used to a great extent.

Eventually, in centuries to come, power for propelling
mechanical vehicles may be picked up from cables laid under
all the main roads and tapped through a meter as required.
This system will perhaps give way to beam- wireless or inductive
power tapped from the air at any time or place. This will
reduce the engine space required very considerably, all power
being broadcast continually from several stations. Even aero-
planes might be operated by this means.

150 Master Minds of Modern Science

That prophecy and those that preceded it in this
chapter come from the imagination of the man whose
genius lifted the first wireless-controlled and pilotless
aeroplane into the air. Remarkable as they appear to
us to-day, these prophecies touch only the fringe of the
almost limitless possibilities of the sciences by which
we are solving the secrets of Nature and bringing her
boundless resources to the service of the human race.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MARVELS OF MARCONI
The Beginnings of Wireless

FEW scientists have ever had a better start in their
life-work than Guglielmo Marconi, but a start is
nothing unless the starter makes good use of it,
and no man alive has worked harder than this brilliant
Irish-Italian, or better deserved the great success and
reputation which he has gained.

It is often said that Marconi was not the originator of
wireless telephony and telegraphy, and this is true in a
measure, for others before him had succeeded in causing
electric signals to travel through space from one set of
wires to another. Marconi, however, was the first to use
the Hertzian waves for this purpose, and to put wireless
communication on a practical basis. Very rightly, there-
fore, his name will go down to future generations as that
of the father of wireless.

Years ago Miss Annie Jameson, daughter of John
Jameson, the well-known Dublin whisky-distiller, went
to Italy to complete her musical studies ; there she met
and married Giuseppe Marconi, a young Italian of good
family. Their eldest son, Guglielmo, was born at Bologna
on April 25th, 1874. The boy soon proved that he
had brains beyond the average, and while still quite a
youngster began to take a keen interest in chemistry.

His mother was a clever woman herself ; she encouraged
him, and got all the books that she thought would help
him. She engaged a tutor for him, and even had built a
small laboratory where he could do his experiments.

When Guglielmo was old enough he went to school at

151

152 Master Minds of Modern Science

Leghorn, and from that school entered the ancient and
famous University of Bologna. Here he came under
Professor Righi, famous as the inventor of the Righi
oscillator, and turned all his attention to electricity.
When only sixteen he had already become interested in
the possibilities of wireless communication, and had
begun to read all he could find on the subject. He knew
that, as long ago as 1854, the brilliant Scot Lindsay had
succeeded in sending signals across the river Tay without
wires, and that in 1882 Sir William Preece had bridged
the Solent by induction.

Young Marconi began experimenting on his father's
estate. It is said that his first aerial was supported on
two broomsticks and that the signals only travelled a
few inches, but he plodded on with his work. The inches
became yards, and before long he was able to span a
distance of two miles.

Marconi's friends say that he has little of the volatile
nature of the Italian, but a cool, deliberate character
more resembling that of the Englishman, and a tremen-
dous power of concentration. It is certain that no diffi-
culties daunt him. By degrees he proved that the electric
waves which he generated would travel through space for
long distances and that they were not affected by hills,
buildings, or other natural obstacles. He had triumphed
by the time that he was twenty-two, an age at which
most young men are only beginning their careers. In
1896 he took out his first patent for wireless telegraphy.
Of course a dozen people challenged it, but young Marconi
went calmly on his way. He left for England, and pro-
ceeded to prove that he ' had the goods.' Before British
postal officials he sent messages across the Bristol
Channel.

That was in 1897, and by 1899 Marconi was able to
communicate between Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight
and the sand-banks three miles beyond Bournemouth.

Marconi 153

It is interesting to know that the first person to send a
paid commercial message by wireless was that great
scientist the late Lord Kelvin.

By this time the commercial world was beginning
to take notice of this new method of communication.
Marconi having proved that he could send messages
across the sea from Wimereux to Dover, a distance of
thirty- two miles, the British Admiralty took up his sys-
tem and was shown that the range could be extended to
one hundred miles. Marconi himself boldly stated that
he would soon be able to send his signals across the
Atlantic Ocean, and in 1900 a site was chosen at Poldhu,
in Cornwall, tall wireless masts were erected, and with
the help of Professor J. A. Fleming a great wireless
installation was built.

Before we describe Marconi's first efforts to bridge the
Atlantic we must mention the first big advertisement
which wireless communication obtained. In 1900 a few
of the steamship companies were already beginning to
instal wireless in their vessels, and one ship so equipped
was the Royal Belgian steamer Princess Clementine. On
January 1st, 1901, this steamship saw the barque Medora,
of Stockholm, hard and fast on the Ratel Bank, and being
herself unable to help sent a wireless message to La Panne,
on the Belgian coast. La Panne communicated with
Ostend, and within an hour a tug was on its way ; it suc-
ceeded in saving the Medora from her perilous position.
A very few hours' delay, and the Medora would have been
a hopeless wreck.

The new Poldhu station was fitted with twenty masts,
each two hundred and ten feet high, and the current of
electricity was powerful enough to operate three hundred
incandescent lamps. The wave thus generated had a
length of about a fifth of a mile, and the rate of vibra-
tion was roughly eight hundred thousand to the second.
Marconi believed that with this power he could bridge

154 Master Minds of Modern Science

the whole width of the Atlantic Ocean, but many experts
said that this was impossible, because his waves would
fly out into space. Marconi was untroubled. He sailed
for America, and on December 6th, 1901, landed at St
John's, Newfoundland, in company with two assistants,
Kemp and Paget. It must be remembered that there
was no receiving station in Newfoundland. Marconi had
to improvise one; he set up his instruments in the old
barracks on Signal Hill.

On December 10th he sent up a box kite, a huge thing
nine feet high, which was intended to carry the aerial, but
the wind was so strong that it snapped the wire and carried
the kite miles away out to sea. Marconi next tried a
small balloon filled with hydrogen. Again he had no
luck, for, like the kite, this broke away and the wire fell
to the ground. Marconi rigged up another kite, and on
Thursday, December 12th, this was sent up. The wind was
still strong — so strong that it took the combined strength
of all three men to moor the kite securely. But at last
this was done, and it strained in the gale at a height of
about four hundred feet.

Before leaving England Marconi had arranged with his
people at Poldhu for them to send a certain signal at a
fixed time each day. This was to be the Morse letter S,
represented by three dots. They were to begin at three
o'clock English time — that is, about eleven-thirty New-
foundland time — and to go on for three hours. At noon
on that eventful Thursday Marconi sat in the low-roofed
room in the barracks with a telephone receiver on his
head. A wire ran out of the window to a pole, thence
upward to the kite which was plunging in the cold wind.
At the bottom of the cliff, some three hundred feet below,
the great Atlantic surges roared. For nearly half an hour
nothing happened ; then a slight click reached the ears of
Kemp as the tapper struck against the coherer. Kemp
stood breathless, but Marconi's face showed no sign of

Marconi 155

excitement. Presently Marconi took off the receiver and
handed it to Kemp.

" See if you can hear anything," he said. Kemp fitted
it over his own ears, and a moment later, faint, yet quite
distinct, came three little clicks, the letter S as agreed.
A little later they came again, so clearly and continuously
that neither Marconi nor Kemp had any doubt that the
experiment had succeeded.

Even then Marconi would not give his news to the
world. He waited until he had received fresh signals on
the following day ; then on Saturday word was flashed all
over the world announcing that for the first time in
history messages had been sent by wireless from England
to America.

And was Marconi believed ? Not a bit of it. One Press
correspondent received from his principals a cablegram
saying, " Your message about Marconi simply incredible.
Please be extremely careful what you wire." Columns
were written in the newspapers proving to the satisfaction
of their writers that Marconi had been deceiving himself
— that all he had heard were atmospherics — that it was
flatly impossible to wireless over such a distance as two
thousand miles. The few who did believe were those
who knew Marconi. Of these was Sir William Preece.
Marconi was far too big a man to be worried by the
nonsense that was written and printed, but he resolved
quietly to give these doubters a proof which even their
sceptical brains could not withstand. He came back to
England, rigged up a receiver aboard the big liner Phila-
delphia, and took passage on this ship for America.

Before sailing from Cherbourg he gave instructions to
his engineers at Poldhu to send out signals at certain
definite intervals. Their time was kept at Greenwich
standard, and on the ship they had watches set to the
same standard so that they would know to a second when
to expect the signals.

156 Master Minds of Modern Science

Marconi and his party had four staterooms on the upper
deck, and in one of these the instrument was installed.
For sending purposes this instrument was not capable of
more than one hundred and fifty miles, and it was an-
nounced that no commercial messages would be received
or sent. Four aerial wires running to the head of the
mast were used for reception, and one wire was passed
over the side of the vessel, establishing an earth. At
Poldhu dynamos created an energy of twenty thousand
volts, and this high tension was transformed up to two
hundred and fifty thousand by means of condensers.
When the operator pressed the key a spark a foot long
and as thick as a man's wrist sprang across the gap. It
was the most powerful electric flash which man had ever
produced.

The Philadelphia left Cherbourg just before midnight
on Saturday, and messages were received and sent until the
one hundred and fifty mile limit was passed. Very much
passed, indeed, for the ship was two hundred and fifty
miles from Poldhu when the last message was received by
the land station. On Monday morning Chief Officer
Marsden was in the cabin when a message was ticked out :
"All in order. Do you understand? " The ship was
then fully five hundred miles from Poldhu, and Marsden,
full of excitement, ran out to tell his fellow officers of the
feat. They laughed.

Do you expect us to believe that ? " they jeered.
All right," smiled Marsden. " Just wait till to-
morrow." Next morning the officers crowded in the
operating cabin, where Marconi sat, watch in hand. He
opened a brake on a coil of tape and the white strip began
to unroll.

" Here it comes," said Marconi calmly, and tap-tap-tap
began the inker, recording messages sent out from a source
nearly one thousand miles away.

The days following were full of excitement for every

( i

t(

Marconi 157

one but Marconi, who seemed quite cool. At midnight
on the Tuesday the signals came clearly as ever, and
on Wednesday, when the ship was one thousand five
hundred and fifty-one miles from Poldhu, there came
the message again : " All in order. Do you under-
stand? "

To make a long story short, messages were received at
a distance of two thousand and ninety-nine miles, and
before witnesses whose word could not be doubted. The
Newfoundland record had been broken, and Marconi
reached America tired from lack of sleep, but triumphant.

Now for the first time in all his years of work Marconi
permitted himself to prophesy. " Give me," he said, " a
week at Nantucket, and I will guarantee to receive signals
from England. We shall be able to transmit and receive
any and all kinds of messages across the Atlantic.' '

The world doubted no longer, and Marconi's triumph
was assured. The Italian Government put a warship at
his disposal, and that summer he cruised in the Baltic and
the Mediterranean, sending messages over distances up to
fifteen hundred miles and proving that great mountain
ranges such as the Alps and Apennines had no effect in
blocking his signals. In the autumn he went back to
Newfoundland, where he set up the wireless station at
Glace Bay. Before the year was out messages were flying
to and fro across the Atlantic.

The very first message from Newfoundland conveyed
the " respectful homage " of Marconi himself to King
Edward VII, and instantly there came back congratula-
tions from his Majesty on " the successful issue of your
endeavours." " The King," continued the message, " has
been much interested in your experiments, as he remem-
bers that the initial ones were commenced from the Royal
yacht Osborne in 1898." This refers to the fact that
while the King (then Prince of Wales) lay ill aboard the
Osborne no fewer than one hundred and fifty messages

158 Master Minds of Modern Science

were sent from the yacht by wireless — chiefly private
communications between Queen Victoria and the Prince.

Marconi's success in bridging the Atlantic encouraged
him to greater efforts. Soon he discovered what is called
the persistent wave method of wirelessing, which pro-
duces trains of undamped or slightly damped waves of
high frequency. This enabled him to dispense with the
immensely powerful spark which he used in his earlier
system. While conducting his earlier experiments Mar-
coni, like every one else, was under the impression that
great distances could not be covered without the use of
very high masts and great lengths of suspended wires.
The idea was that the waves were hindered by the
curvature of the earth, but Marconi's Newfoundland
experiments proved that this was not the case and that
the waves curved with the earth's surface. Marconi's
faith in his invention was boundless, and in 1902 he fore-
saw already that within a few years liners and warships
would be in constant communication with the land.

As we have already mentioned, passenger-carrying ships
were beginning to instal wireless as early as the year 1900,
and before long things began to happen which proved the
enormous value of the new invention. We have spoken of
the rescue of the Medora through the use of wireless. A
little later the captain of a big liner on its way to America
became aware that he had aboard a gang of card-sharpers
who were swindling passengers. As he approached New
York he sent a wireless message to the authorities.
Detectives came out by tug and met the ship, the
members of the gang were recognized, and to their intense
disgust found themselves arrested and presently sentenced
to long terms of imprisonment.

It was not until 1909, however, that the value of wire-
less as a life-saver was fully proved. In January 1909 the
White Star liner Republic was rammed in mid-ocean by
another vessel, the Florida. There was thick fog at the

THE MARCHESE MARCONI SPEAKING FROM HIS YACHT IN GENOA
HARBOUR TO AN AUDIENCE IN SYDNEY

158

Marconi 159

time. The collision was so violent that the roof and one
wall of the Republic's wireless cabin were ripped away,
while the shock put the dynamo out of order and plunged
the whole place into darkness. The captain, who realized
how badly his ship was holed, sent a message to the wire-
less operator asking him, if possible, to call for help. The
wireless operator, a smart young fellow named Jack
Binns, set to work at once. With the ship slowly sinking
under him, he managed somehow to rig up an apparatus
which would dispatch messages, and, having done so, sat
down with the telephone receiver on his head and a
blanket around his shoulders and began sending out the
C.Q.D., which in those days was the call for help.

An answer came, and presently he was able to send
word that the great Baltic was racing to the assistance of
the threatened ship. Three other ships heard, but all were
too far away to arrive in time.

Water was pouring into the holds of the Republic. The
Florida was standing by, and though badly injured herself
she had more chance of floating than the Republic, so the
whole of the Republic's passengers and crew were taken
aboard her. For ten hours on end young Binns went on
sending out his appeal ; then the batteries which he had
been using in place of the wrecked dynamo gave out.
But he had done his work. Up came the Baltic and took
off no fewer than one thousand two hundred and forty-
two passengers from the crowded Florida ; then she took
the Republic in tow. It was too late, however, to save the
Republic, which shortly sank. Yet not a life was lost, and
every newspaper in the world was full of the story.

We do not know whether there has ever been made any
close calculation of the number of lives saved from ship-
wreck through the use of wireless, but we are safe in
saying that no single invention has ever been the means of
saving a greater number, and every year that passes sees
that number increased.

160 Master Minds of Modern Science

But the saving of lives is only one of the many benefits
which wireless communication has conferred upon the
world. Wireless in the home has become such a common-
place that very young folk hardly realize that it is only a
short time since there was no such thing. Wireless is
invaluable in the work that it is doing for the education
and entertainment of young and old. Its social value
from another standpoint was proved in Britain during the
great strike of 1926, when there were no newspapers, and
when it served to tranquillize the public mind.

Wireless is perhaps of greatest value in drawing the
various nations of the world closer together. An English
boy who can listen to a French orchestra playing or to a
German singing is brought close to the people of other
countries. Possibly he gets an idea of them quite different
from that which his father had when he was a boy twenty
or thirty years ago. He does not want to fight them.
Wireless is becoming the handmaid of the League of
Nations in the prevention of war.

Wireless telephony is already so perfect that speech is
possible between any two points on our planet, however
far apart. Quite recently an aeroplane circling above the
everlasting ice of the Antarctic continent was in com-
munication with a station in the northern part of the
United States. Yet Marconi's own belief is that the
science is still in its infancy, and that it is by no means
impossible that through wireless we may eventually get
into touch with other worlds. Since 1920 wireless
operators have been puzzled by interruptions to their
signals. Operators have heard these signals simul-
taneously in London and New York, and Marconi himself
has said of them :

We occasionally get very queer sounds and indications
which might have come from somewhere outside the earth.
We have also noticed that in these interruptions some letters
occur with much greater frequency than others. The letter S

Marconi 161

is one of these. ... As yet we have not the slightest proof as
to the origin of these interruptions. They might conceivably
be due to some natural disturbance at a great distance, such as
eruptions on the sun.

Asked whether they might not possibly be caused by
attempts on the part of some other planet to communicate
with the earth, Marconi said: " I do not rule out that
possibility."

Before we end this chapter we must say a word about
Marconi the man. He stands about five feet ten inches,
is slim and well built, and very erect. His head is large
and well shaped, with a high forehead. His manner is
quiet and deliberate, he has none of the emotional fervour
of the Italian, and the only evidence of his Irish blood is
the genial smile which now and then brightens his face.
He is intensely energetic and has an amazing power of
concentration. He is popular with his assistants because
of his fair-mindedness, but he is not what Americans call
a ' good mixer.' He is very fond of music. The keenest
of his senses is that of hearing. Trained by long years of
listening to small vibrations in a telephone receiver, his
ears are far more acute than those of most of his fellow-
men. He has great patience, and believes that there is
hardly any problem which cannot be solved by hard work.
He is keenly interested in all aspects of human invention,
and declares that the real Golden Age of discovery is only
now beginning to dawn upon the world.

CHAPTER XIV

THE BIRTH OF ELEMENTS
Dr R. A. Millikan Discovers how Matter is Created

IF you look at your face in a looking-glass the image
which you see is not quite so distinct as the face itself,
this being due to the fact that some of the so-called
radiant energy has been transformed by the reflecting
glass and converted into heat. If you strike a tuning
fork the vibrations die down, partly because they are
communicated to the surrounding air, partly because of
the production of heat in the metal of the fork itself. If
you strike a nail with a hammer only a part of the energy
of your blow is employed in driving the nail into the
wood, the rest is dissipated in heat.

All forms of energy tend to take the form of heat, and
this heat drifts out into the ocean of atmosphere and the
abysses of space, and is apparently lost for any use-
ful purpose. Small wonder, then, that the scientists of
the nineteenth century came to the conclusion that the
universe was like a clock which, after being in some
mysterious manner wound up, was running down, and was
destined at last to reach a state of equilibrium equiva-
lent to death. Everything dies, they said, and suns and
worlds are no exception to the rule.

With the twentieth century came new discoveries.
The Curies isolated radium, as told in another chapter;
Sir Ernest Rutherford proved that each atom is probably
a miniature solar system, with a central sun around which
tiny satellites are whirling. The theory of radio-activity
was investigated, and it was discovered that radio-active
elements were slowly dissipated through their electrons

162

Dr R. A. Millikan 163

being flung off into space. Yet nothing was found to
upset the belief that our solar system, presumably like all
other solar systems, was doomed to eventual dissolution.
The discoveries made only tended to give a clearer idea of
the ways in which energy was dissipated. The matter was
put in a nutshell by that brilliant writer and scientist
Professor Jeans, who wrote :

Mass is converted into radiant energy, but that process is
nowhere reversible. Matter will thus ultimately be all con-
verted into radiation — i.e., it will simply disappear. . . . Thus
observation and theory agree that the universe is melting away
into radiation. Our position is that of polar bears on an ice-
berg that has broken loose from its ice-pack surrounding the
pole and is inexorably melting away as the ice-berg drifts to
warmer latitudes and ultimate extinction.

Then came a glimpse of something new. In 1903
M'Lennan and Rutherford discovered certain radiations
near the earth's surface so penetrating that they were
capable of passing through thick screens of lead. Profes-
sor Jean Perrin, who holds the chair of physico-chemistry
at the University of Paris, was greatly interested, but
unable to decide upon the source or nature of these rays.

In 1910 the Swiss scientist Gockel went up in a balloon
to a height of more than three miles, taking with him an
enclosed electroscope (the instrument used for measuring
electric discharges), and what he found was that at this
height the radiation was stronger — far stronger than
nearer the earth. So its source, it seemed, was some-
where outside the atmosphere of this planet. Hess, in
Austria, and Kolhorster, a well-known German scientist,
made similar experiments.

The latter sent up an electroscope to the great height of
nearly six miles, and found that the power of these new
rays was actually seven times greater there than on the
ground. After further investigations he announced his

164 Master Minds of Modern Science

belief that the rays emanated from certain groups of stars
at vast distances from our system.

The War intervened, and it was not until the end of
1921 that Dr R. A. Millikan began to investigate these
1 cosmic ' rays.

Working with another scientist named Bowen, he sent
up electroscopes to a height of nearly ten miles. Of course
Millikan did not go up himself, for in the bitter cold and
rarefied air of such a height no warm-blooded creature
such as man could live. He used what the meteorologist
calls a ballon sonde, a small pilot balloon, to lift his instru-
ments. The results of these experiments corresponded well
with those obtained in Europe before the War, but the
source of the rays was still as obscure as ever. Though it
seemed fairly certain that their source was somewhere in
space, it did not appear probable that they came from any
special group of stars. One thing became very certain.
The newly discovered rays had nothing to do with the
sun, for they were just as powerful at midnight as at
midday.

The next step was in the summer of 1923, when Millikan
and Otis took electroscopes to the top of the lofty Ameri-
can mountain known as Pike's Peak. These electroscopes
were shielded with heavy lead screens. At the same time
Kolhorster was working on Alpine glaciers, measuring
how far the rays would penetrate ice. Both investiga-
tions revealed that the rays were astonishingly ( hard '
— that is, had very great penetrative power — but the
mystery of their origin remained.

Many scientists of repute had no belief in these cosmic
rays. In 1925 Hoffman, the well-known German scientist,
declared his belief that the rays were not of cosmic origin,
while in America Swann was of the same opinion.

Outside the world of Science few people had even heard
of these strange rays or knew about the arguments for
and against their origin, but Millikan, who now had Dr

DR R. A. MILLIKAX

164

Dr R. A. Millikan 165

Cameron to help him, continued his researches. He
began a series of new experiments by climbing mountains
and sinking electroscopes in deep, clear lakes at great
heights. The first lake visited was Lake Muir, which lies
at a height of eleven thousand eight hundred feet, and
here the sealed electroscope was sunk to a depth of no
less than sixty feet before all signs of ionization (dis-
turbance by rays) ceased.
Dr Millikan says :

This was the first time the zero of an electroscope — the
reading with all external radiations, both local and cosmic,
completely cut out — had been definitely determined, and the
results accordingly began to show that it was possible to make
with certainty determinations of the absolute amount of the
penetrating radiation.

It must be explained that most water is radio-active,
and therefore affects the electroscope. From Dr Milli-
kan's point of view, the beauty of these deep, snow-fed
lakes is that their water has hardly any radio-activity,
actually less than one-hundredth of that of ordinary tap
water.

Next, readings were taken in another snow-fed lake
three hundred miles to the south, at a height of six
thousand seven hundred feet, and the readings of the
electroscope were found to have a similar curve, but with
each reading displaced just six feet upward. But six feet
of water is exactly equal, in absorbing power, to a layer
of atmosphere five thousand one hundred feet thick — in
other words, to the difference in the height of the two
lakes. Here then was proof of three things :

1. That the effects in Lake Muir had not been due to
any radio-activity in the water.

2. That the source of the rays affecting the electroscope
was not in the layer of atmosphere between the two
altitudes.

1 66 Master Minds of Modern Science

3. That in two different places, three hundred miles
apart, the rays were exactly alike at the same heights.

Still Dr Millikan was not content. There is no one more
thorough in his methods than the modern scientist. In
1926 fresh experiments were carried out in Lake Miguilla,
in Bolivia, a lonely tarn lying at a height greater than that
of the summit of Mont Blanc — that is, more than fifteen
thousand feet.

• Professor C. T. R. Wilson had suggested that the rays
might be caused by the impact of electrons endowed with
many millions of volts of energy acquired in thunder-
storms. But such a lake as Miguilla is completely
screened from such effects, and the experiments there
definitely discredited Professor Wilson's theory. What is
more, the readings of the sunken electroscope gave results
similar to those achieved in North American lakes, thus
proving that the rays had equal power in both hemispheres
of our planet.

In 1926 Dr Millikan and his assistants constructed
electroscopes more delicate than any that had yet been
made, and in the following year used these in two lofty
Californian lakes named Gem and Arrowhead. With
these electroscopes zero was not reached until the instru-
ment had been sunk to a depth of one hundred and
sixty-four feet, showing that the sensibility of the instru-
ment had been increased eightfold. Taking into account
the absorption of the rays by the atmosphere above Gem
Lake, the new experiments revealed rays so penetrating as
to pass through two hundred feet of water or eighteen feet of
lead before being completely absorbed.

And now no doubt our readers will be wondering
whether these so-called ' cosmic ' rays have any signifi-
cance for the man in the street, or any special importance
in the working of the universe.

The answer can best be given by Dr Millikan himself.
Speaking in 1928 before the California Institute of

Dr R. A. Millikan 167

Technology, he said, " My recent experiments with cosmic
rays leave no doubt in my mind that the process of
creation is now going on in the heavens, and that our
earth is not, as has long been believed, a disintegrating
planet/' He went on to say that the extraordinarily
penetrating qualities of the cosmic rays provide not only
the first direct evidence that the more abundant elements
are now in process of being created out of positive and
negative electrons, but also the first indication as to the
general character of the specific act or acts by which the
atom-building process goes on.

In his book Science and the New Civilization (Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1930) Dr Millikan says :

These rays are not produced, as are X-rays, by the impact
upon the atoms of matter of electrons that have acquired large
velocities by falling through powerful electrical fields . . . but
they are rather produced by definite and constantly recurring
atomic transformations involving very much greater energy
changes than any occurring in radio-active processes.

Where these changes take place Dr Millikan does not
profess to know definitely. He speaks of them as hap-
pening in some " infinitely remote abysses of inter-stellar
or inter-galactic space where the pressures and tempera-
tures are close to absolute zero/' But he has come to the
definite conclusion that the rays which he has trapped
and measured with such extreme accuracy are, in his own
picturesque phrase, the ' birth-squeaks ' of elements such
as helium, oxygen, silicon, and iron.

Atom-destruction is constantly going on. At the centre
of great suns, where the temperature may exceed thirty
million degrees, atoms as we know them cannot exist.
Our own sun is constantly flinging forth electrons which
are the remains of broken atoms, yet side by side with this
process there is one of construction.

The universe, in fact, is being wound up as fast as it

1 68 Master Minds of Modern Science

runs down. This is the extraordinarily interesting con-
clusion to which Dr Millikan's researches have led him.
They have led him even farther. They have strengthened
his conviction that there is something much greater than
' mechanism ' behind the universe. To quote again from
his writings :

Science is sometimes charged with inducing a materialistic
philosophy. But . . . the physicist has had the bottom knocked
out of his generalizations so completely that he has learned with
Job the folly of " multiplying words without knowledge," as did
all who once asserted that the universe was to be interpreted
in terms of hard, sound, soulless atoms and their motions. . . .
The mechanistic is bankrupt.

In brief, Dr Millikan believes that Science will strengthen
faith in an unseen power, and not run counter to the
religious impulse of the human spirit.

CHAPTER XV

THE MAN WHO SPEEDED UP TRAVEL BY SEA

Sir Charles Parsons and the Turbine

THE first man who ever described the surface of the
moon was the third Lord Rosse, famous as the
builder of the first really large telescope. It
weighed twelve tons and was mounted in the park at
Parsonstown at a cost of no less than thirty thousand
pounds. That was more than eighty years ago.

Lord Rosse was much more than an astronomer. In
1854, when the Crimean War was raging, he proposed
that the British Admiralty should build ironclad ships.
He suggested a steamer of about fifteen hundred tons,
covered with four inches of iron. This vessel was to have
no bulwarks and no funnel, and her sides were to be only
fourteen inches above the water. Such a ship, he said,
could sink an opponent with one blow of her cutwater.
In fact, he planned a monitor years before the first of such
vessels was actually built.

The children of such a man had every chance to learn
engineering ; one of them at least, the youngest son and
the subject of this chapter, has become world-famous
as the inventor of the Parsons steam turbine. When
he was only ten years old Charles Parsons was already
making small working models of cars and boats. He even
made a submarine. A little later, in his father's work-
shop, he constructed an air-gun. Not a toy, for he says
that he well remembers his delight at shooting a rabbit
with it.

His next effort was a sounding-machine. This con-
sisted of a glass tube closed at the bottom and with a cork

169

170 Master Minds of Modern Science

at the top. A tiny hole no wider than a hair was made in
the glass, and the depth of water was recorded by the
amount of water that entered the tube through this tiny
aperture. Though still a boy of twelve, Charles Parsons
had actually anticipated the principle of the sounding-
machine afterward constructed by the famous Lord
Kelvin. Sir Robert Ball, the great astronomer, was a friend
of Lord Rosse, and when he cruised with the family on
their yacht helped the boy inventor to make soundings
with this machine.

Later, Charles Parsons went to Cambridge, where the
engineering school was just starting under Professor
James Stewart. Charles Parsons was one of Stewart's
first six students, and when he left Cambridge in 1876 was
Eleventh Wrangler. He was also a first-class rowing man,
for he had won his college pair of oars. Then he went to
Armstrong's, at Elswick, where he served his apprentice-
ship, and from there went to Kitson's, at Leeds, in
whose shops he began to work on high-speed steam
engines.

It was in the eighties of the last century that competi-
tion for the Atlantic record had become fast and furious.
The Inman and White Star Lines had been striving with
one another for years, then the Guion Line struck in, and
in 1879 their Arizona crossed the Atlantic in seven days
ten hours and a few minutes. Three years later the
Alaska of the same line beat this record by four hours,
and in June 1884 the National liner America was the first
vessel to cross in under seven days, only to be beaten a
few weeks later by the Oregon, afterward mysteriously
sunk off Fire Island.

Then the Cunard bestirred itself and built the Etruria
and Umbria, each of about eight thousand tons and
eighteen knots speed. The writer, crossing the Atlantic
in 1886, in the old National liner Egypt, saw the Umbria
coming up astern and watched her pass and race away

Sir Charles Parsons 171

toward the horizon. Both these ships were able to do the
journey in a little over six days, but they were beaten by
the Inman City of Paris, the first to break the six days
record. There followed the Teutonic, and after her came
the new Cunarders Campania and Lucania, each of
thirteen thousand tons, and able to do the voyage in less
than six days.

In 1887 a torpedo-boat called Ariete was built for the
Spanish Navy; this boat attained the then unheard-of
speed of twenty-six knots. In 1893 this speed was beaten
by the Daring, a British boat which notched twenty-
eight knots. In 1896 another British vessel, H.M.S.
Desperate, was the first to reach thirty knots, and in
1899 H.M.S. Albatross, constructed of a new tensile steel,
reached thirty-two knots.

This was about the limit for the old-fashioned recipro-
cating engine, and it was not much fun to drive these
craft at full speed. The vibration was terrific, and the decks
were swept by a storm of red-hot dust from the funnels.
Both weight and strength were sacrificed for the sake of
speed, and Admiralty engineers realized that these vessels
were useless for sea-going service except under the most
favourable conditions. So a halt was called in the race
for speed.

Charles Parsons was one of those who realized that a
new form of marine engine must be devised. He turned
his attention to the form known as the turbine. He did
not invent the turbine, which is actually the oldest form
of steam engine known, for Hero of Alexandria, who lived
one hundred and fifty years before Christ, built a toy-like
turbine in which a wheel was driven round by a jet of
steam. In 1577 a German mechanic constructed a similar
machine, which he used for the humble purpose of turning
a joint on a spit. In 1784 Watt worked for some time on
a small steam turbine, and in 1815 the famous Cornish
mechanic Trevithick made similar experiments.

172 Master Mi?ids of Modern Science

All through the nineteenth century inventors experi-
mented with the turbine, but none of them got far with it.
All could drive wheels with steam jets, but the waste of
steam was so great that the work done by the steam could
not compare with that done by the reciprocating engine.
The turbine got a bad name as a ' steam-eater/ and the
general opinion among engineers was that it would never
be of any practical value. One of the few men who held
the opposite opinion was the great Lord Kelvin.

But Charles Parsons was something more than an
inventor ; he was a scientist and understood the laws of
thermo-dynamics (power produced by heat) . He realized
the possibilities of the turbine and set himself patiently to
work to overcome its difficulties and disadvantages.

The reciprocating engine is one in which steam-pressure
propels a piston connected with a crank by means of
which the to-and-fro movements are converted into rotary
action. In the turbine this action is obtained by making
steam drive direct upon vanes or blades attached to the
rotary parts, so that the steam does its work in a much
more simple and direct manner. The chief contrast
between the two forms of engine is that in the recipro-
cating engine the steam has a velocity of less than one
hundred feet per second, while in the turbine it attains
the tremendous velocity of two thousand to three thousand
feet a second.

There are several reasons why the reciprocating engine
can never make use of anything like the full power of
steam. One is the alternate heating and cooling of the
cylinder walls; another is the friction due to the large
number of rubbing surfaces ; a third is that momentum
and inertia must be overcome at every stroke of the
piston ; and a fourth the fact that if superheated steam is
used the oil for internal lubrication carbonizes.

The advantages of the turbine are that the motion is
continuous, there is no vibration, no need for internal

SIR CHARLES PARSONS

Photo by Russell, London

173

Sir Charles Parsons 173

lubrication, and that the steam strikes on each part of the
engine at a constant temperature. Its disadvantage is
that unless the highest possible number of revolutions is
attained there is a leakage of steam, which therefore fails
to yield up the whole of its energy.

Charles Parsons constructed his first turbine in 1884-85
at the works of Messrs Clarke, Chapman, Parsons and Co.,
at Gateshead, and this original machine is to-day in the
South Kensington Museum. It was of what is called the
' parallel flow ' type, and in the patent which covers it it
is stated that the steam operates in successive stages,
" undergoing expansion, and falling in pressure in each,
until it leaves the last at a velocity not greatly above that
which is practically attainable by the motor itself."

In this machine the rotor was built up of rings of gun-
metal strung on a central shaft. The blades were cut at
an angle of about forty-five degrees out of the solid metal
on the edges of the rings, yet even as early as this the
inventor hinted that " in some cases it may be convenient
to make the blades of sheet metal and to secure them in
suitable grooves or recesses in the rings/ ' and that " other
forms of blades may be employed." At a later date it
was found that curved blades were much more efficient.

This small turbine was coupled to an electric generator
and used for experimental wTork. The first trouble was
that the pedestals heated, causing the blades to foul the
casing, but this was soon overcome. The next problem
was to find the right form of blade. In 1888 curved
blades were used and were found to be a great improve-
ment.

The first Parsons turbine to be put into commercial
use was built for the Cambridge Electrical Power Station
in the year 1892. Professor — afterward Sir Alfred — Ewing
wTas deputed to test this engine. He came full of doubts,
but remained to bless.

" It was," as Sir Charles said recently, " a red-letter day

174 Master Minds of Modern Science

for the turbine when it beat the reciprocating engine in
economy of steam and justified the proposal to apply the
turbine to main propulsion.' '

Then began work on the first turbine- driven ship.
Models about two feet long were made, and towed by
means of a fishing-rod in a small pond at Ryton-on-Tyne,
and afterward a six-foot model was made which was
driven by a powerful twisted rubber spring. The working
speed of the propeller was no less than eight thousand
revolutions a minute.

This model was so satisfactory that the ship herself was
built. Turbinia, as she was called, was a tiny vessel, one
hundred feet long, nine feet beam, and with only three
feet draught, giving a displacement of forty-four tons.
Small indeed to hold an engine giving two thousand horse-
power.

Her first trial was made in November 1894, and was
very disappointing. The propeller was a two-bladed
screw of thirty inches diameter. It was driven at the
tremendous speed of the turbine (for in those days,
remember, there was no gearing down), and the result was
excessive ' slip/ In other words, the screw spinning at
such furious speed (one thousand seven hundred and
thirty revolutions a minute) made a hole in the water
behind it, and caused what is called ' cavitation/ The
loss by slip, or loss of grip on the water, was very nearly
half the total power.

A single four-bladed propeller next tried was equally
unsatisfactory, and Parsons then built multiple propellers,
three small screws on each of two shafts. By this means
slip was reduced to thirty-seven per cent, and a speed of
nearly twenty knots was reached, yet even this was not
satisfactory. There is not space here to describe all the
long, patient, and costly experiments which were carried
out before the problem was solved. Photographs of
' cavitation ' were taken by means of an arc lamp. With

Sir Charles Parsons 175

a propeller running at fifteen hundred revolutions a
minute in hot water the cavities about the blade could be
plainly photographed.

New engines were fitted, and three shafts were used with
three small propellers on each. At last the little boat
began to move. She did more than thirty-two knots, and
the experts became greatly interested.

1897 was the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee,
and the greatest Naval Review in history was held at
Spithead. Into the array of vast steel-clad giants slipped
the tiny Turbinia, travelling at a speed of thirty-five
knots, or forty miles an hour. The newspapers were full
of accounts of " The Fastest Vessel Afloat." One corre-
spondent wrote :

Turbinia is propelled by an engine different from any that
was put before into a boat. It has no fly wheel, no backwards
and forwards movement of rods and pistons, no intricate
valves ; it is a hundred times simpler than the ordinary steam
engine and as easy to understand as a windmill. Indeed it is
quite like a windmill in this, that the steam, being driven
against the fans of specially made wheels on the three propeller
shafts, makes these turn very rapidly, and of course the screws
turn with the shafts. . . . The screws of Turbinia make about
two thousand five hundred revolutions a minute without any
vibration, whereas the best marine engine in the world, with
reciprocating motion, would tear itself to pieces doing one-
fourth as many.

The Admiralty had followed all the trials of Turbinia
and witnessed her success, and now gave an order for a
destroyer to the firm of which Parsons was a member.
Thus in 1898 work began upon the Viper. She was a
small ship, two hundred and ten feet long, twenty-one
feet beam, and of three hundred and seventy tons burden.
She had two sets of turbines, each with a high- and low-
pressure machine working in series, and there were four
shafts instead of three.

176 Master Minds of Modern Science

She developed twelve thousand three hundred horse-
power, and her speed over the measured mile was thirty-
seven and one-tenth knots. She went astern at fifteen
and a half knots. A second destroyer, the Cobra, was
built on similar lines, but she was not quite so fast, her
speed being just over thirty-four knots.

In the Navy they say that it is the worst of luck to name
any ship after a reptile, and the fates of these two vessels
bear out this saying. Cobra was lost in a storm in the
North Sea in September 1901, while on her way to the
Tyne from the South. It is believed that she broke her
back. Viper was wrecked in a fog when she ran aground
on the rocky coast of the Channel Islands. All the repre-
sentatives of the Parsons staff and of the builders, as well
as most of the crew, were lost in the Cobra.

Although these twin disasters were in no way due to the
turbine engines, yet they threw a sad damper on the pros-
pects of the Parsons Company, for now the little Turbinia
was the only vessel afloat having turbine engines. Then
Messrs Denny of Dumbarton stepped in and ordered
turbine engines for a new vessel they were building. She
was the King Edward, the first merchant ship to be fitted
with turbines. She was quite small, being only six
hundred and fifty tons, and was built for service on the
river Clyde. On her trials she did well over twenty knots,
and the weight of her motors, with condensers, steam
pipes, propellers, and all, was only sixty-six tons.

She was so satisfactory that she was soon followed by
a second ship, the Queen Alexandra. The taunt to the
effect that turbines were ' steam-eaters ' failed completely
when tables were published showing that these two
vessels actually used a fifth less coal than similar ships
fitted with reciprocating engines.

Success breeds success. The next thing that happened
was that the South-Eastern Railway Company ordered a
turbine-engined ship for cross-Channel work. She was

Sir Charles Parsons 177

the Queen, three hundred and ten feet long and forty feet
beam. She steamed nearly twenty-two knots. It was
found possible to bring her to a dead stop, when travelling
at nineteen knots, in one minute seven seconds, a feat
impossible with the old-fashioned engines, and she was
seen to gather way much more quickly than other vessels.
She also burned twenty-five per cent, less coal than her
older sisters and required a smaller engine-room staff.
The oil consumption was very much less.

The first turbine-engined yacht was the Emerald, built
in 1903, a vessel of nine hundred tons. She was also the
first turbine-engined ship to cross the Atlantic, but the
time had now come for the great trans-Atlantic lines to
order turbines for their new ships. The honour of being
the first to do so belongs to the Allan Line, who built the
Victorian and Virginian, each a big liner of thirteen
thousand tons. These carried what were by far the
largest turbine engines yet built. The high-pressure tur-
bine for the Victorian had a diameter of sixty-eight and
three-quarter inches at the high-pressure end, and at the
low-pressure end a diameter of seventy-four inches ; the
low-pressure turbine ran from seventy-four to ninety-five
and three-quarter inches. The revolutions to give a speed
of nineteen knots were only two hundred and ninety a
minute, and the weight of the machinery in each ship was
four hundred tons less than for triple-expansion engines.

The Cunard Company were the next to act. In 1904
they decided to build two new vessels, each of thirty
thousand tons. These were the Carmania and Caronia.
The Carmania was to have turbines, and the Caronia to
have the very last thing in reciprocating engines. Other-
wise the two vessels were twins, each being six hundred
and seventy-eight feet long and seventy-two beam. Once
more the verdict was in favour of the turbines, for Car-
mania proved herself capable of twenty knots as against
Caronia s nineteen and a half on similar coal consumption,

M

178 Master Minds of Modern Science

while the space saved in Carmania by the adoption of the
turbines enabled her to carry more cargo.

The tide was now turned fully in favour of the turbine,
and a very large number of new passenger vessels, includ-
ing two for Japan, were fitted with the Parsons steam
turbine. The Ben-ma-Chree, built for service to the Isle
of Man, surprised every one most pleasantly by doing
twenty-five knots on her trials.

Still bigger things were in prospect, for the Government,
aware that British trans- Atlantic traffic was threatened by
German competition, made a large loan to the Cunard
Company for the purpose of building two mammoth
vessels of great speed. These were the Mauretania and
Lusitania, and the company decided to fit them both with
turbines. The new Cunarders were by far the greatest
vessels yet built, being roughly eight hundred feet long,
eighty-eight beam, and sixty-six feet deep. The high-
pressure turbines were ninety-six inches in diameter, the
low were one hundred and forty inches. The Lusitania
was launched first, and on a forty-eight-hour trial run
attained a speed of 25*4 knots. The Mauretania did even
better, being half a knot faster than her sister. Probably
two finer ships were never built, for the Mauretania
remained the fastest trans-Atlantic ship afloat for more
than twenty-one years, and was never beaten until 1929,
when the German-built Bremen exceeded her record. The
Mauretania has crossed the Atlantic at a speed exceeding
twenty-six knots, while none of her predecessors ever
exceeded 23*58 knots.

Large cruisers now being built were engined with
turbines. One of them, the Indomitable, beat all records
for warships by crossing the Atlantic from Canada to
England at a speed of 24*3 knots.

So far we have considered chiefly the uses of the steam
turbine afloat. But for every turbine installed in a ship
there must be a score in use ashore. As we have already

A VIEW OF THE ENGINE-ROOM OF THE R.M.S. MAURETANIA

Photo by permission of the dinar d Steamship Co., Ltd.

178

Sir Charles Parsons 179

mentioned, the first Parsons steam turbine was used to
drive an electric generator in Cambridge. To-day almost
every electric power plant in the world (save those worked
by water power) is driven by steam turbines. The tre-
mendous speed of the steam turbine, which was at first
a disadvantage in the driving of screw propellers, is of
great value in electrical works, where the speed of direct
drive is ten to fifteen times greater than was possible with
the older type of reciprocating engines.

The speed is, indeed, so great that centrifugal force
becomes about twelve thousand times as great as gravity ;
in other words, every pound weight has an outward pres-
sure of five and a half tons. How to counteract such
tremendous forces was one of the difficult problems which
had to be solved by Parsons when he began to install these
plants.

Soon after the Cambridge installation orders began to
come in for turbine-driven lighting-plants for ships. The
first Atlantic liner to be lighted with electricity was the
City of Berlin, in the year 1888. This experiment was
quite successful, and soon all other lines followed the
example.

Turbines are also used for blowing-engines in smelting
works. These are simply bellows on a great scale. They
take up very little room and are very economical. There
is little wear and tear, and very small cost for oil and
maintenance. The power is so great that a furnace can
easily be blown free if it happens to choke. In one works
two small turbo-exhausters took the gas from two hundred
and sixty tons of pig iron per day, whereas before they
were installed five large exhausting-machines were unable
to deal with more than one hundred and sixty tons.

The steam turbine has another use — in rolling-mills. In
one Scottish mill designed for rolling steel plates for ships
a Parsons turbine was installed with a nominal output of
seven hundred and fifty horse-power. But it was found

180 Master Minds of Modern Science

that the actual power available at the shaft ran as high as
four thousand horse-power.

Turbines and electro-generators are not the only pro-
ducts of the Parsons works, where you will find a large
department devoted to the making of searchlight reflec-
tors. The first of these was made for use in the Suez
Canal more than forty years ago, and since that date
great numbers have been made for the British and other
navies. Reflectors as much as seven feet in diameter have
been made in these works. A special feature of these
reflectors is the parabola ellipse mirror, in which the beam
of light is concentrated on a narrow slit ; it then spreads
out beyond. This projector can be placed behind a
narrow loophole which offers only a small target for
shots, yet the whole of the light can be projected in the
direction of the enemy.

In 191 1 Parsons received the merited honour of being
created Knight Commander of the Bath. He is a Doctor
of Science in no fewer than six different universities, and
an honorary Fellow of his old college at Cambridge. He
presided over the British Association in 1919 and is Past
President of the Institute of Physics.

The Kelvin Medal is perhaps the greatest honour that
can come to the scientific engineer. It is awarded only
once in three years, and then only after consultation with
the principal engineering institutions not merely of Great
Britain, but of the whole world. In 1926 Sir Charles
Parsons received this medal. He had already been
awarded the American Franklin Medal in 1920. He lives
in London, and is as keenly interested as ever in scientific
engineering.

CHAPTER XVI

WHERE QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED
Sir Joseph Petavel and the National Physical Laboratory

IT is surprising how little is commonly known about
quite familiar things. How great a strain will any
given piece of steel stand without breaking ? Why do
ships roll in a heavy sea ? What happens to an aeroplane
if it meets a sudden gust of wind blowing at one hundred
miles an hour ? What sort of road surface wears longest ?
When the technical advisers in any industry or Govern-
ment Department have conundrums such as these to solve
they take them to Teddington, in Middlesex, to the home
of the scientific wizards who are at work each day from
9.30 to 5 p.m., in the group of buildings known as the
National Physical Laboratory.

So many apparently unanswerable questions has the
Laboratory answered that over the entrance there might
well appear the legend " We can answer it." They do
other things too, as well as answer questions. If you
want to measure with absolute precision, to a millionth
part of an inch, you must go to Teddington. Or perhaps
you have a piece of metal which you want to have heated
up to one thousand six hundred degrees Centigrade —
almost the highest temperature attainable. These scien-
tists can do it for you. Or perhaps, again, you would like
to see an electric spark of a million volts ? You can see
one at the National Physical Laboratory.

This building, or rather group of buildings — for the
Laboratory to-day consists of ten large buildings, with
other smaller units, covering altogether twenty-three
acres of ground — is the property of the State.

181

1 82 Master Minds of Modern Science

The Laboratory was founded in 1900 by the Royal
Society as a public institution whose purpose was to
" carry out research, including especially research required
for the accurate determination of physical constants, to
establish and maintain precise standards of measurement,
and to make tests of instruments and materials/ ' That
description gives very little idea of the wonders which
are to be found within the Laboratory's walls. It is a
treasure-house of the latest scientific knowledge, compiled
by a staff which has grown from thirty to over five
hundred.

Before the War its work was valuable enough, as we
shall show. But from 1914 onward, when we were living
at the rate of something like a century a year from the
standpoint of scientific discovery, and when each morning
brought its urgent problem, the Laboratory became indis-
pensable to both Government and industry.

The Government realized clearly the importance of the
work done, and in 1918 the National Physical Laboratory
became truly national, being made a part of the newly
created Department of Scientific and Industrial Research,
although the Royal^Society continued, and still does con-
tinue, to control its scientific activities.

In work of this nature, where there is such need for
extreme accuracy and attention to detail, much depends
upon the Director. The Laboratory has been fortunate in
having as Directors, during its thirty years of existence,
two distinguished scientists whose work, done without
the least publicity, has nevertheless enriched the nation
and proved of inestimable value to British industry.

The first Director was Sir Richard Glazebrook, K.C.B.,
F.R.S., who after eighteen years in charge of the
Laboratory retired in 1918. He was succeeded by the
present Director, Sir Joseph Petavel, K.B.E., F.R.S.

We hope that these stories of the greatest scientists of
to-day and their work will dispel any idea in the minds

Sir "Joseph Petavel 183

of our readers that Science is a ' dry as dust ' occupation
concerned with problems remote from life.

There is certainly nothing academic about the work
of the National Physical Laboratory. Indeed, there is
hardly anything in our industrial life which the organiza-
tion directed by Sir Joseph Petavel does not touch. In
setting out to record the many marvels to be seen at the
Laboratory, the only difficulty is to know where to begin.

Let us start with the story of the Froude Experimental
Tank. This resembles a super-swimming bath, five hun-
dred and fifty feet long, thirty feet wide, and twelve feet
deep. It was presented to the nation by Sir Alfred
Yarrow, the famous shipbuilder, for the general advance-
ment of naval architecture.

This tank is one of a series of ' testing basins/ of which
the earliest was built by William Froude, at his own
expense, at Torquay.

Froude was the first man to prove the value of experi-
ments made with model ships dragged through the water
in a tank, and the tank at Teddington was named after
him in honour of his pioneer work.

The existence of the Froude Experimental Tank has
enabled grave scientists to elevate adventuring with
model ships from a sport for the young to an exact science.
With wax models that are exact replicas of the vessels
under investigation they carry out scientific tests to solve
riddles which could be solved in no other way.

Many years ago these tanks proved their value. For
instance, models of Sir Thomas Lipton's first famous
Shamrocks were made and tested in the private tank at
Messrs Denny Brothers' shipyard at Leven, years before
the War. Indeed, in the erection of Shamrock II no
fewer than sixty models were made, the experiments
lasting over a period of nine months. Over and over
again the great tank at Teddington has proved its value
to the nation.

184 Master Minds of Modern Science

Let us give one example. A giant Atlantic liner col-
lided with a small cruiser in the Solent, near Southampton,
a few years ago. Happily there was no loss of life, but
the damage gave rise to difficult questions regarding
the responsibility for the collision. The case remained
at a deadlock until the Admiralty put forward a theory
which led to a solution.

The authorities said that the collision might have been
caused by the wash of the giant liner sucking the small
cruiser toward her.

It might be true, or it might not. How could the
theory be tested? Obviously they could not arrange
another collision. At least, not with real ships on the
Solent. But the scientists, with the aid of the Froude
Experimental Tank, could stage the collision — a hundred
times if necessary — under conditions exactly parallel with
those under which it had occurred. So to Teddington
went the President of the Court, counsel, and witnesses.

First were built as neat models as ever delighted the
heart of a boy of any age up to sixty. Constructed of
yellow paraffin wax, they were perfect scale replicas of
the giant liner and the cruiser. The liner even had pas-
sengers, crew, and cargo represented by lumps of lead, and
little bags of ballast, while the cruiser was complete down
to her ram and rudder. Both models were fitted with
tiny electric motors and screws.

Then before the lawyers and naval experts the Solent
collision was re-enacted. The depth of water in the tank
was proportionate to the depth of the sea beneath the
vessels when the accident occurred.

To reproduce the speed of the ships the scientists
brought the ' bridge ' into operation. This is a steel
structure spanning the width of the tank, weighing four-
teen tons, and set on rails at either side, along which it
is electrically driven at a variable speed. Attaching the
two models to the undercarriage of the bridge, the models

Sir ^Joseph Petavel 185

being relatively the same distance apart as were the war-
ship and the liner at the time of the smash, they switched
on the current, and the two boats moved off on their
voyage, while all those interested stood above, taking
notes.

The models steamed on their course at an actual speed
of sixteen knots. Then came the thrilling moment and
the crash. With their own eyes the President, counsel,
and witnesses saw just what happened in the Solent.
They could see for themselves how the liner's wash
affected the small cruiser. Then the collision was re-
peated for them again and again, so that they should
not miss the slightest detail.

The evidence of the Tank tested the expert's theory,
and the lawsuit was settled.

Through increased activity in our shipyards and im-
proved methods in shipbuilding the Tank is being kept
busy, and much ' shipbuilding ' is going on in the minia-
ture shipyard next to it, where those exact models in
wax are constructed.

One of the problems recently tackled by these scientists
was associated with a difficult branch of shipbuilding, the
designing of fruit-carrying steamers, whose essentials are
ample cargo space and speed. Speed raises the question
of the stream-lining of hulls, and the systematic research
carried out at Teddington has led to results greatly
beneficial to our shipyards. For example, in the case of
a ten-knot tramp boat it was found possible, after experi-
ment with hulls of various shapes, to effect a reduction of
no less than thirty-five per cent, in horse-power without
altering the speed. In another case, where a nineteen-
knot ship was involved, ten per cent, of the horse-power
was saved, which for that one ship was equivalent to a
reduction in the coal bill of about five thousand pounds
a year !

Speed, too, can be tested in anticipation with the aid

1 86 Master Minds of Modern Science

of this invaluable Tank. During the War the world's
fastest destroyer was built for the British Navy after
experiments in design had been made at Teddington, and
if Britain regains the blue riband of the Atlantic it will
quite possibly be through similar trials at the Laboratory
having proved which design could be expected to produce
the maximum speed. Thus our shipbuilders are no longer
building ' in the dark/ for their ideas can be tested
quickly, under the appropriate conditions, by men who
have made the sailing of toy boats the handmaiden of
Science.

If waves are wanted they can be produced by a special
device. If a shipbuilder wants to see how his projected
boat will weather a violent Pacific storm, exactly equi-
valent conditions can be produced. There is also a false
bottom to the tank ; this can be raised to give the effect
of shallow water.

The use of wax models contributes also to elasticity
in the experiments. If the first design does not give satis-
factory results, then a little can be added to the model
here or shaved off there, and a vessel of new and
improved shape put through its trials. This can be
done again and again, if need be, until the perfect line has
been discovered.

The National Physical Laboratory will investigate
anything associated with water-navigation. In one year
it tested eighty-one models, representing fifty-nine diffe-
rent designs. The Tank is used for other experiments
too. For instance, the famous Schneider Trophy 'planes
were tested, in model form, in the Laboratory, and
experiments have been carried out with the object of
illustrating the action of seaplanes when rising from the
water.

The scientists at the Laboratory have even studied the
rolling and tossing which most of us associate inevitably
with seasickness. One of them specializes in studying

Sir "Joseph Petavel 187

the reasons why vessels roll and pitch, and the effects of
this buffeting by the waves. This man, whom many
of our readers will regard as a true martyr in the cause of
Science, goes for sea voyages with an ingenious recording
instrument as his companion. But his vogages differ
from other people's. He deliberately sets out in search of
rough weather. He is so keen to endure the worst the sea
can do that passages are booked for him in the winter on
cargo boats, when the Atlantic can be relied on to satisfy
his appetite for storms.

Among his trophies is a graph of pitching in a 10,000-
ton cargo-boat during a big storm which makes the land-
lubber sick to look at. And he will tell you exultantly of
a roll of thirty degrees he once experienced ; this he has
carefully stored among the data he is collecting for an
effort to make vessels steadier in bad weather — surely
an effort for which humanity will thank him.

Important as are these researches, on the sea and in
the famous Froude Tank, they are only one part of the
work of this wonderful laboratory, which does many
other things just as remarkable and valuable — indeed, the
activities of the National Physical Laboratory are so
varied and extensive that it would need a book much
larger than this to give an adequate picture of the real
wonders of its work.

There are six other main sections : Physics, Electricity,
Engineering, Metallurgy, Aerodynamics, and Metrology.

Not long ago the Engineering Department had a very
interesting problem to tackle. The House of Commons
had complained of bad ventilation, so the problem was
turned over to the National Physical Laboratory. There
the scientists built a scale model of the House, and from
their observations were able to make valuable suggestions
for improving the air breathed by Members.

Next door to that model in the Engineering Depart-
ment is a fearsome-looking steel structure whose function

1 88 Master Minds of Modern Science

it is to test railway couplings. It is known as an impact-
testing machine, and the blow it delivers corresponds to
dropping a mass of one ton through five feet. By re-
peatedly dropping a ton weight on to a coupling or a
chain it is possible to discover the precise strain or stress
which it will stand in actual use. The railway companies
adopt only the designs which have proved themselves able
to stand a strain many times greater than any they are
likely to endure on the line. Thus the public is safe-
guarded.

The Laboratory has several machines for doing damage
to metals. In fact, some of its scientists are at work all
day smashing up pieces of metal that have been made
with great care. One machine stretches steel rods to dis-
cover how great a strain they will withstand before
breaking, another squeezes metals, a third twists them,
and yet another bends steel springs backward and for-
ward about a thousand times a minute for hours on
end, all the time automatically counting the number of
times the spring bends. Finally the machine shows the
number of times the spring can be bent before it gives
way. This type of experiment has proved valuable in
testing the springs of motor-cars ; and the springs on the
car or bus in which you ride are better and safer than
they would be were it not for this work.

These experiments are linked up with the very im-
portant question of ' fatigue ' in metals.

Now that industry is constantly building machines for
working at terrific speeds under high pressures, engineers
must know how much strain a metal will stand.

Occasionally we hear that the steel arm of a crane has
cracked, perhaps causing loss of life. After an event such
as this the maker of the crane will send a sample of the
metal to the Laboratory for testing, and the experts will
tell him why the metal failed.

Testing the hardness of a metal is really quite a simple

Sir jfoseph Petavel 189

matter. A diamond is pressed into it, and then the
resultant marks are examined under a powerful micro-
scope.

The Metallurgy Department at Teddington is also very-
interested in this problem of ' fatigue ' of metals, but the
means they use are furnaces, microscopes, and chemical
analyses.

There you can see metals heated to the highest attain-
able temperature. They do this with what they call
their high frequency valve furnace, which will raise the
temperature of a metal until it reaches the staggering
figure of one thousand six hundred degrees Centigrade.
The valves, much like ordinary wireless valves, are about
two feet long, and cost seventy-five pounds each !

More amazing still is the fact that this intense heat is
generated in the body of the metal itself, in such a way
that the outside of the furnace remains cool enough to
be touched.

In another department the problems of the motorist
are dealt with. Every motorist knows the danger of
skidding on wet and greasy surfaces, but how many know
that at Teddington scientists are every day seeking to
solve the problem ? They have there a skidding machine
— a motor-cycle and side-car, with a wheel specially made
for skidding. Instead of having the dials and gadgets
dear to the heart of the youthful motor-cyclist, this
machine is decorated with apparatus which records all
that happens when it is deliberately skidded over a pre-
pared surface.

Another road problem in which these scientists are
interested is the effect of wheels on road-surfaces, and
another is the search for the ideal road-making material.

A lorry which can be fitted with various kinds of wheels
is used in tracking down the type of wheel that is respon-
sible for most road damage. But the most remarkable
machine is the road-surface tester, a weird contraption

190 Master Minds of Modern Science

having eight wheels, connected with a central pivot,
which rotate in a circular bed. It is like a roundabout
without a top. If you invent a new surface for roads
which you believe will wear longer than any other, take
it to Teddington. There they will lay a strip of your
material on the circular track and set the eight wheels
in motion. For seven hours a day, week after week,
the wheels will travel over that prepared track, until the
scientists know just how long the surface will stand the
* traffic/ and can compare the result with the carefully
compiled statistics relative to other road materials.

One more instrument in this department of wonders
must be mentioned. It is a little machine so sensitive to
earth tremors that it will record the passage of traffic
several hundreds of yards away. This will be used for
making observations of the actual blow that a wheel
delivers to the road; the testing-ground will be an
artificially prepared rut.

Apart from the Tank, however, perhaps the most
interesting feature of the Laboratory is the Aerodynamics
Department, where are to be found the wind tunnels.
These are fearsome to the eye. Imagine a huge wooden
funnel, fourteen feet broad and seven feet high, supported
on steel legs, with a mighty propeller at one end which at
a maximum speed can suck air through the funnel at one
hundred feet per second, which means that twenty tons
of air pass through the tunnel every minute. A man
would be swept off his feet by such a blast. Even an
aeroplane would find it difficult to face the storm — and
that is just why these wind tunnels were built. For
they are the airman's friend, and with their help the
scientist has collected much valuable information about
the pressure of wind and air on aeroplane wings and
fuselages. Otherwise this could only have been collected
slowly, and through infinite risk of life and limb in the
air itself.

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It is impossible to study a model aeroplane when it
is actually flying. At Teddington, therefore, they have
adopted the expedient of fixing the model and forcing
the air past it. Specially designed apparatus records how
the wind-pressure affects the model, and the velocity and
direction of the air-flow past any particular part of it.

This is important, for if anything in the design of a
'plane produces air-eddies in any given wind-direction
the lifting-power of the machine will be reduced. How
then can it be proved that any given design will produce
an even current as it travels through the air? Or, if it
produces eddies that cause it to ' drag/ how can those
eddies be measured and the cause of them exposed ?

These seem to be impossible questions, but the National
Physical Laboratory has answered them by creating a
simple apparatus. They fix a fine platinum wire, sus-
pended between two prongs, to that part of the model
which they wish to study, and an electrical current is
passed through the wire, heating it. Then the wind is
turned on. If there is an even current of air, with no
obstacles to produce an eddy at the point under test, the
wind will cool the whole length of wire evenly, and the
instrument which carefully records every variation of
temperature of that little wire will show that result.
But if eddies are present in the wind-force at that given
point, the wire will one minute be in a fast current of air
— and therefore cool — and then for a fraction of a second
in a slower current or a calm produced by the eddy. In
that fraction of time the temperature of the wire will
increase, and that increase will be recorded, thus proving
conclusively the presence of unequal air-currents due to
the design of the machine.

That is one small example of how these wind tunnels
lay bare secrets which might otherwise not be revealed
except by years of research. Investigations have also
been made with airship models, and these have been

192 Master Minds of Modern Science

supplemented by experiments on airships in actual flight.
Parachutes, windmills, aeroplane carrier ships, and the
wind-resistance of planes, spheres, cylinders, and spheroids
— all have been made the subjects of tests, and this
methodical work has yielded a mass of information of the
utmost value to the aircraft industry.

Yet another department of this wonderful institution
is that devoted to Metrology. Here are kept the stan-
dards of measurement which are used by us all, and here
new standards are devised when these are called for by
discoveries of new materials or processes.

When we talk lightly of so many yards or metres in
length, pounds or grammes in weight, seconds or minutes
in time, so many degrees of temperature or ohms of elec-
trical resistance, do we realize that somewhere there must
be an institution capable of making absolutely accurate
measurements of these quantities? Many of them are
defined by law, and it is of the most vital importance that
all should be fixed. Then when one remembers the manu-
facturing processes, where precision is required for scien-
tific work, it seems doubly important that the standard
should be fixed with the greatest possible accuracy.

At the National Physical Laboratory may be seen a
brightly polished bar with faint scratches on its surface.
It is a copy of the Imperial standard yard. As most
people know, this is the distance between two points
marked on a bronze bar kept in Trafalgar Square.
Another bar — this of platinum — measures the metre.
Against these absolutely accurate measures are tested
yards and metres submitted to the Laboratory by
commercial firms, Government Departments, and others.

The actual process of testing is too technical to be
described in a short space. It consists in placing the yard
to be tested beside the standard yard in a water-bath to
keep them both at the same temperature, and then in
reading the minute scratches on the official standard yard

Sir "Joseph Petavel 193

by means of microscopes. The yard under test is then
compared with the standard, and thus the slightest
divergence is revealed. An error of only one-millionth
part of an inch can be detected unerringly.

That surely should be accuracy enough for anyone.
But the Laboratory is not yet satisfied. Its workers are
now engaged in defining a yard in wave-lengths of light,
because any metal, whether steel, platinum, bronze, or
anything else, is liable to alter in length during the course
of years, and it is important that at no time should the
standard yard or metre change by even an infinitesimal
part of an inch. For while a fraction of an inch more or
less may be of no account to a woman buying cretonne,
it is vital to the manufacturer of ball-bearings, each of
which must be of identical size if there is not to be
friction, or to the manufacturer of pistons for motor-cars,
for all these must fit absolutely if there is not to be loss
of power.

It is the same with the measures of weight. These are
stored in the Balance Room, where the staff are at work
testing weights for scientists, analysts, chemists, and
others who need absolutely accurate standards for their
work. These weights are tested against the standard
weights in scales so sensitive that they have to be insu-
lated against changes in temperature. Even the heat of
the operator's body might upset their accuracy, and the
tests are therefore made at a distance by means of
prismatic reflectors.

Watches, clocks, chronometers, and other time-measur-
ing instruments are tested in a similar way against the
Laboratory's standard clocks, which are in turn checked
three times a day by time-signals from Greenwich, Paris,
and Germany.

Close by is the Physics Department, which tests clini-
cal thermometers at the rate of nearly sixty thousand a
month. Before a clinical thermometer is passed by the

N

194 Master Minds of Modern Science

Laboratory as accurate it must register any temperature
to within one-tenth part of a degree Fahrenheit.

In yet another part of this building experiments are
conducted for the purpose of solving cold-storage prob-
lems. Here scientists are at work studying the heat-
insulating properties of different materials and investi-
gating methods of regulating the temperature, humidity,
ventilation, etc., of cold-storage plants. A member of the
staff recently travelled to Australia in order to investigate
the conditions affecting the transport of apples to this
country, and to advise on the provision of suitable instru-
ments for making the measurements of temperature
necessary to ensure that the fruit reaches this country in
perfect condition.

At Teddington also is the British Radium Standard;
by this is measured the amount of radium contained in
any sample of radio-active ore submitted. Here also is
tested the protective value of materials used in X-ray
installations, and the Laboratory also examines the
X-ray equipment used in hospitals.

It is no exaggeration to say that there is hardly a
single department of public life with which the National
Physical Laboratory is not concerned. Propeller designs,
the efficiency of gears and lubricating oils, steam-pipe
insulation, the strength of cylinders for compressed gas,
the heating of underground mains, wireless valves and
transformers, the manufacture of optical glass, the
analysis of tides, the velocity of projectiles, aeroplane
fabrics — the scientists of the Laboratory are interested in
them all, and in many more subjects of scientific inquiry
which we have not the space to mention here.

But there is one more department which must be
mentioned. This is the High- volt age Laboratory, where
a million-volt electrical current can be produced at
will.

It is an enormous hall, forty feet high, and at one end

Sir yoseph Petavel 195

of it there are columns of intricate steel apparatus, con-
nected by arms with projections from the ceiling. Those
six columns support three transformers, forming the high-
voltage testing-plant which will play its part in the new
national electricity scheme now in course of development.
For that plant can produce a current at one million volts
and a frequency of fifty cycles a second — that is to say,
through that apparatus can be flashed fifty electrical
charges of one million volts, backward and forward, in
a single second.

CHAPTER XVII

SAFEGUARDING THE NATION
Sir Robert Robertson and the Government Laboratory

EVERY day thousands of Londoners pass close to
one of the most interesting institutions in the
<City, yet probably not one in a thousand of them
even knows of its existence. We refer to the Government
Laboratory, which stands in a narrow passage just west
of the Law Courts and within a few yards of the eastern
end of the Strand. The building itself is not likely to
attract attention, but inside it there are great rooms full
of chemical apparatus, and there is a staff of some two
hundred chemists busy with an amazing variety of work
under the direction of the Chief Government Chemist,
Sir Robert Robertson.

Sir Robert is a scientist of many different interests and
achievements. During the War he was one of the principal
experts on explosives, and if you wish to realize the extent
of his knowledge on this particular subject you should
refer to a lecture which he read before the Chemical
Society on " Properties of Explosives/' which is published
in the Transactions of that society.

But his special hobby now has nothing to do with
explosives. It takes the form of studies in the infra-red
region of the spectrum. The results of some of his experi-
ments in this field have been printed in the Proceedings
of the Royal Society, but they are too technical for a book
of this kind, and it will be more interesting to consider
here the work done under Sir Robert's direction in the
Government Laboratory.

Since 191 1 the Government Laboratory has been a

196

Sir Robert Robertson 197

separate department under the Treasury, and furnishes
advice and assistance to various public departments in
matters demanding chemical knowledge. While its scope
is now greater than that of work for Customs and Excise,
it had its origin in laboratories created for work in
connexion with dutiable substances. Ever since import
duties were first levied on such imports as tobacco and
tea, and excise duties on spirits, it has been necessary to
have skilled men to examine these goods.

For instance, no one can tell just by tasting beer how
much alcohol there is in it. The same is true of brandy,
whisky, and other spirits, all of which pay duty according
to the amount of alcohol contained in them. Methods of
testing these beverages had therefore to be invented.
This was part of the work of the first Government
chemists, and it is still that of their successors in the
twentieth century.

As we all know, the tax on alcohol was heavily increased
during the War, and this fact has made the Excise and
Customs authorities more particular than formerly. One
of the largest departments in the Government Laboratory
is devoted entirely to testing various imported goods for
their alcohol content. Alcohol, of course, is to be found
in many things other than liquor. It is to be found, for
instance, in scents, photographic developers, varnishes,
and in many kinds of medicine. As many as one hundred
samples of drugs and scents are dealt with in this labora-
tory in one day.

The instrument used for testing the specific gravity of
beer is the saccharometer. This was invented nearly two
hundred years ago, and it is still in use. The number of
analyses and examinations of beer made in the Excise
branch runs to many thousands yearly. Samples of
' wort ' — that is, beer before fermentation — are constantly
being tested to check the declaration of gravity made by
the brewer — for it is upon this ! original gravity ' that

198 Master Minds of Modern Science

duty is levied — and samples of finished beer are brought
in from public-houses in order to discover whether the
liquor has been adulterated. At one time it was quite
usual to find that the beer had been diluted with water,
but heavy fines have discouraged those guilty of this
mean swindle.

Formerly spirits were tested only by an instrument
called the hydrometer, but this method failed badly when
colouring or sweetening matter had been added, and in
1881 a change was made to testing by distillation.

Spirits are usually stored in wooden casks, and the wood
absorbs a considerable quantity of alcohol. Traders dis-
covered a means of extracting this alcohol from the wood,
with the result that every barrel yielded two to three
gallons of spirits which were practically duty free. But
the chemists of the Government Laboratory caught on to
this ingenious bit of tax-dodging, and ' grogging/ as it
is called, no longer pays.

Not only alcoholic liquors, but ginger beer, herb beer,
and similar temperance drinks, are all tested in the
Laboratory. The law allows two per cent, of proof spirit
in these, but a surprisingly large number are found to
exceed this limit. Ginger beer is most often at fault.
Many samples are found to contain as much as two per
cent, of alcohol, and one was found to contain four per
cent., making it more intoxicating than an ordinary light
beer.

Second only to drink, from the standpoint of tax
returns, is tobacco, and a whole department of the
Laboratory deals with tobacco and nothing else. All
tobacco entering the ports of Great Britain pays duty,
but there is of course much waste, or offal, on which a
rebate is allowed to the manufacturers. Waste includes
stalks, 'shorts/ and 'smalls/

A close watch is kept upon manufactured tobacco. Sir
Robert's chemists take very good care that the legal limit

SIR ROBERT ROBERTSON

Photo by Russell, London

198

Sir Robert Robertson 199

of thirty-two per cent, of moisture is closely adhered to.
This thirty-two per cent, includes the natural moisture of
the leaf, which varies from thirteen to seventeen per cent.
Tobacco factories are inspected by Government officials,
and any manufacturer who attempted to sell tobacco
adulterated with " leaves, herbs, plants, moss, weeds,
ground or powdered wood, chicory, etc/' — as the Statute
runs — would soon be detected and heavily fined.

The Laboratory has ovens for drying tobacco and
enabling its workers to estimate exactly the amount of
moisture. There are also special furnaces for carbonizing
tobacco, so that the proportion of ash can be estimated.
The tobacco to be burned is placed upon dishes made of
silica, which is unaffected by heat.

It is interesting to know that it was tobacco adultera-
tion which first made the authorities feel a need for the
help of the chemist, and thus came about the erection of
a small Government laboratory in 1843. This was the
modest beginning of the present institution.

One of the principal tasks of the Government Labora-
tory is to protect the people of this kingdom from being
swindled or poisoned by adulterated food and drink.
Adulteration of food is one of the oldest crimes. We have
records of flour being adulterated as long ago as the reign
of King John. The Adulteration of Coffee Act of 1718
refers to evil-disposed persons who make use of water,
grease, butter, and suchlike materials for addition to
coffee, " whereby the same is rendered unwholesome and
greatly increased in weight, to the prejudice of His
Majesty's revenue and the health of his subjects/ '

In 1843 Mr Phillips of the Inland Revenue stated that
there were in London alone at least half a dozen factories
for the purpose of redrying tea leaves. These spent
leaves were mixed with those of sloe, sycamore, horse-
chestnut, and other plants, and coloured with green
vitriol and indigo, and gave a most poisonous brew.

200 Master Minds of Modern Science

We ought to be thankful that the Government chemists
of to-day save us from abominations such as these,
inflicted upon our grandparents. In i860 Parliament
passed the first Act dealing with adulteration, but because
there were few means of enforcing its provisions it did
very little good.

At last in 1875 came the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, the
first real attempt to cope with the evils of adulteration.
Tea, coffee, pepper, and various other foodstuffs were
already examined by the State chemists, but the new Act
(which was followed by the Margarine Act of 1887 and
other similar Acts) greatly increased their work. Indeed,
it would have been impossible for any one body to safe-
guard the food of the whole nation, and Parliament there-
fore ordered local authorities to appoint public analysts,
who now do most of the food analysis. When a sample
is taken, one part goes to the Public Analyst, one to the
vendor, and a third part is reserved for the Government
chemist in case of a dispute between the parties.

In 1900 there was a terrible scare about arsenic in
beer. A number of people died from this cause and a
still larger number became very ill. The trouble was
traced to ' invert ' and other sugars used in the brewing
of malt liquors, and the whole of this sugar was destroyed.
Beer-drinkers are no longer in any danger of being
poisoned in this way. Arsenic, however, has been found
in other substances, such as paint, wallpapers, and cer-
tain toilet preparations. Frequently samples of these are
analysed in the Laboratory. The poison in yew leaves,
which is so fatal to cattle, was once the subject of a
lengthy research at the Laboratory ; on another occasion
glazes were tested for lead. The amount of lead in glazes
is now restricted by law, with great benefit to the health
of the workers employed in potteries.

A poison which claimed many victims was the white
phosphorus formerly used in the manufacture of matches.

Sir Robert Robertson 201

The workers suffered from a dreadful disease called
1 phossy jaw.' It was proved that for making matches
red phosphorus was just as good as white, and that it was
much less dangerous for the workers. Now one of the
tasks of the Government Laboratory is to test imported
matches for the presence of white phosphorus.

Samples of a very large number of foodstuffs are
analysed yearly by the staff of the Government Labora-
tory, and special attention is paid to butter, margarine,
milk, and cream. Frauds to be watched for include the
substitution of margarine for butter, and the use in im-
ported butter of injurious artificial colouring or preserva-
tives. The amount of water which butter may contain
is laid down by law; it may not exceed sixteen per
cent.

You may perhaps wonder how the analyst discovers
foreign matter in butter. One method involves the use
of a specially constructed instrument. Pure butter
melted has a definite angle of refraction when a ray of
light is passed through it. Since this angle is known any
difference from it may be an indication that the butter is
not pure. The amount of butter fat in any sample can
be determined by distillation of the volatile acids. There
are several ways of getting at the truth, and of bringing
the adulterator to book.

It might be expected, after all this, that offences would
have been ended, yet the report of the Ministry of Health
for the year ending March 31st, 1929, records an increase
in the adulteration of the nation's food. Of 129,034
samples examined, 7524 were found to be adulterated —
that is, nearly six per cent. Some cases were peculiarly
scandalous. For instance, paraffin wax was found in
three samples of suet, and a sample of flour contained a
quantity of fungus. Mustard was mixed with maize
flour, and sand was discovered in mixed spice, while
samples of cod-liver oil tablets contained no cod-liver oil

202 Master Minds of Modern Science

whatever. Jam was found to be artificially dyed and to
contain salicylic acid, while wines too were adulterated
with the same acid and with glucose. A sample of
anchovy paste contained fourteen per cent, of ash, mainly
iron oxide, this having been added to colour the paste.

Worst of all were the Easter eggs made of chocolate
which generally contained glass, zinc, copper, and saw-
dust, and the custard powder containing more than a
trace of arsenic.

The scope of the work done by the Government
Laboratory is immense. Indeed, there is hardly any
Government Department which does not at times make
calls upon it. The Public Prosecutor, the Record Office,
and even the Geological Survey all employ the services
of its analysts.

Often it is the duty of the Public Prosecutor to proceed
against forgers. In such a case the only evidence against
the accused may be the forged cheque, and it is the task
of the prosecution to prove that this is a forgery, with
the aid of the Government Laboratory. There is a
department in the Laboratory where the visitor is shown
cheques, or rather enlarged photographs of cheques,
which have been sent for this purpose. And if the forger
only knew how clearly his forgery shows up under the
camera and the ultra-violet rays he would certainly think
twice before attempting another such swindle. In one
case the amount of a cheque for thirty-one pounds had
been changed to one hundred and thirty-one. The figure
i had been inserted and the word ' one ' written in.
Then all the writing on the cheque had been gone over
carefully with Indian ink. The original was good enough
to deceive a bank cashier, but the photograph showed up
the forgery so plainly that a child could see it.

Since the tax was put upon bets, dishonest bookmakers
have frequently altered the books in which they kept
record of their transactions, in order to avoid paying the

Sir Robert Robertson 203

tax. Here again the cameras and rays of the Laboratory
have been used to show up the erased figures. However
carefully they may be rubbed out, they come up clearly
in these interesting photographs.

Again, by the use of chemicals unscrupulous people
have been able to delete the markings on used unemploy-
ment stamps, and so to use them over again. Yet once
more Science has proved too clever for the swindler, who
has found himself heavily fined for his efforts to get the
better of the State.

At the Record Office in Chancery Lane there is the
most wonderful collection of ancient documents in exist-
ence, and not the least interesting is Shakespeare's
marriage settlement. Not long ago the staff at the
Record Office were shocked to discover a blot of ink on
Shakespeare's signature. No one remembered having
seen this before, and there was doubt as to whether it
was an old blot or a new one. Off went the document to
the Laboratory, and almost at once came the answer that
it was a new blot. A test of the ink proved it to be made
from aniline dye, which of course did not exist in Shake-
speare's time. The blot was removed and the document
returned to the Record Office.

The great increase in the use of gas and electric light
has reduced the number of oil lamps used for lighting
purposes, but on the other hand there has been a very
great increase in the sale of oil-burning lamps for cooking
and heating. Oil used in these lamps must not ' flash '
— that is, give off inflammable vapour in a closed vessel —
at a temperature below one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
Many samples of oil are tested yearly in the Laboratory
to make sure that they comply with the law. What is
called the Ableclose test is used for this purpose, and all
kinds of oil are tested, including samples of oils used in
lighthouse lamps, sent by Trinity House.

' Fire-bugs ' — as they call them in America — have been

204 Master Minds of Modern Science

unusually busy during the past few years. They always
are when trade is bad, for often a fire is the only way to
stave off bankruptcy. Petrol has always been the main-
stay of the fire-raiser. The old trick was to fill a bladder
with petrol and hang it over a lighted lamp. Within an
hour or so the heat caused the bladder to explode ; then
blazing petrol was scattered all over the room, and
everything was instantly afire.

But Science soon outwitted the fire-bug. After fires
that aroused suspicion, Government chemists tested small
fragments of paper, carpet, or cloth, and by steam-
distilling were able to discover whether petrol had been
used to start the flames. Their greatest triumph was
when the only relics brought them after a fire of this kind
were some fragments of celluloid. The celluloid was not
merely charred, it was burned; yet even so they were
able to decide that it had been in contact with petrol.
Thus was revealed the most ingenious device yet adopted
by the professional fire-raiser, who in this case had strewn
the floor of the doomed building with celluloid balls filled
with petrol. His guilt was clearly proved, and instead of
pocketing the insurance money he received a sentence of
three years' penal servitude.

It is hard to believe that less than a hundred years ago
water was pumped direct from the Thames near Hunger-
ford Bridge for the use of Londoners. Small wonder that
cholera swept the city and that people died in thousands
from typhoid and similar diseases. The fall in Great
Britain's death-rate is due as much to the provision of
pure drinking-water as to all the great improvements in
medicine, and one of the tasks of the Government chemists
is to keep an eye upon the purity of water-supplies.
Country districts require these services more than great
cities, which have their own municipal analysts. We all
owe a very great debt to the late Sir Edward Frankland
(President of the Royal College of Chemistry in 1865)

Sir Robert Robertson 205

for devising a means of testing the qualities of drinking-
water, and for the work he did in pressing for pure
supplies.

Water is such a powerful solvent that it is not at all
easy to obtain it in a pure state, and springs which were
perfectly good in the past have often been contaminated
by the spread of buildings. Take the case of Maidstone,
a town which enjoyed the reputation of being very
healthy, with an extremely low death-rate and a freedom
from infectious disease. In 1897 a terrible plague of
typhoid overtook it, but chemists got to work at once,
and within a very short time traced the infection to the
water-supply.

In spite of London's excellent supply of well-filtered
water, many people long persisted in using old wells,
from which the water came up cool and fresh. But these
very waters which appealed so strongly to the eye and
the palate were often proved to be most dangerous.
There was, for instance, the pump near St Bride's Church ;
the water from this was famous for its cleanness and cool-
ness, yet when analysed it was shown to be poisoned with
products of the neighbouring graveyard. Since printed
warnings were of no effect the authorities were forced to
padlock the handle of this pump.

The Revenue authorities use quantities of hydro-
meters, thermometers, and measuring vessels in their
work of gauging and sampling, and it is one of the many
tasks of the Government Laboratory to test these before
they go out.

There does not seem to be anything too great or too
small to come under the careful eyes of these Government
chemists ; their inquiries range from the condition of our
telegraph-poles to the genuineness of a postage-stamp.

In one department you may see a specimen of steel
being tested for sulphur. The steel is dissolved in acid
and the free sulphur converted into lead sulphate. In

206 Master Minds of Modern Science

another room you may notice a worker testing a small
piece of painted wood to find out whether the contractor
has laid on three coats of paint as he had agreed to do or
only two. It may be mentioned that in the case which
came under the writer's notice it was speedily proved
that there were only two coats, and the contractor had
a bad quarter of an hour.

In still another room the writer saw a shelf full of soda-
water bottles ; on inquiry it was learned that these were
filled with sea-water. There were samples taken from the
seas of all the world, and they were being tested for the
quantity of salt contained in each. There is, for instance,
far more salt in the North Sea than in the Baltic, and
more in the Atlantic than in the Mediterranean.

Knowledge of the salt content of these various samples
helps the chemists and others to determine the drift of
currents, the rate at which the spawn of fish is carried,
and, to some extent, the amount of ' plankton ' — fish-
food — which exists in various seas or oceans.

One more achievement which is well worth recording is
the recovery of the radium used during the Great War.
Radium, as we all know, is very scarce and costly. At
comparatively small expense these chemists have suc-
ceeded in restoring to its original state no less than
ninety-eight per cent, of all the radium used in our war
equipment. Tiny fractions of luminous paint had to be
scraped from gun- and rifle-sights, from compass-cards
and aeroplane-indicators. This work alone has saved the
country thousands of pounds.

There is no other place in England, perhaps no other
place in the world, which provides a finer example of
the triumphs of applied science than our Government
Laboratory. While there is, of course, a good deal of
routine work, there is no knowing when some new
problem may arise. Then the whole burden of responsi-
bility falls upon the shoulders of the principal chemist,

Sir Robert Robertson 207

who may have to devise new apparatus and map out
new plans of attack or defence. He must therefore, as
you will realize, be versatile. If he were not also very
modest, we might have written more about him per-
sonally, and a little less about the great laboratory under
his control.

CHAPTER XVIII

DR SUNSHINE

How Dr A . Rollier Founded the Most Wonderful

School in the World

MANY remarkable medical discoveries have been
made during the past forty years — discoveries
which have given doctors new weapons for use
in the age-long fight with disease— but no recent develop-
ment in medical science is more inspiring than the re-
discovery of the sun as the great healer.

We write rediscovery, for the healing powers of the
sun were well known in the days of ancient Greece.
Then for centuries this great natural source of healing
was neglected, while men and women nursed their sick-
ness behind walls that shut out the healing ultra-violet
rays. Those centuries were the real Dark Ages, and it
was not until the closing years of the nineteenth century
that a young Dane, Dr Niels R. Finsen, began to study
the action of sunlight on certain diseases, and particu-
larly its action in cases of lupus and other forms of what
had until then been called surgical tuberculosis.

Dr Finsen was mainly interested in artificial sunlight
— the reproduction, by scientific means, of the valuable
ultra-violet rays when the natural sunlight was not avail-
able.

The wonderful results which Finsen obtained persuaded
other investigators to study the action of sunlight itself.
Thus began what has been called the modern ' sun-
worship.' That was about thirty years ago, and so
rapidly has sun-worship spread that to-day many towns,
including London, make provision for sun-bathing, so

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Dr A. Rollier 209

that children and adults can expose their bodies to the
beneficial rays. In any Northern country, also, there are
few modern hospitals where artificial sunlight lamps are
not employed as a valuable aid in the conquest of disease.

It will be remembered that artificial sunlight was em-
ployed during the King's long illness in 1929, a treatment
which could not have been administered but for the work
of the picoieers who proved the value of sunlight in sick-
ness and health.

Foremost among these pioneers is a Swiss doctor whose
name is still unknown to tens of thousands of those who
have benefited by his work. That work is carried out in
the Swiss mountain village of Leysin, far away from
great cities, by Dr Rollier, who although he has never
sought fame will certainly be remembered as the man
who demonstrated the wonderful healing powers of the
sun. For nearly thirty years he has tended his patients
in a hospital where surgeons and medicine are unknown.
These patients come to him with hunched backs, tuber-
culous limbs, and twisted bodies. He calls in the aid of
the sun, the fresh air, and good food. That is all And
presently the patients go away, their bodies miraculously
made beautiful and a new light of health in their eyes.

More wonderful still is the sunlight school at Leysin, a
school in which Dr Rollier's younger patients learn their
lessons sitting on the snow slopes, clad only in a pair of
drawers, while Dr Sunshine cures their bodies and makes
them the strong, healthy children they were meant to be.

We are not sure that Dr Rollier ought not to have
been given a place in one of our previous volumes devoted
to modern adventurers, for in our generation there have
been few adventures greater than that on which he em-
barked when in 1903 he began to use the sun-cure for the
treatment of surgical tuberculosis.

In 1903 those suffering from this terrible form of
disease turned for cure to the surgeon rather than to the

210 Master Minds of Modern Science

doctor. The knife was used, limbs were amputated, so
that if the patient was cured it was only after his body
had been scarred or mutilated for life.

The best way to tell how Dr Rollier has changed all
this is to describe that amazing school on the snow-bound
slopes of the Alpes Vaudoises. For although the school
is only a part of the wonderful hospital (to-day there are
thirty-seven cliniques, with over one thousand patients),
it is the most striking part of it. It is the only school in
the world in which diseased bodies are made beautiful
while the children learn their lessons.

On a day when the school is in session you may see a
class of boys starting out for their lessons. All of them
have been sent to Leysin because they could not be cured
anywhere else. Now they start out over the snow-
covered slopes, clad only in a loincloth and boots. Yet
as they glide downhill on their skis, with portable stools
and desks on their backs, they are not cold. Their bodies
are functioning perfectly, they are stored with sunlight.

On they go until they reach a sunny slope, carpeted
with fresh, untrodden snow, where the Alpine peaks
shelter them from the wind and the sun shines upon their
brown bodies. There, in a sun-trap, they set up their
desks and stools and work at their lessons, under the
direction of a teacher as naked and as brown as them-
selves, while their bodies acquire vigour from the sun.

Lessons over, they enjoy themselves as only healthy
children can. Toboggans and skis are got ready, and the
slopes ring with care -free laughter. There are plenty of
tumbles, but the children are so immune from the cold
that they do not even trouble to brush the snow from
their bodies. They are living a natural life, that of the
perfectly fit. Often at the school one sees amusing con-
trasts when visitors stand amazed at the sight of these
brown bodies that do not feel the cold.

It is all the more astounding when we remember that

Dr A. Rollier 211

these same children, only a few weeks before, arrived
at Dr Rollier's hospital as bed-ridden invalids. Some
suffered from diseased hips and legs ; others had terrible
lumps in their backs. Yet there they are, with limbs
healed and backs straightened, playing like a bunch of
athletes.

How has the marvellous transformation been effected ?
The answer is — through the sun and Dr Rollier. For
months, perhaps, those children have lain in their beds
while the sun's rays have bathed their bodies and healed
them. Those rays of sunshine, which mankind neglected
for centuries, are the greatest of all germicides; they
destroy the disease germs which cause surgical tuber-
culosis (though, unhappily, not the germs of pulmonary
tuberculosis) if the doses are administered with care and
knowledge.

In those last four words lies the clue to all the patient
work that has brought success to Dr Rollier's hospital
and fame to its founder. For if it is used in haphazard
fashion sunlight can be a terrible destroyer instead of
a gentle healer. Nowhere is this recognized more than
at Leysin, for Dr Rollier and his assistants, whose only
cure is their use of the sun, know full well how deadly
that sun can be. To expose a diseased body to the full
rays of the sun in summer would be fatal. The sunlight
has to be administered in small doses, which are gradually
strengthened as the body becomes accustomed to the
changed conditions.

The method of treatment was described to us by some
one who has recently visited Leysin. He said :

When a child goes to Leysin one foot will be exposed to the
sun for five minutes ; the next day both feet will be exposed.
Most carefully the child is watched, to see how the body is
reacting to the sun's rays, and perhaps a week later one whole
leg will be exposed, then the other. So it goes on until the
whole body is acclimatized and can stand the sun's rays for

212 Master Minds of Modern Science

long stretches at a time. With the cure goes a rational diet,
mainly of fruit and milk; very little meat is eaten, and it is
never taken more than once a day.

The sun-baths are enjoyed for so many hours a day, and then
the patients rest. In summer, when the sun is very hot, the
sun-baths are taken first thing in the morning, to avoid the
dangers arising from too-powerful rays. The body gets browner
and browner day by day, and the muscles, instead of wasting
owing to lack of use, actually develop under the healing rays of
the sun. After a few months some of the children are so well
developed that they look as though they have been taking a
course of physical exercise instead of lying in bed for week
after week.

Twenty-six years ago Dr Rollier built his first solarium,
or sun-bath, on the roof of an old chalet in Leysin. Now
great palaces, designed on the most scientific lines, are
dotted about the mountain-side. The rooms have double
doors, there are polished floors, hygienic and germ-free,
theatres, cinemas, and restaurants — the latter conducted
by men who know how to provide a healthy diet that will
satisfy the enormous appetites created by the sun.

Two sections of this remarkable hospital are maintained
by the Swiss Government for the treatment of its soldiers.
Other sections are for the use of poor persons.

All the patients breathe pure air, free from smoke, are
given fresh food, and enjoy the benefits of living at a high
altitude. But without the sun all these things would not
be sufficient to cure them. If ever there was a place in
the sun, it is Leysin, for the sun shines there summer and
winter. Often in December, when the snow is a couple of
feet thick on the ground, the sun temperature touches 105
degrees. To that fact visitors owe the queer sight of
youngsters playing in the snow, and at the same time
wearing sun-helmets to protect themselves from sunstroke.

No doctor in the world has achieved a more wonderful
work than Rollier, who laboured for years in a corner of a

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Dr A. Rollier .. 213

little country before even his own profession heard of him.
In 1913 he came to a great International Medical Con-
ference in London, and read a paper on his work, showing
lantern slides. There were only twenty doctors present
to listen to him, and he does not think that any of them
were English. This country was still in the Dark Ages —
we were still neglecting the sunlight that was free to all,
and few stopped to listen to the man who was making
diseased bodies whole with the aid of the sun's rays.

In 1921 another International Congress, held in London,
discussed tuberculosis. There was nothing on its pro-
gramme connected with heliotherapy, or curing by the
sun. But the medical profession was awakening never-
theless to the power of this greatest of all healers.

The cures worked by the sun at Leysin are now having
a profound influence upon medical treatment throughout
the world. Centres are being opened in England where
the methods of Dr Rollier are being practised by those
who have been to Leysin and studied his work. Perhaps
the nearest approach to the hospital at Leysin is to be
found in those Homes for Crippled Children founded by
Sir William Treloar at Alton and Hayling Island. For
we know that while high altitudes are best for the treat-
ment of many diseases, it is not necessary to go to a
height of 5000 feet in order to use the curative powers of
the sun. It will help to conquer disease anywhere in this
country where the curse of smoke can be eliminated, so
that the ultra-violet rays can reach the invalid.

CHAPTER XIX

MOSQUITOES AND MALARIA
How Sir Ronald Ross Conquered an Enemy of Man

THE history of Science is a record of attempts
made by devoted men and women to wrest from
nature secrets which enable us to save life or to
develop life more fully day by day. If the seeker after
truth succeeds in adding something to the sum total
of human knowledge, then sooner or later his work is
recognized. If he fails, his work remains unknown to the
world, and others carry on the search.

Often the margin that divides success from failure is as
narrow as a knife-edge. A few minutes' extra work when
the body is already tired beyond endurance and the brain
cries "It is useless " may result in a discovery that will
save countless human lives. Sometimes the discovery
comes like a flash of lightning. More often, as this
volume reveals, it is the reward of infinite patience, of
sheer dogged persistence which takes no thought of time
or difficulties or sacrifices.

To patience of that order the world owes the greatest
medical discovery of the past fifty years — the discovery
that malaria, dread scourge of the tropics, is ' carried '
by mosquitoes. Apparently simple, yet a discovery that
has revolutionized the whole study of tropical medicine,
and made inhabitable vast tracts of the earth's surface
where formerly men died or were incapacitated in their
tens of thousands. None knew how this terrible disease
was spread, until the secret was revealed by two British
doctors, who will always be honoured as benefactors of

the human race.

214

Sir Ronald Ross 215

To solve the problem we have referred to, Sir Ronald
Ross toiled for years in India, being encouraged by Sir
Patrick Manson at home. A dozen times he nearly aban-
doned hope of finding the evidence that he sought. His
eyesight nearly failed under the strain. He became
so weary that when he found his first clue he did not
realize that he was on the verge of success after years
of failure.'

The story of how this remarkable man, whose services
to humanity have even now not received just recompense
from those enriched by his work, finally detected the
means by which the germs of malaria are spread is one
of the most romantic in the whole history of scientific
research. Had he failed, millions now living in Asia,
Africa, and America would be dead.

Of all tropical diseases the most common is malarial
fever. It causes roughly one-third of all the attendances
at hospitals in the tropics, and about one-third of the
entire population in many hot countries suffers from it
every year. Although only about one case in several
hundreds proves fatal, yet the disease is so prevalent that
the total number of deaths due to it is colossal. It has
been officially estimated that in India alone something
like 1,300,000 deaths are caused by it in an average year.
It has affected Europe as far north as Holland and
England. In Greece and around Rome the disease was
until recently a curse. Over a vast part of the earth's
surface malaria remains a plague which threatens at every
turn all who live within the region affected.

For years scientists and doctors sought the secret of
how it was spread. Some declared it to be caused by the
night air, others that it came from infected water.
Both theories were to be disproved.

In demonstrating to the world how malaria was spread,
and thus how it could be fought, Manson and Ross
defeated the tiny flying insect which until the beginning

2i 6 Master Minds of Modern Science

of the twentieth century was the most dreaded enemy of
the British Empire — an enemy before which army, navy,
and doctors were powerless.

Sir Patrick Manson was a Scottish doctor, born near
Aberdeen, who in 1866 went out to become medical officer
at a Chinese hospital in Formosa. There he studied
elephantiasis, the strange disease which causes legs and
arms, or other parts of the body, to assume monstrous
proportions. And there he was first brought into contact
with malaria at close quarters.

A theory then generally held was that elephantiasis, a
tropical disease like malaria, was caused by the night air
of marshes. Manson began his investigations, and came
to the conclusion that the presence in human blood of a
parasite called the filaria worm probably had some con-
nexion with the disease. But the discovery only raised
a greater problem. How did the filaria worm get into the
blood ? The worm could neither walk nor fly. A possi-
bility was that it was sucked up by something that fed
upon human blood, then released again into the bodies of
previously uninfected persons.

The evidence pointed to the mosquito, which in biting
a person infected with the germs of elephantiasis, and
then passing on to uninfected persons, might well spread
the disease. To test this theory, Manson examined the
blood of some of his native helpers at the hospital.
Finding one who was heavily infected, he induced him to
sleep in a room containing mosquitoes and to let them
bite him.

The next morning Manson collected the insects, gorged
with the blood of the infected boy. He dissected them
and examined them under a microscope. They were all
infected with live filaria worms. Thus was it discovered
that the mosquito was the carrier of the germ which
caused elephantiasis.

Manson's discovery set certain men thinking. If the

Sir Ronald Ross 217

mosquito carried the parasite of one disease from person
to person, might it not also spread malaria? A French
doctor working in Algeria, named Laveran, definitely
suggested that the mosquito might spread malaria. But
the medical world in general was in no hurry to give up
its theories on the subject. Manson retired from practice
in China and came to live in England.

Nothing further was done for some years.

Then in 1894 Major Ronald Ross, of the Indian Medical
Service, a doctor who had long been interested in the
study of malaria and other tropical diseases, returned
home on leave, and while in London called upon Manson.
The hour for the final onslaught had struck. Manson
explained his theories to Ross, who resolved, upon his
return to India, to begin at once the experiments which
have led to such triumphant results.

Thus began one of the most famous partnerships in the
history of research, a partnership between two devoted
servants of humanity, one in London and the other in
India, who laboured for four years, inspiring and en-
couraging each other when doubts assailed them.

Back in India, Major Ronald Ross set to work in
earnest. He contrived to have mosquitoes suck up blood
full of the parasites of malaria. If mosquitoes were
actually the carriers of the disease, then the parasites
would be found, alive, within their bodies. But although
he dissected hundreds of insects, Ross could not find what
he was seeking. Actually, he was then trying to infect
the wrong type of mosquito, for only one variety, and
only the female of that variety, is able to suck up and
develop the germs.

Month after month Ross toiled away. Experiment
succeeded experiment without success.

Manson still believed that it would be found that
human beings contracted malaria from mosquitoes
through drinking water infected by the insects after they

2i 8 Master Minds of Modern Science

had sucked up blood containing the germs. Ross dis-
proved this, and found the real solution, but not until he
had wasted valuable time in testing Manson's original
theory.

In his Memoirs Sir Ronald Ross relates how he tried
to establish the truth or otherwise of the infected-water
theory by taking four mosquitoes which had fed upon
a malarial victim and placing them in two bottles with a
little water. The bottles were kept in a cool place for
a week, at the end of which the mosquitoes were dead. In
addition to the bodies of the infected mosquitoes, the
bottles contained grubs, showing that the eggs laid by
the insects had been hatched.

Now Ross made his test. After removing the bodies of
the mosquitoes, but not the grubs, he gave the contents
of the bottles to certain natives who volunteered, after a
full explanation of the experiment had been made to
them, to drink the water. " I think myself justified in
making this experiment, " wrote Ross, " because of the
vast importance a positive result would have and because
I have a specific in quinine always at hand."

The result of the experiment was odd. One man
developed an illness which at first seemed like malaria,
but when his blood was examined no malarial parasites
were found. Two other men who drank the infected
water remained quite well.

Further experiments with infected water yielded
negative results. In fact, that first case of intermittent
fever, which was a coincidence, was the only case in which
any after-effects followed the drinking of water exposed
to infected insects.

Eventually Ross abandoned Manson's theory, so far as
the means of infection was concerned, and began to search
for other means by which the parasites within the mos-
quito might enter the blood of human beings — the search
which was to end in his brilliant discovery.

Sir Ronald Ross 219

After many months the strain of the work in a torrid
climate began to tell upon Ross. He writes of this period
in his Memoirs (Murray, London, 1923) :

At first I toiled comfortably, but as failure followed failure,
I became exasperated and worked until I could hardly see my
way home late in the afternoons. Well do I remember that
dark, hot little office in the hospital at Begumpett, with the
necessary gleam of light coming in from under the eaves of the
veranda. The screws of my microscope were rusted with sweat
from my forehead and hands, and its last remaining eye-piece
was cracked.

By now he had begun to suspect that the mosquito he
sought was a type which eluded him. One morning a
'mosquito-man,' one of the three who collected the insects
for him, produced some larvae which hatched into brown
mosquitoes with three black bars on their wings. These
proved to be dapple-winged mosquitoes of a type which
Ross had not worked with before.

They were allowed to bite a malarial patient in the
hospital, and later some were dissected. Again no germs
of malaria were found. That was on August 16th, 1897,
in Secunderabad. Ross secured more specimens of the
dappled-winged brown mosquito during the next few
days.

Thus the story comes to August 20th, 1897, the anniver-
sary of which Sir Ronald Ross still calls Mosquito Day.
The first few mosquitoes placed under the microscope
revealed nothing. Then Ross came to one of the last of
the batch which had been allowed to feed upon the
malarial patient on the 16th. His eyes were already
feeling the strain, but carefully, methodically, he searched
through the tissues of that tiny winged creature. Again
nothing. At last only the stomach of the insect remained
to be examined. That meant half an hour's work, and
already he was tired out. Moreover, he had examined the

220 Master Minds of Modern Science

stomachs of thousands of mosquitoes without finding any
trace of the germ.

Tired as he was, he began to work again, but a kindly-
fate must have watched over Ross that day. What fol-
lowed may best be told in his own words :

I had scarcely commenced the search again when I saw a
clear and almost perfectly circular outline before me of about
twelve microns in diameter. The outline was much too sharp,
the cell too small, to be an ordinary stomach-cell of a mosquito.
I looked a little further. Here was another and another exactly
similar cell. I now focused the lens carefully on one of these,
and found that it contained granules of some black substances,
exactly like the pigment of the parasites of malaria. I counted
altogether twelve of these cells in the insect, but was so tired
out with the work and had so often been disappointed before
that I did not at the moment recognize the value of the obser-
vation. After mounting the preparation, I went home and
slept for nearly an hour. On waking, my first thought was that
the problem was solved, and so it was.

Ross had discovered that the germs of malaria were
sucked by certain mosquitoes from the body of an infected
human being, and developed in the stomach-tissue of the
insect. He had made one of the greatest medical dis-
coveries, saved millions of lives, and yet he did not
appreciate what it all meant until he had slept ! That
incident reveals how utterly weary he was, in mind and
body, at the end of months of failure.

The next day Ross dissected the last survivor of the
same batch of mosquitoes. Within its stomach he found
similar cells — only larger! That was conclusive. The
cells were parasites, and they not only lived, but grew
within the mosquito. The discovery was really two
discoveries, and each was of vital importance. As Ross
wrote afterward:

We had to discover two unknown quantities simultaneously
— the kind of mosquito which carries the parasite, and the form

Sir Ronald Ross 221

and position of the parasite within it. By an extremely lucky
observation I had now discovered both the unknown quantities
at the same moment. The mosquito was the Anopheles, and
the parasite lives in or on its gastric wall and can be recognized
at once by the characteristic pigment. All the work on the
subject which has been done since then by me and others
during the last thirty years has been mere child's play which
anyone could do after the clue was once obtained.

In his great joy at the prospects opened up by the
discovery Ross composed these verses to commemorate
the day:

This day relenting God
Hath placed within my hand
A wondrous thing ; and God
Be praised. At His command,

Seeking His secret deeds
With tears and toiling breath,
I find thy cunning seeds,

0 million-murdering Death !

1 know this little thing
A myriad men will save.

O Death, where is thy sting ?
Thy victory, O Grave ?

The key had been found, but much more remained to
be done. Ross had studied the germs five days after they
entered the mosquito. But what happened afterward?
How did the mosquitoes infect human beings, and pos-
sibly each other ? These questions had to be answered
in order to place in the hands of doctors a means of
fighting the scourge.

Unfortunately, at this point in his investigations Ross
was ordered to report to headquarters in Bombay for
military duty, and for some months no further progress
was made. Ross wrote fully to Manson, however, send-
ing him slides with specimens of the malaria-bearing
mosquito.

222 Master Minds of Modern Science

Then friends in London interceded with the India Office
on behalf of Ross, and in January 1898 he was placed on
special duty for six months to enable him to take up
again his malaria research work, now at so promising a
stage.

He went to Calcutta, where human malaria is scarce,
and there he settled down to work out with bird malaria
the complete cycle of infection.

By March Ross had found the species of mosquito
capable of carrying the malaria parasite of birds, and
within a few more weeks he had traced step by step the
parasite's development from the moment when it entered
the mosquito until the moment it was found in the body
of the infected bird. In the course of these experiments
Ross gave malaria to twenty-three out of twenty-eight
captive birds, none of which could have been infected by
any means save the mosquitoes which were placed under
the nets of their cages.

At last Ross knew just how malarial fever was spread;
the sequence of events had been explored from beginning
to end. On March 21st, 1898, Ross wrote home to Manson :

My wish is that you were here to share with me the pleasure
which I have experienced yesterday and to-day in seeing your
induction verified step by step. Such pleasure comes to but
few men, I fancy, though you must have felt it in regard to
filaria [elephantiasis]. I am producing pigmented cells ad
libitum by feeding grey mosquitoes on larks infected with
proteosoma. This, of course, means the solution of the malaria
problem.

When the news of this further success reached London
the British Medical Association was about to hold its
annual meeting at Edinburgh. It was at this meeting, in
July 1898, that Sir Patrick Manson announced to the
medical world the discoveries which Ross had made, and
he showed for the first time the slides he had received

Sir Ronald Ross 223

from India. The meeting " unanimously passed a resolu-
tion sending Major Ross the Members' congratulations on
a great and epoch-making discovery/ '

Ross had won, but still the last link in the chain of
evidence had to be forged. Ross had carried out his
experiments on birds. It was very probable that human
malaria followed the same cycle. But there was as yet no
absolute certainty, and could not be until the tests had
been carried a step farther.

In the malarial region of Italy others seeking proof had
infected human beings with malaria by means of mos-
quitoes, but there was also the night marsh air, the hot
climate, and other possible sources of general infection.
Manson decided to demonstrate the value of Ross's dis-
covery once and for all by bringing mosquitoes infected
with the malarial parasite to London, where there was no
malarial fever at all, and there infecting human beings by
means of the insects.

Several small cages covered with fine netting were con-
structed, and in these the infected mosquitoes were hurried
across Europe to London. There they were allowed to
bite two men who had volunteered to contract malaria
in order that the last link in the chain of evidence might
be forged. The first of these men was Manson's son,
P. Thornburn Manson. He was exposed to the insects on
August 29th, 1900, and again two days later. Anxiously
Manson and his colleagues waited for the period of
incubation to expire. The proof was forthcoming.
Young Manson began to have fever on September 13th,
and on the 17th the parasites of the disease were found
in his blood.

The second volunteer, Warren, was exposed later. He
too contracted malaria. This experiment helped to con-
firm the fact for the whole medical world. As Ross has
written, " a more brilliant verification of them could not
have been devised."

224 Master Minds of Modern Science

The process by which the parasites of the disease are
first sucked into the body of the mosquito, and later
injected into the blood of another person, is one of the
most amazing things ever discovered about the insect
world.

Three or four days before the female mosquito lays her
eggs she settles upon a human being and gorges herself
with blood. If the person she happens to bite is infected
with malaria, the insect sucks up into her stomach the
parasites of the disease. These parasites do not die, but
are fertilized and multiply while within the mosquito.
The malaria germ then undergoes a change, after which
it finds its way down the walls of the insect's stomach
and forms a cyst. In this cyst thousands of little pointed
bodies develop, until finally the cyst bursts and these
bodies find their way into the salivary glands of the
insect. The germs are then ready to leave the mosquito's
body, and the next time the mosquito pierces the human
skin to suck blood they enter the puncture, and a few
days later there is another victim of malarial fever.

All that is probably a little difficult to follow, but its
being so is a further tribute to the endless patience of the
man who tracked down this amazing secret of nature for
the first time, by dissecting thousands of tiny insects, and
who, despite many failures, thus pieced together that
complete picture.

There were many ready to scoff. Even after Ross had
infected birds by exposing them to malaria-carrying
mosquitoes there were many who declared that he and
others had " mosquitoes on the brain.' '

Happily Ross was content to pursue his investigations
to the end, undeterred by criticism and unspoiled by
praise. He believed he was on the right road. That was
enough. To him is the glory of a great victory over
death and disease.

Ross's discovery brought him honours, but not wealth.

COLONEL SIR RONALD ROSS, K.C.B., K.C.M.G

Photo by Haines

Sir Ronald Ross 225

Like many others who have devoted their lives to research,
Ross is still a poor man. For his work he was awarded in
1902 one of the greatest distinctions of its kind in the
world — the Nobel Prize for Medicine. There exists in
Putney an Institute of Tropical Diseases named after
him, and of which he is Director-in-Chief . The medical
societies of the world have paid tribute to his great work
in conquering malaria.

That work still marches on. The new chapter in the
battle with tropical diseases which Ross and Manson
opened is not yet finished. It may be found that other
deadly diseases are spread by the same winged insects.
While Ross's discoveries were still recent, American
scientists turned to them in the hope of discovering the
cause of yellow fever, which had broken out among
American troops at Havana in 1900. In mosquito-proof
cages men were exposed to the soiled bedding and clothes
of yellow-fever victims. They remained free of the
disease. Then volunteers were called for, and a number
of brave young American soldiers, knowing the risk they
ran, volunteered to be bitten by mosquitoes which had
fed on the blood of those already sick. All who were
bitten developed the disease, and before the end of
December 1900 it had been proved conclusively that just
as malaria is spread by mosquitoes, so is the even more
deadly yellow fever. The discovery was made by Dr
Walter Reed and the other Americans who fought the
epidemic, but some of the honour must also be awarded to
Sir Ronald Ross and Sir Patrick Manson, whose dis-
coveries had already pointed the way.

Sitting in the barracks at Cuba, amongst those afflicted
with the disease, Dr Reed wrote to his wife at 11.50 p.m.
on December 31st, 1900 :

Only ten minutes of the old century remain. Here have I
been sitting, reading that most wonderful book, La Roche on
Yellow Fever, written in 1853. Forty-seven years later it has

226 Master Minds of Modern Science

been permitted to me and my assistants to lift the impenetrable
veil that has surrounded the causation of this most wonderful,
dreadful pest of humanity and to put it on a rational and
scientific basis. The prayer that has been mine for twenty
years, that I might be permitted in some way or at some time
to do something to alleviate human suffering, has been granted.

Outstanding as Reed's achievement was, Ross's dis-
covery deserves even greater praise. To it may be traced
nearly all the progress made in fighting the malignant
fevers of the tropics. What Ross's discovery has meant
in those regions is made clear in a letter written to him by
General Gorgas, of Panama Canal fame.

The letter is dated March 23rd, 1914, and in it General
Gorgas says :

Before leaving England I wish to express to you the debt of
gratitude we all feel to you for the great work you have done
in the field of Tropical Medicine. As you are aware, malaria
was the great disease that incapacitated the working forces at
Panama before our day. If we had known no more about the
sanitation of malaria than the French did, I do not think we
could have done any better than they did. Your discovery
that the mosquito transferred the malaria parasite from man
to man has enabled us at Panama to hold in check this disease,
and to eradicate it entirely from most points on the Isthmus
where our forces are engaged.

It seems to me not extreme, therefore, to say that it was
your discovery of this fact that has enabled us to build the
Canal at the Isthmus of Panama.

A fine tribute, and one that was richly deserved.

When Ross went to India as a young man he found
every one, even the most brilliant doctors, struggling in
vain with a disease which attacked millions every year.
They could mitigate its attacks with quinine, but they
could not prevent them, and they did not even know
where to look for the enemy. In the course of four years

Sir Ronald Ross 227

Ross both discovered the enemy and showed how it could
be conquered.

Those yet unborn, wrestling with other secrets of life
and death, will know moments when the struggle seems
hopeless. In those moments perhaps they will remem-
ber the story of Sir Ronald Ross, and find in it their
inspiration.

CHAPTER XX

A MODERN ALCHEMIST
Sir Ernest Rutherford and the Lilliputians

IMAGINE an Association football as big as a room
— say about fifteen feet in diameter. Now imagine
an object the size of a pin's head fixed in the centre
of this great ball. Around that fixed centre, whirling at
dizzy speeds, imagine other bodies much smaller than the
pin-head nucleus. Now imagine all this on a scale in
accordance with which the football represents an object
measuring about the one-hundred-millionth of an inch
across, and you have the modern conception of the atom.
The fixed centre is called the proton, and although so
small (less than one-ten-thousandth the size of the atom)
it is enormously powerful, for the charge that it contains
controls the electrons which are its satellites. The whole
arrangement of an atom may be compared with the solar
system, having a sun in the centre and planets spinning
around it at various distances and in various paths.
Atoms are the tiny bricks which build up matter, and the
properties of an element are defined by the electric charge
on the nucleus of the atom. In the case of hydrogen,
lightest of all elements, this charge is sufficient to hold
only one satellite or electron, and by going up the scale
you reach at the top uranium, the nucleus of which is
sufficiently powerful to control no fewer than ninety-two
electrons.

We have explained that an atom is so small that one
hundred million could be placed side by side in the space
of an inch, but even that statement gives very little idea
of their extreme minuteness. Let us put it this way.

228

Sir Ernest Rutherford 229

Supposing that in an ordinary electric light bulb a hole
could be punched small enough to let in a million atoms of
oxygen a minute, how long do you think it would take to
fill the bulb ? The answer is one hundred million years !

Lord Kelvin has given us another calculation which
makes us realize the minuteness of the atom. Write
down twenty and follow it by eighteen noughts. This
gives the number of molecules (not atoms) which occupy
one cubic centimetre at freezing-point. Since a cubic
centimetre represents about one-third the contents of an
ordinary thimble, it follows that a thimble will hold
60,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules, each of which, in
the case of hydrogen, consists of two atoms. The total
weight of this almost incredible number of molecules is
about the one-seven-hundredth part of a grain.

In order to begin his investigations concerning the atom
Faraday had gold beaten into leaf which was only one-
millionth of an inch thick. Yet this film, so fine as to be
quite transparent, was estimated to contain between ten
and fifty layers of molecules, and a molecule, remember, is
built up of several atoms. It was necessary to get some-
thing thinner even than the fragile gold-leaf, and this was
done by putting a drop of oil on to a large basin of water.
The film thus formed was about a millionth of an inch
thick. At first this film showed the marvellous variety of
prismatic colours which you may see upon a wet road
where oil from a car has been spilled, but as the film grew
thinner a black spot appeared, the blackness indicating
that the film was then too thin to reflect any light. This
black portion of the film provided material from which
the maximum size of atoms could be calculated.

Even so, no one has ever seen an atom, and probably
no human eye ever will, and that being so it seems incredi-
ble that we know so much about these complicated little
bodies. For our knowledge we are indebted to the long
and careful experiments of men, such as Sir Ernest

230 Master Minds of Modern Science

Rutherford, who have spent their lives in difficult and
patient investigation.

The atomic theory was first given to the world by
Dalton more than a century ago ; the electron was dis-
covered by Professor J. J. Thomson in 1897 ; but it has
remained for Sir Ernest Rutherford, working with Dr
Geiger and others, actually to break up an atom and to
put forward the theory of the proton or charged centre.

To break up an object so small that you cannot see it
seems rather a tall order, and the more so when it is an
object hitherto believed to be indivisible. The very word
' atom ' implies something that cannot be divided. Sir
Ernest knew that whatever weapon he employed would
have to be very powerful. His thoughts turned to
radium, the strange element on which he had already done
a great deal of work since its discovery by the Curies.

Radium, as you know, is so called because it is radio-
active. It is unstable, and has the peculiar property of
breaking up and constantly discharging extremely small
particles. Sir Ernest came to the conclusion that the
most powerful projectiles which he could possibly employ
were the so-called alpha-particles which radium is always
discharging.

Some readers may have seen the living picture of
radium rays which was originally taken in the Cavendish
Laboratory at Cambridge. The room is darkened, and on
the screen appears a snow-storm of tiny sparks of light
which come and go like snow-flakes falling on the surface
of a stream. These travel at the almost incredible speed
of eighty thousand miles a second.

The first experiment Sir Ernest made consisted of
driving numbers of these alpha-particles into a vessel
filled with nitrogen gas. This was shooting at random,
and he could not know in advance whether any of his tiny
bullets would do the job he proposed for them. But they
did. He found that one in about ten million collided

SIR ERNEST RUTHERFORD

Photo by Elliott and Fry

230

Sir Ernest Rutherford 231

head-on with a nitrogen atom, and that the result of such
a collision was to break up the structure of the atom
to some extent and to bring about what the alchemists
of old were always striving for — a transmutation. In
simpler words, part of the nitrogen was actually turned
into hydrogen.

Sir Ernest continued his experiments, working upon
fluorine, sodium, aluminium, and phosphorus, and in
every case the result was the same. In all, twelve of the
lighter elements were tested, and in every case a hydrogen
nucleus or proton was driven out at great speed.

Having read so far, you will doubtless wish to know
how Sir Ernest and his assistants could possibly satisfy
themselves about the results stated. The answer can be
given in one word — rather long, yet very familiar —
spinthariscope. The spinthariscope, originally invented
purely as a scientific instrument, has become a scientific
toy, and very many people have seen the brilliant little
flashes which occur when a morsel of radium is allowed
to bombard the screen of zinc sulphide. In Sir Ernest's
experiments each proton liberated could be detected by
its flash when it struck the screen.

Since these first experiments, which were made at
Manchester University, other methods of detecting these
minute particles have been perfected. Each as it enters
a chamber can be made to record itself. It can be made
to ring a bell, to click on a telephone receiver, or to deflect
an instrument.

It may be mentioned here that by the use of a vacuum
tube radio amplifier, which magnifies the sound a hundred
thousandfold, the rain-like blows of many electrons on the
plate of a tube have been heard, making a sound like a
great waterfall in the distance. This strange effect was
achieved in America by Dr A. W. Hall and Dr N. H.
Williams, of Michigan University.

Sir Ernest has widespread interests, as his speeches and

232 Master Minds of Modern Science

lectures indicate. Each year the Royal Society holds an
anniversary dinner, and Sir Ernest was one of the prin-
cipal speakers at the dinner of 1929. He said :

I am sure that if we could look back a hundred years from
now we should see that this was the Golden Age of improvement
in matters of communication. ... If this is a time of great
development in practical science it has been inevitably followed
by great changes in the body politic. The motor-car, the flying-
machine, and wireless have probably had a greater effect on
the world than any previous discoveries. Of one thing I am
certain — that the banishment of distance — and we can com-
municate from one end of the world to the other in one-fifteenth
of a second — has inevitably brought the world together, and
we may be sure that the effect of that will be to bring the
whole peoples of the world into closer contact.

The value of the earlier discoveries in radio-activity
has already been proved, and in radium and radium
emanation there has been secured a means of fighting
one of man's greatest scourges, cancer. The question now
is how far mankind will benefit by the breaking up of the
atom. If some means could be devised for releasing and
exploiting the internal energy of the atom, we should
have a source of power such as was never even dreamed
of before. While Sir Ernest himself has never made
any prophecy as to the likelihood of man's being able to
break up the atom and employ atomic energy, this is a
favourite subject for writers of scientific fiction.

Some years ago Mr Wells in his World Set Free gave a
most interesting forecast of the progress of invention
during the next half-century. He tells how in 1933 gold
was produced from bismuth. " In this year was solved
the problem of inducing radio-activity in the heavier
metals and so tapping the internal energy of atoms.' His
hero, Holsten,

set up atomic disintegration in minute particles of bismuth,

Sir Ernest Rutherford 233

which exploded with great violence into a heavy gas of extreme
radio-activity, which disintegrated in its turn in the course of
another seven days, and it was only after another year's work
that he was able to show that the last result of this rapid
release of energy was gold.

He goes on to the year 1953, when the first Holsten-
Roberts engine brought induced radio-activity into the
sphere of industrial production, and began to replace the
steam engine. The result was an age of astonishing pros-
perity, but of course the coal-mines and oil-wells were
doomed, gold depreciated, and in the end the results
were terrible as well as splendid.

Scientists do not deny that man may eventually find
means for utilizing atomic energy, but that day is still a
very long way off. The difficulties in the way are enor-
mous, and so far Science is only touching the fringes of the
subject. Yet there is certainly no need for such panic as
was caused when in 1924 Dr T. F. Wall, of Sheffield
University, announced that he was endeavouring to split
up the atom of copper. Many of his correspondents
seemed to be under the impression that the result of split-
ting an atom would be the destruction of the world we
live in. One wrote :

Dear Sir,

Please don't blow up the atom. I am terrified. Please —
please leave things alone.

One who is Frightened

Another letter ran as follows :

Having read to-day of your wonderful invention for blowing
up the world next Wednesday, kindly make it Thursday or
next Sunday, after we have had our half-holiday and drawn our
September salaries. Trusting this will meet your kind approval
and wishing you every success,

A Believer in Inventions

234 Master Minds of Modern Science

A father was angry. He wrote :

I regret to see you are determined to carry out your experi-
ment. Perhaps if you were a married man with children and
not so callous you would not be so keen on the possible destruc-
tion of the human race. Oh ! you must be hard to have no
pity for those with loved ones. May God curse you if you
carry out your experiment !

The world remained uninjured, but if experiments such
as these do in the long run lead to the industrial use of
atomic energy human life will surely be revolutionized,
for there is enough energy in half a pound of lead — if it
could be released — to drive a fifty-thousand-ton steamer
across the Atlantic or to carry a flying-machine round
the world. Dr Aston says :

If we could transmute hydrogen into helium we should pro-
duce energy in quantities which, for any sensible amount of
matter, are prodigious beyond the dreams of fiction. I calcu-
late that for one gram-atom of hydrogen (the quantity in a
quarter of an ounce of water) the energy exceeds a quarter of
a million horse-power hours. So in a tumbler of water lies
enough power to drive the Mauretania. The reason why there
is so much power in the atom is that while the dimensions
of its nucleus are almost inconceivably small, yet the forces
binding together its component parts are gigantic and to be
measured in millions of volts.

The latest attempt to split the atom is being made by
Dr Lange and two other German scientists at the top
of Monte Generoso, on the shores of Lake Lugano. Since
it would cost millions of marks to obtain the necessary
tension in a laboratory, Dr Lange has hit on the idea
of harnessing lightning, and has constructed a station
with a cable earthed at one end and insulated at the other
by a double chain of one hundred and sixty steatite
insulators weighing together five thousand pounds.

Sir Ernest Rutherford 235

" Heaven forbid," he says, " that lightning should strike
the cable. Any electrical disturbance in the district will
be sufficient for our purpose.' '

After nine years in Canada Professor Rutherford came
back to England, to a new post at Manchester University.
He was already a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1908
was awarded the valuable Nobel Prize for his researches
into the disintegration of elements and into radio-active
substances. Then he came to Cambridge as head of the
Cavendish Laboratory, which is to-day the very heart and
centre of Physical Research.

The Cambridge Science Laboratories are built on land
which the University purchased in 1762 for a Botanical
Garden. In 1870 the Duke of Devonshire offered the
University six thousand three hundred pounds for build-
ing a laboratory, and the work was begun at once. In
those days, little more than half a century ago, Science
was so little thought of that at first there were only
twenty students. Even in 1885 there were only ninety
students, and the ignorance of some of these early students
was so astounding that we are tempted to end this chapter
with a few examples of it.

At the first M.B. examination two papers were given
on elementary physics. Being asked the use of a thermo-
meter, one student wrote that it was " an instrument for
deciding the specific gravity of water." Another was
shown a compass needle mounted on a graduated circle
and asked its use. He at once declared that it was
used for detecting the latitude and longitude of any
place.

" What ! " exclaimed the scandalized examiner. " Can
you detect the latitude and longitude of any place by the
use of this compass? "

" No, sir," replied the ingenious youth, " but you
can."

A third student was given a spirit-level and asked to

236 Master Minds of Modern Science

say which end of the examination table was the higher.
He stared hard at the instrument, and noticed that the
bubble had moved, though the table apparently had not.
Filled with indignation he looked up at the examiner.

" Why, the bally thing is cock-eyed I " he declared with
scorn.

CHAPTER XXI

FORECASTING BRITISH WEATHER
Dr G. C. Simpson and the Meteorological Office

WE have all heard of the Clerk of the Weather
— that mythical official who is supposed to
look into the future in order to tell us what
to-morrow's weather will be like.

Nearly every one in Great Britain reads the weather
forecast in the newspapers before making plans for the
day, or listens to the wireless forecast in the evening.

Few people know, however, that that nightly forecast
is based upon meteorological observations made not only
in this country, but all over Europe, at 6 p.m. Greenwich
mean time on the same evening. Between that time
and the broadcast the reports have been dispatched by
wireless to the Meteorological Office at the Air Ministry,
collected there, ' plotted ' on weather charts, and dis-
cussed by the experts, who thus foretell what sort of
weather the next day will bring.

This modern triumph of speed is made possible by the
fact that there is not one Clerk of the Weather, but
thousands.

The observations received each day from abroad cover
an area extending from within the Polar Circle to North
Africa, and from Russia to the Azores. Within this wide
area weather-readings are taken four times a day, collected
by central stations, and immediately broadcast by
powerful wireless stations to all others. Also, a report is
received each day from the United States, giving observa-
tions from seventy-five stations in North America, in-
cluding a number of weather stations in Canada.

237

238 Master Minds of Modern Science

For forecasting purposes information concerning
weather in the Atlantic Ocean is of vital importance to
this country, and a special system of reports from mer-
chant ships has therefore been organized between England
and America. A number of liners co-operate in this work.

Even more important, if our weather reports are to be
as accurate as Science and organization can make them,
are the ' local ' reports collected by observers at more
than sixty weather stations in all parts of the British
Isles. These observers are men and women in all walks
of life ; sixteen of the stations are manned by Meteoro-
logical Office staff, the remainder being maintained by
voluntary observers — lighthouse-keepers, farmers, news-
paper reporters, and others — who have been trained to
take accurate readings of the weather signs at a specified
hour each day, and to send these in code, together with
details of rainfall, sunshine, winds, temperature, and
pressure, to the Meteorological Office. These observers
help both to make our weather forecasts accurate and to
record the history of the British climate. They have
been trained to look at the skies with a scientific eye.
After making their observations they go to the nearest
post-office and send off a mysterious-looking telegram to
Adastral House, Kingsway, which is the headquarters of
the Meteorological Office.

There are also the stations, about three hundred in all,
which take observations a number of times daily, and
report weekly or monthly to the Meteorological Office.
The health resorts, too, maintain their own meteorological
stations, and every evening report their weather for the
day, giving temperature and duration of sunshine.

Rainfall is measured at nearly 5000 stations, distri-
buted over the British Isles, and the statistics collected
are of very great value in connexion with water-power
schemes and water-supply generally.

Even this network of weather observers does not

DR G. C. SIMPSON

Photo by Elliott and Fry

238

Dr G. C. Simpson 239

complete the wonderful organization through which come
our weather forecasts, for the Meteorological Office also
maintains five first-class observatories at strategic points
in the country. These observatories are at Kew, Esk-
dalemuir, Aberdeen, Lerwick, and Valentia (all names
which figure frequently in weather news), and here further
meteorological . and other observations are taken by
experts, with the aid of self-recording instruments.

Co-ordinating the work of all these outposts is the
Meteorological Office itself, with its staff of scientists
whose names are known to meteorologists the world
over.

The Director of the Department is Dr G. C. Simpson,
C.B., F.R.S., who has carried out meteorological research
in places as far apart as Lapland, Egypt, India, and the
Antarctic. In the last-named region he served with
Captain Scott's expedition, and secured valuable informa-
tion by the use of balloons.

Born in Derby, and trained at Manchester, Dr Simpson
has done work which has greatly increased our knowledge
of meteorological phenomena. The results of his research
into radiation are too technical to be explained here, but
they have changed accepted views concerning the four
great Ice Ages of the world, and the theories which he has
advanced as the result of experiments in connexion with
atmospheric electricity and lightning discharges have
done much to stimulate further research into what we
may call the science of thunderstorms.

A speaker on the occasion when Dr Simpson was
presented with the Symons Memorial Medal for 1930
declared :

His studies indicate that during a thunderstorm non-conduct-
ing clouds are floating within a conducting atmosphere, thus
completely reversing accepted ideas. As to the origin of elec-
trical energy during a thunderstorm, he finds that the breaking-
drop theory could account for the generation of the supply.

240 Master Minds of Modern Science

When pure water splashes against a solid obstacle, electrifica-
tion ensues, and when a drop of water is broken up in the air
without striking anything, a similar separation of positive and
negative electricities occurs. In a thunderstorm there is a
region in which every time a raindrop breaks the water of
which it is composed receives a positive charge. A correspond-
ing negative charge is given to the air and is absorbed by cloud
particles which are being carried upward. The rain which falls
when the air-currents are vertical is thus positively charged,
while at a distance from this region it is negatively charged.

The ceaseless search for new knowledge, of course, is
necessarily subsidiary to the practical aspects of the
Meteorological Office's work. Dr Simpson and his staff
know almost all that there is to know about that inex-
haustible topic the British climate. Ask them what the
weather was like at Birmingham at 2.30 on September
14th, 1901, and they can tell you. Or ask them to tell you
which is the warmest week of the average year at Black-
pool. They can tell you that also.

Not long ago a Bill for stabilizing Easter was discussed
in Parliament, and it was suggested then that the weather
at Easter as it would be fixed by the Bill would not be as
good for holiday-makers as the weather of the present
movable Easter. At the request of the Home Secretary
the question was referred to the Meteorological Office.
The weather of the Easter week-ends during the past
hundred years was compared with that of the week-ends
on which Easter would have fallen if the Bill had been in
operation. The result of this investigation indicated that
as regards rainfall London would neither have gained nor
lost anything by stabilizing the date. On the other hand,
as regards sunshine and temperature, the fixed Easter
— coming later than do some Easters under the present
system of fixing dates — would have been an improvement.

Here is another question which the Meteorological
Office helped to settle. When work began on the erection

Dr G. C. Simpson 241

of overhead transmission cables in connexion with the
new scheme of national electrification, facts were required
regarding the maximum pressure of wind likely to be
experienced in various parts of the country. It was of
vital importance that the towers supporting the cables
charged with high-power electrical current should not be
blown down. The Meteorological Office searched through
its records and supplied the facts.

The weather information in the Admiralty handbooks
is supplied by Dr Simpson's Department, with the aid of
a fleet of five hundred ships which take meteorological
observations on the high seas. Information concerning
weather conditions is constantly being supplied to the
Army and Navy and Air Force.

It was known, for example, that the firing of certain
heavy guns at Shoeburyness was liable to cause damage
in surrounding towns, chiefly in Southend. The assistance
of the Meteorological Office was asked for, and an inves-
tigation revealed that the intensity of sound is dependent
upon atmospheric conditions. In certain circumstances
firing can take place with little disturbance in Southend,
while on other occasions the disturbance is intensified
to the point of danger. The meteorologist in charge at
Shoeburyness now informs the Army officials when con-
ditions are suitable for firing, and since this procedure has
been adopted cause for complaint has almost entirely
ceased.

When the Empire Marketing Board required regular
information concerning the rainfall at a number of places
in the Mediterranean, they went to Dr Simpson's Depart-
ment for the data. An entomologist in Tanganyika who
desired information concerning the structure of wind
gusts in relation to the flight of birds and insects had his
inquiry answered. When the Colonial Office wanted
weather information affecting the whaling industry in the
South Atlantic they asked for it at Adastral House, and

Q

242 Master Minds of Modern Science

did not ask in vain. And in addition to all this special
work — and much more not mentioned here — the Meteoro-
logical Office supplies to the public special forecasts and
reports at the rate of over 4000 a year.

Now all this work depends upon two things — accurate
records concerning weather in all parts of the country
and dating back for many years, and accurate daily
observation.

We have shown how these daily records are gathered
from all points of the compass. The recording and in-
dexing of these masses of figures is in itself a science
demanding the services of experts. Every fact from
every observer and foreign station must be duly noted in
the appropriate records, for a century hence some big
issue may hang on the work which is being done at
Adastral House to-day, just as we in our day owe much
of our knowledge and the value of our records to the
careful work of bygone generations.

From this brief record of the work of the Meteorological
Office it will be seen that the recording of the weather is
becoming more and more important, not only to holiday-
makers, but to all who travel by land, sea, or air. The
Air Ministry has now instituted an annual training-class
for weather observers at Kew Observatory, London.
Here those who assist in collecting daily statistics about
the British climate are taught to handle the delicate in-
struments used to register exact information concerning
sunshine, rain, fog, temperatures, and other factors.

The ordinary thermometers with which every observer
is equipped are like those we are all familiar with, but
bigger. Special thermometers are used to record the
highest and lowest temperatures of the day. In the ther-
mometer which records the highest temperature of the
day a small length of mercury detaches itself from the
main column when the temperature falls from its highest
value, and stops in that position, thus providing a record

Dr G. C. Simpson 243

of the highest temperature. The thermometer which
records the lowest temperature of the night is usually
filled with spirit instead of mercury, and has a small
metal index immersed in the spirit. As the temperature
falls the index is carried down by the spirit, but when the
temperature rises again the spirit flows past the index,
leaving it to register the lowest temperature attained.

The instrument which measures rainfall consists of a
copper cylinder four to six inches high, with a funnel-
shaped bottom, fitting into the top of a ' splayed ' copper
vessel firmly fixed in the ground. A glass vessel is placed
inside the base below the funnel to catch the rain-water.
The observer takes off the funnel and pours the water
from the glass vessel into a measuring-glass, on which
he reads the amount of rainfall since the last observation,
in inches or millimetres. The result is recorded in the
observer's register, and in the case of a station which
reports by telegraphy it is included in the message to
Adastral House.

Sunshine is measured by burning. A clear glass ball is
partly encircled by a metal belt at a distance of about an
inch. Fitted into this belt is a blue card marked off in
sections by white lines, each line representing one hour.
The sun's rays are caught by the ball and focused on to
the blue card, where they trace a thin burnt line into it.
Thus, if there are four hours of continuous sunshine, a line
is burned across four sections of the cord. If the sun is
obscured, the point of the card which would have been
under the rays at that moment is unburnt.

" Visibility good," says a weather report. What does
the phrase mean ? At Kew Observatory one may learn.
Standing on the roof, the observer takes local landmarks
as guides. Thus thick fog at Kew means that a shed a
few feet from the building is hidden. A near-by church is
another point ; the Richmond golf club-house is another.
Each point has its corresponding state of visibility —

244 Master Minds of Modern Science

before Kew reports " visibility good " it is necessary for
the observer on the roof to see clearly a distance of twelve
and a half miles. A visibility of one and a quarter miles
goes down in the records as mist or haze.

The atmospheric pollution in fog is measured, and so is
the amount of dirt in rain.

The dirt in fog-laden air is measured by sucking the air
into an instrument, inside which it passes through a piece
of filter-paper, leaving tell-tale spots of dirt, which are
then examined under the microscope.

Finally, wind is measured by a weather-vane which
writes down its own messages. Both the direction and
force of the wind are automatically recorded, for as the
wind blows it moves a thin metal arm at the end of which
is an inked pen-nib. This nib traces a graph line on a roll
of measured paper, which is renewed daily.

Every day observers scattered over Britain are record-
ing the weather with the aid of these instruments. A
simple code has been devised for use in the transmission
of weather reports to London. Thus two capital R's
mean that it has rained all day. Letter o means an over-
cast sky, while p denotes passing showers, b means blue
sky, not more than one-quarter covered by clouds. But
a combination of letters more frequently used in the North
is c.d.m. — meaning generally cloudy, drizzle, and mist.

It is all very simple to read about, but years of research
and experiment have been needed to bring the Meteoro-
logical Office to its present pitch of efficiency. Always
the experts are seeking fresh knowledge, for there are still
many things to be discovered about weather. Granted
the opportunity of studying the weather conditions at the
Poles, weather experts may presently be able to provide
long-range forecasts of summers and winters, which will
be of immense assistance to agriculturists all over the
world.

CHAPTER XXII

BRITAIN'S NATIONAL ELECTRICITY SCHEME
Sir John Snell Hastens the Advent of a New Age

FORTY years ago England produced and consumed
two-thirds of the world's coal, produced two-
thirds of the world's iron and steel and two-thirds
of the world's cotton goods. At that time English coal
was far cheaper than Continental or American coal, and
England could therefore manufacture more cheaply than
other countries.

Times have changed, and now England has lost her
monopoly of cheap power. She has now to go much
deeper for her coal, while the United States are producing
coal more cheaply than is possible in England. In any
case, the age of coal is waning, for its function is being
usurped by oil and electricity.

Britain has little oil and little water-power. The water
resources of the United States can supply fifty million
horse-power; the resources of Canada are the same;
Italy can derive at least eight million horse-power from
this source; little Switzerland can derive four million
horse-power from her waterfalls and torrents ; but Great
Britain apparently can derive from this source little more
than a million horse-power.

After the War it became clear that Britain's great
industrial position was threatened unless some cheap form
of power could be provided, and the Government decided
to carry out a great State electricity scheme. A single
unified system was agreed upon, and it was wisely decided
that this should be run on a commercial basis and not on
Civil Service lines. It was thought that in this way

245

246 Master Minds of Modern Science

the delays caused by what is commonly called ' red
tape ' would be avoided.

And so there came into being the Electricity Board.
It was laid down that this should consist of six members
selected from men of proved business capacity, with a
really first-class chairman. The first duty of the Board
would be to plan out a comprehensive scheme for the
whole country, and the Board was authorized to borrow
up to thirty-three million pounds for carrying out the
work.

In 1926, when the Electricity Commission started work,
there were no fewer than five hundred and seventy
separate electricity undertakings in Great Britain, four
hundred of which were so much behind the times that
between them they provided only ten per cent, of the total
output of power. The Board decided to scrap most of
the existing stations, and to replace them with about one
hundred and fifty stations, each provided with every
appliance that modern science could suggest. These
stations, a number of which are already in existence, will
eventually all be connected on what is called the ' grid "
system.

The difficulty associated with any electrical supply
system is that the demand is not constant. In every
power-station graphs of the demand are kept. Between
midnight and dawn the line of supply sinks almost to
zero ; it rises for breakfast, and keeps low, but fairly con-
stant, during the day. Just after sunset it rises with a
tremendous sweep. Every one is turning on lights at the
same moment, and there is the extra demand for street
lighting, for electric signs, and for cooking the evening
meal. After eleven o'clock the demand again falls rapidly.
In summer, of course, the demand is not nearly so heavy
as in winter.

When electricity is produced from coal, obviously you
cannot damp out your furnaces. They have to go on

SIR JOHN SNELL

246

Sir yohn Snell 247

burning day and night, for it costs a lot to relight a cold
furnace. And the bill for coal is enormous. In a station
which the writer recently went over this bill amounts to
thirty thousand pounds a year. When a station is a single
unit the furnaces can never be extinguished nor the
dynamos be allowed to cease running, but if that station
is connected with another, then in slack times it is able to
shut down and take its current from the other station.

This results in a very great economy in coal and labour,
and the arrangement is very convenient when repairs are
needed. Power can thus be provided more cheaply. At
present the average price in England is sixpence a unit
for lighting and a penny farthing for heating and power.
When the scheme is complete, these prices should fall to
twopence for lighting and a farthing for power. Then
electricity will be far cheaper than oil.

There is another advantage in the national system,
At present the loss of power between the station and the
consumer is seventeen per cent., but with the grid system,
says Sir John Snell, this will be reduced to two and a half
per cent. The cables will carry current at no less than
one hundred and thirty-two thousand volts, compared
with a maximum in the past of sixty-six thousand volts.
The various stations are being linked up by chains of
latticed steel masts, sixteen feet square at the base and
up to eighty feet in height, carrying the main high-tension
lines.

In America voltages up to two hundred and fifty
thousand are being conveyed, but for this purpose no
ordinary wire is sufficient. The conductor used is a tube
of copper, the centre of which is filled with oil. If over-
loaded, a wire heats, and eventually fuses.

It is difficult to believe that only fifty years have passed
since electric lighting came into being, and that power has
been carried by cable for an even shorter period. Between
1870 and 1880 Edison and Swan solved the problem of

248 Master Minds of Modern Science

making an electric lamp suitable for domestic use. Each
independently invented a filament that could be heated
to incandescence in a vacuum bulb. Both suggested that
electric current should be laid on to houses and buildings
like water or gas, but Edison was the first actually to do
this work. That happened between 1878 and 1880.

Edison saw that the voltage or pressure must not be
too high, and also that it must be possible for each light
to be turned off or on without affecting other lights. This
meant that the voltage must be somewhere about one
hundred and that each lamp must have its terminals
connected to two supply- wires. Edison saw also that he
must have several dynamos in action, so that all the eggs
would not be in one basket.

In those days, of course, there was no maker of electric-
light appliances, and Edison had first to invent each one
separately, and then to make it. He selected as his
standard pressure a supply of one hundred and ten volts,
and designed constant-pressure, shunt-wound dynamos,
with drum armatures. In these the field electro-magnet
consisted of two massive iron pole pieces at the end of
long iron bars, or legs, which were wound with magnetizing
coils and connected at the top by an iron yoke. These
dynamos were separately driven, but sent their currents
into a common pair of electric mains called 'bus bars/

In 1879 Edison lighted the streets and some buildings
in the suburb of Menlo Park, including his laboratory,
office, and three houses. On New Year's Eve, 1879, three
thousand people came to see the new lighting. Later
Edison equipped a steamship, the Columbia, with about
one hundred lamps, and this installation worked well for
several months. The lamps withstood a voyage round
the Horn to San Francisco, and were inspected with much
interest at Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, and other ports.
But as Edison has since said: "We had a successful
lamp, but it was not economic. It was fragile and costly,

Sir jfohn Snell 249

and it was evident that our carbons were not made of
the right substance.' '

At the same time in England Swan was using parch-
mentized cotton. He actually produced a bulb electric
lamp before Edison, but both had similar trouble in
obtaining a filament that was sufficiently strong to last.
Edison tried some six hundred different varieties of vege-
table carbons, including forty sorts of bamboo, while
among other things Swan made trial of viscose, the raw
material of artificial silk. When his assistant, Topham,
at last succeeded in spinning this silk a very fair filament
was secured. Yet none of these early carbon lamps was
lasting, and years passed before the inventors made a
lamp which could be relied on to have a life of more than
about one hundred hours. Also the lamps were so fragile
that the difficulty of packing them for transportation was
very great.

It is interesting to remember that a committee was
appointed by Parliament to examine into the subject of
electric light. This committee had before it as witnesses
nearly all the prominent scientists of the day, and all,
with the solitary exception of Tyndall, testified that in
their opinion a practicable system of electric light for
private houses was impossible.

Yet the Edison Electric Lighting Company of London
was formed in 1881 ; then the Admiralty took the matter
up and allowed the company to tender for the lighting of
certain Indian troopships. By 1882 there were no fewer
than one hundred and twenty electric lighting stations
in the United States, paying dividends of from six to
fourteen per cent.

Then the British Parliament proceeded to pass an Act
for facilitating electric lighting, an Act which very nearly
killed the invention so far as Britain was concerned. It
provided that electric supply should be undertaken only
under orders from the Board of Trade, and that any town

250 Master Minds of Modern Science

where such works were started should be able to buy
them at the end of twenty-one years at the value of the
plant and works, without taking into account the good-
will. Of course people were not going to invest their
money in order to make presents to municipalities, so for
six years Great Britain had scarcely any electric lighting
at all. Then a new Act was passed increasing the pur-
chase period to forty-two years, and since this gave
investors a fair chance of some profit on their money
matters began to improve.

In the early days of electric lighting direct current was
used, and the wastage of course was great. It was that
remarkable genius Ferranti who first began to use the
alternating current transformer system. Most of our
readers know enough about electricity to be aware that
it is out of the question to use high voltages for small
lamps. You would simply burn them out, fusing the
filament. Yet the high-pressure alternating current is
far more economical than the direct, and can be sent over
much greater lengths of cable. Ferranti was the first to
employ transformers to ' step down ' the high voltages to
lower, thus making them suitable for domestic use. He
did this first in the Bond Street district in London in the
year 1885, showing that it was possible and practical.

Ferranti was a particularly far-seeing inventor. He was
the first to realize that electric supply stations for a great
city like London must be placed outside the area to be
supplied, in some position where coal and water can be
obtained easily. To-day, practically all the great supply
stations are on rivers from which the water for the boilers
and for condensing purposes can be pumped up easily,
and most of them have their own railway sidings, where
coal can be dumped at the foot of an elevator by which it
is carried upward, to be dropped into the furnaces as
required.

It was Ferranti who succeeded in starting the large

THE 1,000,000-VOLT TESTING TRANSFORMER IN THE RESEARCH

LABORATORY AT STOURPORT

251

Sir yohn Snell 251

station at Deptford on the Thames, to supply current at
ten thousand volts pressure to transformers in the London
area. For this station he designed great fifteen-hundred
horse-power alternators worked by Corliss engines, and
since ordinary copper wire was not suitable for carrying
so heavy a current he invented a form of main consisting
of two copper tubes, one inside the other, and insulated
one from the other by Manila paper soaked in certain
resins and oils. The writer of this chapter was shown a
small piece of Ferranti's original main, which is preserved
in the office at the Bedford Power Station.

These first mains were seven miles long, and four cables
were laid. They carried their load well enough, but very
strange things began to happen. A large current was
found to flow into the Deptford main when no current
was taken out at the London end, and it was discovered
that these long mains actually became condensers — you
might say Leyden jars, each with a very considerable
electric capacity. But the worst trouble was this. When
these long concentric mains were switched on suddenly or
disconnected there was often a failure of insulation
between the outer copper tube and the protecting steel
tube. This was due to the ' mass ' of the electric current.
The problem was solved by Partridge, the Electric Supply
Company's engineer, who devised a means for switching
on the current gradually instead of suddenly.

Another valuable invention of those early days was
the ' cut-out,' the function of which is to interrupt the
current in a main or branch should it exceed a safe
strength, as may happen in the case of two wires short-
circuiting. A cut-out is a safety fuse inserted in the cir-
cuit ; usually it is made of a short piece of lead wire, which
will melt if the current becomes too strong.

In spite of many experiments, it was a long time before
anything better than the carbon filament for lamps was
discovered. True, the lamps were so much improved that

252 Master Minds of Modern Science

their life was increased from one hundred to as much as
one thousand hours, but still they were not satisfactory,
for a carbon filament gradually breaks up, and after a
time these lamps lost their illuminating power.

The first improvement was the so-called ' squirted '
filament. We have mentioned how Topham made a fila-
ment by the use of liquid viscose. It was found that by
dissolving cotton-wool in zinc chloride the material called
cellulose could be made. This was forced through a die
and ' squirted ' into a very fine thread ; after washing
and drying the thread was carbonized in a closed box in
a furnace. Loops of this material were treated by
depositing fresh carbon upon them, and yielded a more
uniform filament than could be made of bamboo or woven
thread. The melting-point of these carbon threads was
about seventeen hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

Many inventors were busy making substitutes for car-
bon, but the difficulty was to find a material which could
be raised to a higher temperature than seventeen hundred
degrees without melting. Platinum was tried, but found
to be useless. It was known that certain of the rarer
metals, such as tungsten, tantalum, and molybdenum,
had melting-points higher than platinum, but in those
days there was no supply of these metals, which were
merely curiosities of the laboratory.

In 1897 Nernst brought out his new lamp; this con-
tained a rod of oxide of magnesium mixed with oxides of
other rare metals, heated by a white-hot platinum spiral.
It was a good lamp, it gave a fine light, and lasted better
than the carbon, but the worst of it was that it took about
fifteen seconds, after the turning on of the current, to
give its full light. However, it served well until replaced
by the metallic filament lamp.

The first metalled lamp was the tantalum made by
Siemens Brothers, but this, in its turn, gave way to the
tungsten lamp, which is still in use. Tungsten is a metal

Sir yohn Snell 253

so hard that it can only be fused in an electric furnace, yet
it can be drawn into exceedingly fine wire which gives a
beautiful and economical light.

The gas-filled tungsten lamp introduced just after the
War is still more economical. The gas used in these bulbs
is argon or nitrogen, or some other inert gas which allows
the tungsten to be heated very highly without melting.
These wire-drawn lamps have a much longer life than the
older carbon lamps, and the saving is indicated by the
fact that a big London shop, whose bill for electricity
used to be four thousand two hundred pounds a year,
now lights for about twelve hundred pounds.

Very large lamps can be made for street lighting on
the wire-drawn plan. Some of these are of as much as
two thousand candle-power. By the way, we all talk of
candle-power, but very few of us know exactly what it
means. This standard was laid down as long ago as i860,
when it was necessary to fix a standard for gas-lighting.
The measure is a candle made of spermaceti and beeswax,
weighing six to the pound, and burning at the rate of one
hundred and twenty grains of spermaceti to the hour.

Science has given us lamps without any filament at all.
One is the mercury- vapour arc lamp used for night photo-
graphy. A small amount of mercury is placed in each end
of a vacuum tube. The arc is started by tilting the
tube so that a stream of mercury unites the two pools for
a moment, then separates. Then an electric discharge
continues through the mercury vapour. The light is a
brilliant green, and makes people's complexions look so
ghastly that it is not suitable for domestic use. Another
wireless lamp contains neon gas, which gives a lovely rosy
glow.

Proud though we are of our electric light, our descen-
dants will wonder how we could have been satisfied with
such a wasteful form of lighting, for even by the best
tungsten lamp the amount of light given out is less than

254 Master Minds of Modern Science

eight per cent, of the power used to heat the filament.
The firefly and the glow-worm can give us points and a
beating, for they — and they alone — have the secret of pro-
ducing cold light. It is calculated that the luminous
efficiency of the firefly is between ninety-five and ninety-
seven per cent. Their light is true luminescence, whereas
our electric light is produced by heat. The creation of
cold light is one of the great tasks which is awaiting the
scientists of the present century.

We have written at length about electric lighting
because we are most familiar with the electric current in
this form, yet it is only one of very many forms, of course,
in which electric power is employed. A great many indus-
tries depend so entirely on electric power that they could
not exist without such a supply. Calcium carbide, from
which acetylene gas is obtained, is made by mixing coke
and lime and shovelling them into the electric furnace of
which it is essentially a product. Carborundum, next to
the diamond the hardest substance in the world, is made
by the cheap electric power generated at Niagara Falls.
A few years ago aluminium, now used for all sorts of
things, from cooking-pots to flying-machines, was a mere
curiosity of the laboratory. This metal too we owe to
the electric furnace. The ore of aluminium is cheap
enough, for it is only a clay, but the amount of current
needed to make one ton of aluminium is no less than thirty
thousand units, or forty times as much as is required for
making a ton of steel. At Foyers, on Loch Ness, the British
Aluminium Company use a waterfall which gives thirty
thousand horse-power.

Through increasing demand the supply of natural salt-
petre no longer meets the world's requirements. Saltpetre
provides nitric acid, which is essential in the manufacture
of explosives, while nitrogen is the most valuable of all
plant-fertilizers. To combat the famine in saltpetre,
nitrogen is now drawn from the air by a process which

Sir jfohn Snell 255

depends entirely on electric power. In Norway four hun-
dred thousand horse-power is used in producing nitric
acid by this process, and the output is one hundred and
eighty thousand tons yearly.

Electric furnaces are used for the making of special
steels. Before the Great War the amount of power used
for this purpose in Great Britain was only about three
thousand horse-power a year, but by 1918 it had risen to
no less than one hundred and thirty-five thousand horse-
power, and electric steel was being produced at the rate
of two hundred thousand tons a year. From seven
hundred to eight hundred units of electricity are used in
making a ton of electric steel.

Here it may be convenient to explain what is meant by
a unit of electricity. One B.T.U. (Board of Trade unit of
energy) is sufficient to heat about two gallons of water
from the temperature of the melting-point of ice to
boiling-point.

Electric power is largely used in making brass, but
power must be cheap for this purpose, because every ton
melted requires two thousand units. Another important
industry is the electrolytic recovery of zinc, a process
which absorbs no less than five thousand units per ton.
A large factory has recently been erected for this purpose
in Tasmania, where water-power is easily obtainable.
Chromium, the metal which gives to rustless steel its
special qualities, is prepared in electric furnaces, and so
too is rustless steel itself.

Another very important electrical industry is the manu-
facture of graphite. Graphite, which is a form of carbon,
is much used as a lubricant and for making crucibles. It
is best known, however, as the black-lead in pencils.
Acheson, the American scientist, noticed that the crater
end of a carbon that had been used for arc lighting turned
to graphite. Then he discovered that a small amount of
silica greatly assisted the change, and worked out a new

256 Master Minds of Modern Science

process. In this powdered anthracite coal is mixed with
a small proportion of sand, and then when electrically
heated produces graphite. At Niagara some six thousand
tons of graphite are made yearly by the Acheson process.

Cheap electricity will cause a revolution in British
households, which will not only light but also cook by
electric power. There will be no need for ice, because
electrical refrigerators will keep food cold and sweet, nor
for brooms, because electric vacuum-cleaners will extract
the dust far more quickly and cheaply. Electric fires will
keep the rooms warm in winter, and electric fans will cool
them in summer. A sewing-machine can be run all day
for a pennyworth of current, and curling-irons can be
conveniently heated for a minute sum. The old clumsy
hot-water bottle will be superseded by the electric bed-
warmer, which is just a harmless wire in a woollen bag.
Knives can be cleaned by electricity, and toast can be
made fresh and crisp on the breakfast-table. Many
women have realized already the advantages of using the
electrically heated flat-iron.

Dust and dirt will disappear in the electric house, and
disease germs will vanish with the dirt. Perhaps the
greatest benefit of cheap electricity will be that we shall
all be able to use artificial sun-baths in our own houses.
Rheumatism, colds, and skin diseases will be defeated,
and we shall enjoy better health than ever before.

Some people are still nervous about introducing elec-
trical power into their houses. They are afraid of fire or
of getting shocks. There is no excuse for any such fears
nowadays, for insulation is practically perfect, and the
fuses guard against any danger from an increase in
current. For cooking-stoves a low voltage is usually
employed, so that there is little risk even if anything
does go wrong, which is very unlikely.

And what of the power stations themselves? When
asked this question, the engineer in charge at Bedford

Sir jfohn Snell 257

said : u They are so nearly fool-proof that even a drunken
man turned loose in one could hardly hurt himself." It
was not always so, for in the old-fashioned switch there
was metal carrying two thousand volts on either side of
the switch handle. For a healthy person two thousand
volts is a dangerous yet by no means a fatal shock,
though people with weak hearts have been killed by a
shock of no more than one hundred volts.

Having asked whether the overhead cables were
affected by wind or weather, we learned that they are
made to withstand gales of fifty miles an hour and three-
eighths of an inch of ice forming on the wires themselves.
They are fitted with earth wires which form an almost
perfect protection against lightning, and with bird guards
which prevent large birds such as jackdaws from form-
ing connexions between charged wires, and incidentally
electrocuting themselves.

Almost the only danger is that a gale may break off
a tree branch and blow it against two cables, thereby
causing a short circuit. Even wet straws blown against
the poles in a mass may cause a short circuit, but this
rarely happens.

It is through the kindness of Sir John Snell that we
have been able to write this chapter on the modern
developments of electric power. Sir John Snell is a
Cornishman. He was educated for the Navy, but fortu-
nately or unfortunately he failed to pass the very strict
eyesight tests. He turned his attention to engineering,
and became a student at King's College, London, of
which he is now a Fellow. When only fifteen he went to
work for the firm of Messrs Woodhouse and Rawson, and
afterward went to Stockholm. He was only twenty-
three when he became assistant to Major-General Webber,
R.E., and three years later he held the important post of
Borough Electrical Engineer at Sunderland. In 1910 he
was a partner in the firm of Messrs Preece, Cardew, Snell,

258 Master Minds of Modern Science

and Rider, and was chosen as principal technical witness
in the taking over of the National Telephone Company by
the Post Office, a very big and complicated transaction.
Millions of pounds of property had to be valued before it
could change hands. So began his connexion with the
Government.

In the Great War Sir John was one of the five original
trustees appointed by the Army Council to form the
Metropolitan Munitions Board, and he was a member
of the very important Nitrogen Products Committee.
Nitrates, of course, were of the very greatest importance
for the making of explosives. Sir John is chairman of the
Electroculture Board. This branch of electrical work is
described in the chapter dealing with the career of Sir
Daniel Hall.

In 1920 Sir John Snell became chairman of the Elec-
tricity Commission, and in this work he is still actively
engaged.

CHAPTER XXIII

WHERE LIFE ON THE EARTH BEGAN

Sir Arthur Thomson and Once upon a Time

MY chief convictions/ ' says Professor Sir Arthur
Thomson in a letter to the writer, " are
(i) biology for the service of man; (2) the
necessity for religion/ '

What is biology?

In Chambers's Encyclopedia it is defined as " the science
that seeks to classify and generalize the vast and varied
multitude of phenomena presented by and peculiar to the
living world."

In one sense biology is the oldest of the sciences, for
even the savage observes the different forms of life around
him; he gives names to the various animals, birds, and
plants, and learns the uses of each, and to some extent
their habits.

The biologist is better known as the naturalist, and
naturalists are divided broadly into botanists and
zoologists — those who deal with the plant and animal
kingdoms respectively. The modern biologist, such as
Sir Arthur Thomson, is concerned with all branches of
life, and seeks for knowledge of the laws that govern
their organization and activity.

For a long time naturalists occupied themselves chiefly
in describing the outward characteristics of animals and
plants, and in classifying them in accordance with appear-
ance or habits. The French botanist de Jussieu, who
was made superintendent of the royal gardens of the Petit
Trianon in 1758, was the first to make a new grouping of
plants on the basis of their ' comparative anatomy/ So

259

260 Master Minds of Modern Science

by degrees the science of biology developed until biologists
penetrated beneath the surface and began to study the
organs of animals and the tissues of plants. Schleiden
the botanist discovered in 1838 that all plant substances
were built up of cells. To-day natural history goes so
deep that it has become closely allied to chemistry and
physics.

One of the merits of biology is that it teaches man so
much about his own beginnings. Man has been on the
earth for a very long time, yet, comparatively speaking,
he is a newcomer. Says Sir Arthur :

If we could arrange a great cinema film of the evolution of
living creatures, giving proportionate lengths to the successive
organic dynasties, arranging the whole so that it could be un-
rolled at uniform rate throughout a day, beginning at nine in
the morning, then man would appear a few minutes before
midnight. . . . Yet man only, among all living creatures, is
aware of the long drama, and even he has but a dim under-
standing of the plot.

It is through the work of men such as Sir Arthur
Thomson that we begin to have some idea of the begin-
nings of life on this planet. At first the earth was a ball
of flaming vapour, which gradually cooled and contracted
until it had a solid crust. A most unpleasant crust, for it
was smoking and cindery, and the atmosphere, such as it
was, would have poisoned any living being. There was
certainly very little oxygen, for most of the oxygen in
the air has been made out of carbonic acid gas by green
plants working in sunlight. At first there was no sun-
light at all. The light was cut off by enormous masses of
cloud, such as still surround the planet Venus.

By degrees the earth's crust cooled, rain began to fall,
and pools of water appeared. In the course of ages these
pools grew to seas, which dissolved the salts out of the
earth and themselves became salt. It is possible that at

SIR J. ARTHUR THOMSON

Photo by Elliott and Fry

260

Sir Arthur Thomson 261

one time the whole surface of the earth was covered by
one great shallow sea. In these seas life first appeared.
How it came we do not know, and this is not the place to
discuss this greatest of all problems. The first living
creatures were certainly very small. They were half
plants, half animals, which swam about in the warm,
brackish water, but it was they who began the process of
splitting up the heavy carbonic acid gas, fixing the car-
bon and liberating the oxygen, and so improving the air
and by degrees making it more fit to breathe.

As the continents rose some of these living things had
a chance of settling down, and so began the race of sea-
weeds. In the course of ages the seaweeds worked up
the mouths of rivers into fresh water, changing by degrees
and very slowly into mosses and ferns. We know from
examination of the deep coal-measures that the early
forests consisted of giant ferns such as still exist in New
Zealand.

Meantime there was another change taking place in the
seas. Some of the half -plants turned into animals. The
plants had been content to feed on what they could get
from air, water, and soil, but these new creatures would
no longer live in that way. They moved about and fed
upon the plants themselves, and so gained energy and
increased in size.

" These," says Sir Arthur, " tried experiments along
many lines and gave rise to sponges, zoophytes, corals,
and jelly-fish.' ' Most likely they lived in the shallow
waters near the shores, creeping or swimming among the
beds of seaweed. We may be quite certain that animal
life began in the water and not on the land.

One proof of this is open to every one, for if you cut
your finger and suck it you find that the blood has a
strong salty taste. The salts in your blood are almost
exactly the same as those in sea-water.

Sir Arthur Thomson believes that the first living

262 Master Minds of Modern Science

creatures to be successful were open-sea creatures, half
plants, half animals, able to swim by means of a living
lash. In the open sea there still survive many creatures
of this kind — flagellates, as they are called — which swim
in this way, and seem still to hesitate between the animal
and vegetable kingdoms.

As these creatures of the weed-belt increased in size
and numbers, some worked closer and closer to the shore.
These had to become hardy in order to withstand the
breaking surf. The tides, greater in those early days
than they are now, must have left many stranded high
and dry, and at length some became able to endure this
ordeal. They were shellfish similar to the limpets and
whelks which we all know so well. But not all the new
creatures were able to withstand the tumble of the waves
and the sweep of the tide on the beach, and of these some
ventured farther and farther out from the land, becoming
open-sea creatures.

Others, again, worked their way down the sloping sea-
floor toward the ' mud line/ They were principally
soft-mouthed creatures such as sea-worms and sea-
cucumbers, which live upon soft particles — ' crumbs/ as
Sir Arthur calls them — that have sunk down from above.
Slowly these followed their food to greater and greater
depths, changing their form and habits so as to become
suited to life in the sunless chill of the deep sea. One
of the most interesting discoveries of the past century is
that life not merely exists, but is plentiful down to the
very bottom of the abysmal deeps such as are found off
the coasts of Japan and close to the Philippine Islands.

Right up to the middle of the nineteenth century
naturalists spoke of the deep sea as being devoid of life.
It was not until i860, when a deep-sea cable was lifted in
the Mediterranean from a depth of six thousand feet and
fifteen living animals were found attached to it, that the
truth began to be suspected, but man had to wait until

Sir Arthur Thomson 263

the famous voyage of the Challenger (1872-6) for the dis-
covery of the new world of the deep sea.

During this cruise the Challenger, with Darwin aboard,
covered nearly seventy thousand miles, and raised
treasures of life from the depths of almost every ocean.
There are no plants in the great depths, there are no
bacteria, but there are sea animals in wonderful pro-
fusion and variety, from huge cuttle-fish down to dainty,
fragile organisms such as the so-called Venus flower-
basket. Living in utter darkness, many of these creatures
have developed lights of their own, and glide along lit up
like little ships. Of life in the deep sea Sir Arthur says :

It has been of value to mankind practically in connexion
with laying cables ; intellectually, for it has been an exercise
ground for the scientific investigator ; emotionally, for there is
perhaps no more striking gift to the imagination than the
picture which explorers have given of the eerie, cold, dark,
calm, silent, plantless, monotonous, but thickly peopled world
of the deep sea.

The flounder, originally a sea fish, is often found some
distance up fresh- water rivers. For some reason of its
own it is learning to live in fresh water, yet it has to
return to salt water to spawn. There are other fish, such
as salmon, sea-trout, and shad, which can live either in
salt water or fresh, and here we have a clue to the first
peopling of the fresh waters from the sea. Either sea fish
behaved as the flounder is now behaving, or perhaps an
arm of the sea was cut off by a rise of the land and so
became an inland lake. This, by the inflow of streams,
would become first brackish and at last fresh, but the
process would be slow enough to enable its inhabitants to
become accustomed to the new conditions. Lake Baikal,
in Asia, is an immense distance from the sea, and is now
fresh water. Yet seals inhabit it, and seals are marine
animals. Here is proof that Baikal was once part of the

264 Master Minds of Modern Science

sea, proof, too, that sea mammals can change their way
of life.

Another instance which Sir Arthur gives of a sea
animal invading dry land is that of the robber crab of
Christmas Island. Christmas Island is in the Indian
Ocean, two hundred miles south of Java, and is famous
for its great beds of phosphates, which are very valuable
as a fertilizer. It was the Challenger Expedition which
made this discovery, and the whole cost of that expedi-
tion was repaid from royalties deriving from the sale of
these phosphates.

The robber crab, a fairly big creature, is plentiful on
Christmas Island ; it has gained its name because, like the
American trade rat, it is fond of getting into houses
or workshops and stealing things. One has been seen
making off with an empty meat tin and using this as a
protection for its tail. It also climbs coconut trees and
breaks off the nuts. Then it climbs down, tears off the
husk of the nut, breaks a hole in the shell with its immense
claw, and spoons out the sweet milk with one of its legs.

A queer beast indeed, and, as Sir Arthur says, specially
interesting in the story of evolution, because beyond doubt
it was once a marine animal. And it betrays its origin by
the fact that once a year it goes back to the seashore to
lay its eggs. The eggs are dropped in the sea, and the
young crabs, when hatched, live and swim in the salt
water for some considerable time. Then they come back
and creep on the shore, and at last become strong enough
to go inland and live there.

Sea creatures breathe by means of gills; these are
feathery growths, and inside them the blood runs through
numerous small veins and takes oxygen from the water
which bathes the gills. Land animals breathe by means
of lungs which are inside the body. How then can a
gilled creature live on land? If you examine a robber
crab you find that it still has traces of gills, but on the

Sir Arthur Thomson 265

walls of the gill chamber the crab has produced delicate
projections which contain blood and are able to absorb
dry air.

There are other kinds of land crab found in the West
Indies and elsewhere, and these, like the robber crab,
have to go back to the sea to produce their young. They
are examples of a change which is comparatively recent.
Sir Arthur Thomson gives an example of another change
as strongly established, yet much older.

If you break off a piece of bark from a decaying log you
will almost certainly find beneath it one or more of those
odd little many-legged, armoured creatures called wood
lice. Count the legs and you find that the creature has
nineteen pairs. This means a great deal, for almost all
lobsters, shrimps, and prawns also have nineteen pairs.
This is not a mere coincidence, but proof that the wood
louse, a land creature, sprang originally from the marine
sea-slaters or isopods, which are often found between
high- and low-tide marks "beginning the exploration
which the wood lice have finished/ '

Likewise earthworms, which drown in a puddle, un-
doubtedly sprang from water-worms. A proof of this is
that there are several varieties of earthworm which still
have gill-like outgrowths near the head end.

The invasion of the land by the worms was of great
importance to man, for it is worms more than anything
else that have made fertile soil fit for plants. This inva-
sion was followed by what Sir Arthur calls the " centipede-
millipede-insect-spider invasion,' ' which was also of great
importance, because it linked the flowers and flower-
visiting insects. Third was the great amphibian invasion,
starting probably with certain bold fresh-water fishes.
In India to-day there is a kind of small fish which crawls
out of the water and clings to the bank high and dry.
Millions of years ago the same sort of thing happened and
fish became amphibious (able to live on land or in water).

266 Master Minds of Modern Science

So came into being the reptiles which for ages formed the
only life on land, and these in turn evolved into the
mammals (warm-blooded animals) and the birds.

The best and biggest change, says Sir Arthur, was that
which took life into the air, and he tells us that there were
no fewer than four different invasions of the air. First,
an invasion by insects, which have now become the most
plentiful of all living creatures ; secondly, an invasion by
flying reptiles, such as the pterodactyl (this was not a
successful invasion and lasted only for a time) ; third
came the bird invasion ; and lastly that of bats, warm-
blooded animals that took to flight.

It is partly by observation of existing animals that we
are able to learn the long story of the evolution of species,
but our best books are the rocks and the fossils which
we find in them. We speak of the solid earth, yet
continents and mountain ranges are continually rising
and sinking. Rain and rivers are always carrying down
sand and gravel from the high grounds, and these, de-
posited elsewhere, harden into rocks. So the earth gets
skin after skin, and the rock record is like a library with
the oldest books on the lowest shelves. Some of the
shelves are broken, some volumes missing, yet practically
the whole story is there to read, and never a year passes
without fresh information coming to light. The story is
not finished, but still goes on, and if astronomers are right
it may continue yet for many millions of years. It is
only recently that scientists have proved their theory of
evolution — the slow, natural process of racial transforma-
tion— and the causes are still mysterious.

" Life," as Sir Arthur writes, " continues to flow up
hill."

There is not merely change, but constant improvement.
Nature is always making experiments. Some, like that
of the flying reptiles, fail and are abandoned. We will
conclude this short account of the origin of life with a

Sir Arthur Thomson 267

paragraph quoted from Sir Arthur's New Natural History,
published by Messrs Newnes, Ltd. I

When we try to get a picture of the sublime process of
organic evolution, which has no doubt continued for several
hundred million years, we receive certain great impressions.
One is the multitudinous production of individualities ; there
are over a quarter of a million different kinds of living animals
each itself and no other. A second impression concerns the
persistence with which every possible haunt of life has been
and is being peopled — from sea to land, from earth to air. A
third is centred on the establishment of fitness after fitness —
often with a marvellous nuance of adaptation. And then there
is the largest fact — that in the course of ages, the mental aspect
became increasingly manifest and masterful.

John Arthur Thomson comes of a family of naturalists.
His father, a clergyman, was a keen botanist ; his grand-
father, also a clergyman, was a good zoologist, and the
future biologist was brought up in the country. He
studied at Edinburgh University, and then under the
famous Ernst Haeckel at Jena. He worked in Berlin, at
the Marine Biological Station in Naples, and was later
lecturer on zoology and biology at the School of Medicine
in Edinburgh. For thirty years he was Regius Professor
of Natural History at Aberdeen University, where he
formed one of the best small natural history museums in
the kingdom. Hardly any living naturalist has written
more widely upon nature, or more interestingly. In
1930 recognition was given to his work when his name
appeared in the Birthday Honours as the recipient of a
knighthood.

CHAPTER XXIV

WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward Investigates the

Remote Past

SOME thirty years ago there was serious trouble
between the Argentine Republic and Chile. It was
the usual South American quarrel over the question
of boundaries, and the two countries were very near to
war when some one had the good sense to suggest that
it might be better to ask King Edward to act as arbiter.
Both countries agreed, and a Commission was appointed
to examine the boundaries before going to England to
put the case before King Edward.

One of the Argentine Commissioners was a Sefior
Moreno, a wealthy man who was also a very keen scien-
tist. He had already founded a museum at La Plata,
which has since been handed over to the State ; it is said
to be the best of its kind in South America.

Now the boundary-line of the two countries runs down
to the very end of South America, through wild and little-
known Patagonia, and while Moreno was exploring he
came upon a rancho near the south coast at a place which
bore the rather sinister name of Ultima Esperanza
(" Last Hope "). There Moreno put up for a day or two,
and one of the first things he noticed was a great slab of
thick skin hung up in a tree near the house.

Most people would doubtless have taken it for an ox-
hide, for in Patagonia the nearest tree is used as a larder
where the meat is hung, but, luckily for Science, Moreno
saw at once that this was not an ox-hide, but something
very different. He examined it and saw that it was very

268

SIR ARTHUR SMITH WOODWARD

Photo by Lafayette

269

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 269

thick, and that while the outer part had coarse hair on it
the inner side was full of little bones.

Going back into the house, Moreno made inquiries, and
was told that this piece of skin had been found in a cave
near the shore. Moreno again examined the skin, and
came to the conclusion that it was part of the hide of the
mylodon, a creature commonly called the giant sloth.
Bones of this creature had already been found, but it was
believed to be extinct. Yet this piece of hide looked
amazingly fresh. The hair was still on it, and there was
even a blood clot. It was not in any respect fossilized.

The next thing to do was to examine the cave ; there
Moreno found other fragments of skin and bones of the
same animal. The cave he found to be singularly dry,
while everything was covered with a thick dust containing
a quantity of saltpetre. This explained the wonderful
state of preservation of the hide. The owner of the
rancho parted with the relic, and Moreno took it with him
to London, where he called in his friend, the distinguished
geologist Doctor (now Sir) Arthur Smith Woodward, who
made a microscopic section of a morsel of the hide and
confirmed Moreno's opinion that it was indeed the hide
of the giant sloth.

We think of a sloth as a rather small, stupid, hairy
animal that spends its uneventful life hanging upside
down in the trees and living on leaves, but this giant sloth
was not a tree-climber. It lived on the ground, walking
upright like a kangaroo, and grazing on the branches of
trees. It may have stood twelve to fourteen feet in
height, and weighed a ton or more.

The discovery caused a great sensation, and a London
daily sent out a special correspondent, Hesketh Prichard,
to explore the surrounding country and discover, if
possible, whether the giant sloth still survived. Mean-
time Germans living at Punta Arenas, the most southerly
town in America, sent a small expedition to explore the

270 Master Minds of Modern Science

cave, and there got more skin and bones. They also
collected two bird's nests partly made of hair plucked
from the hides of these extinct giants. But the most
interesting discovery made was that these animals must
originally have been kept in the cave by human beings.
The date at which this happened cannot be definitely
fixed, but it may well have been within the past two
thousand years.

The relics collected by these Germans came into the
hands of a rich Jew who lived in Berlin. As soon as Dr
Smith Woodward heard of this he went off that very
same night to Berlin and interviewed the owner, who
told him that the Kaiser was going to buy the remains.
Dr Smith Woodward wanted them badly for the British
Museum, but he felt that it was impossible to bid against
the Kaiser. He then went to see the scientist who usually
advised the Kaiser on these matters, and, learning from
him that he was not recommending the purchase, Wood-
ward hurried back to the Jew and made him an offer.
It was accepted, and, thanks entirely to Dr Smith Wood-
ward, these most interesting remains are now to be seen
at South Kensington.

In talking to the writer Sir Arthur mentioned the
interesting fact that bones of horses were found in the
cave where the remains of the mylodon were discovered.
The interest of this discovery will be appreciated when it
is explained that when white men first reached America
there was not a horse on the continent, North or South.
Yet in both North and South America fossilized horse
bones have been dug up in large quantities.

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward is best known for his
researches connected with the antiquity of man, and more
particularly in connexion with the Piltdown skull, the
oldest human skull ever found in Europe. This skull was
actually discovered by Charles Dawson, a solicitor of
Lewes, who had already discovered the natural gas of

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 271

Heathfield, in Sussex. Dawson was a remarkable man ;
when only twelve years old he had already started a
collection and was spending all his pocket-money on the
purchase of fossils from the quarrymen at Hastings. The
hours which most boys give to games he devoted to
tracing out fossil footprints of the giant reptiles which
once inhabited England, and to digging out their bones
and piecing them together.

Great fish, tiny shells, and delicate fossil ferns — all
were collected by this enthusiastic youngster. By 1884
his collection had already grown too large for any private
house, and he offered it to the British Museum. His
friends had looked on the whole thing as a mere boyish
pastime, and they were greatly surprised to see experts
from the British Museum spending whole days in care-
fully packing the specimens for their safe journey to
London. The national museum was only too glad to have
the Dawson collection in exchange for its original cost.

Thenceforth for many years Dawson continued to
spend all his leisure in collecting fossils, and he came to
know the South Downs and their treasures as perhaps no
other Englishman has ever known them. In 1897 he
announced to the Geological Society his discovery of
natural gas in Sussex. The flow continues, and natural
gas still lights the railway-station and hotel at Heath-
field. Dawson discovered a Roman pile at Pevensey,
identifying the place with the Anderida of the Romans,
and he has written on Bronze Age bracelets, the Lavant
caves, on Sussex iron-work, and many similar subjects.

Finally it was this same enthusiastic amateur who dis-
covered the remains of Britain's oldest known inhabi-
tant. The find was made in the gravel of a river which
has long since ceased to flow. In fact it is so long since
it flowed that the whole face of the country has changed
and now there is no river near. In the bed of this long-
lost stream was a deposit of gravel which had evidently

272 Master Minds of Modern Science

been formed by a strong eddy. Every flood that came
down, washing with it odds and ends from upstream, left
remains in the bottom of this deep whirling pool. There
were bones of long-extinct animals, flint instruments, and
finally, greatest treasure of all, there was dug up in the
late autumn of 1912 part of a human skull.

After examining this Sir Arthur pronounced it to be
that of a different species of man older than any yet
known, to which he gave the generic name of Eoanthropus.
His interpretation was at first the subject of much criticism
by certain anatomists, but later discoveries of a tooth
and other small portions of the skull proved that he
was right.

The skull was that of a woman, and it is certain that at
least fifty thousand years have passed since she walked
the soil of England. It may be a very much longer
period, and some geologists have estimated it at two
hundred thousand years. The woman was semi-simian
— that is, she combined in herself the traits of a human
being and the characteristics of the ape. She was nearer,
indeed, to what is generally called the " missing link '
than any other creature of which remains have been
found.

What was actually found was only a portion of the left-
hand side of the skull and a piece of the lower jaw, but
with these as a guide there has been built up a faithful
and reliable model of the whole skull, and this may be
seen in the South Kensington Museum. No modern
human being possesses teeth of the size or shape of those
seen in this reconstructed model; these and the heavy
under-jaw emphasize the ape-like characteristics of the
Piltdown woman. Another point is that the brain
development is only about two-thirds of that of the modern
woman, being sixty-four and three-quarter cubic inches
as compared with ninety cubic inches.

It is certain that the race to which this woman belonged

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 273

could not talk — at least, as we understand talking —
although they could doubtless make sounds which were
understood by one another. The jaw lacks the inside
ridge to which muscles controlling the tongue of a
1 talking man ' are attached. Yet the back teeth were
human teeth,- and the top of the skull has human charac-
teristics. The ancient race to which the Piltdown woman
belonged were not apes, but men. They walked more
or less erect, and probably used weapons of some kind,
rough flints and clubs with which they killed animals for
food. Whether they were able to make fire or not we do
not know.

Since the discovery of the Piltdown skull another skull
of immense age has been found in South Africa. Its dis-
coverers consider that this may belong to the Pliocene
epoch — that is, that it may be half a million years old — but
the best authorities do not consider that these remains
are human. They belong definitely to the ape family.
This particular ape, however, seems to have been inter-
mediate between living apes and mankind.

No one can tell the age of the human race, but flint
implements have been found which date from long before
the last Ice Age. In a paper read some years ago before
the British Association Dr Allan Sturge spoke of bronze
implements found in Egypt by Professor Flinders Petrie
which were some fifteen thousand years old. " But," he
said, " I shall take you, by the aid of these flints before
me, immeasurably further back."

He showed his audience a wedge-shaped piece of flint,
the marks on which told him, he said, that the stone had
been used daily by a man of the Palaeolithic (Old Stone)
Age in a village in England. This man had thrown it
away, and for thousands of years it had lain idle, until a
Neolithic (New Stone) man had come along and chipped
it afresh for his own purposes. Then he too had thrown
it away, and it had lain deeply hidden beneath the

274 Master Minds of Modern Science

rubbish of thousands of years until it had been found
again, and held up by a twentieth-century lecturer before
his audience.

Another flint implement which Dr Sturge showed
had upon it scratches made by ice. Now an Ice Age
comes round only once in about twenty thousand years,
so that this particular flint tool had certainly been made
before the last Ice Age.

These early and ape-like men were succeeded in South-
western Europe by another and much more highly
developed race called the Aurignacian. These people
have left us proof of their artistic ability in pictures
cut or painted on the walls of the caves which they
inhabited. Most of these pictures are found in caves in
the department of Dordogne, in France. Sir Arthur
Smith Woodward is one of those who have examined
them.

The work is astonishingly good. There is nothing of
the stiffness of the Egyptian draughtsmanship, yet these
semi-savage artists were working thousands of years
before Egypt had reached even the dawn of civilization.
Almost all the wild animals of that remote period are
pictured in these caves, including a number that are now
extinct. There are, for instance, drawings of the great
hairy mammoth, of the huge cave bear, of the bison, of
the maneless lion, and of a sort of horse with a large head
recalling the wild Mongolian horse of the present day.
The great Irish elk, taller than a tall horse and much
larger than any of the modern deer, is represented, while
there are also pictures of several creatures that cannot be
identified. % $

A very interesting picture is one of a horse with a strap
around the nose, showing that in those long-past days the
horse had already been tamed by man. Another drawing
is of a hornless bull, quite plainly a domesticated breed,
and one that must have been domesticated for a very long

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 275

time in order to reach such a hornless condition. Bisons
are represented, and the auroch, or wild bull. Also there
are really beautiful drawings of reindeer. The fact that
reindeer could live in the South of France proves that the
climate was then much colder than at present, and helps
to prove that these drawings were made not very long
after the last Ice Age, when all Northern Europe down to
Central Germany lay under an ice-cap similar to that
which now covers Greenland. It is possible, Sir Arthur
thinks, that these artistic Aurignacians actually lived
before the last Ice Age.

A very wonderful find has recently been made in a cave
at St Martory, near Toulouse, where models of all sorts of
animals worked in clay have been discovered, some com-
plete, some unfinished, just as they were left by the
prehistoric artist. One is a model of a bear cub without a
head, and lying near it is the skull of a real bear. There
are two large models, each about five feet long, of animals
of the cat tribe, either lions or tigers. These models are
believed to date back to the Magdalenian epoch, between
twenty thousand and fifty thousand years ago. It would
seem that this cave was the studio of the ancient sculptor,
who was perhaps called away by some tribal raid from
which he never returned.

We referred earlier in this chapter to the curious fact
that fossilized bones of the horse are found all over the
American continent. It may be interesting to add here
that there has been discovered in Hava Supai Canyon,
near the Colorado River, a picture, cut in the red sand-
stone, of an elephant attacking a man, which proves that
the elephant existed with man in the New World. Why
or how the elephant became extinct there it is impossible
to say. On the walls of the same canyon is a rough carving
of what is unmistakably a dinosaur; this is the first
indication that man ever saw a living dinosaur.

Fossilized bones are generally all that man finds of

276 Master Minds of Modern Science

extinct animals, yet the discovery of hair and hide in the
case of the giant sloth is not the only one of its kind, and
Sir Arthur spoke of a case which is probably unique, the
discovery of the Siberian mammoth.

One day in 1908 a Siberian hunter saw foxes gnawing at
something which stuck out of the earth on the edge of a
river, and when he went to see what it was that they were
eating he discovered the head of a mammoth exposed by
a flood which had cut deep into the frozen bank of the
stream. The native Siberians are superstitiously afraid
of mammoth remains, and this man fled, but when he
reached the nearest town, Kasachia, he spoke of his dis-
covery, and by good luck the news came to the ears of an
educated Russian, who went out at once and poured water
over the head so as to form a protective coating of ice.
Then he sent word of his discovery to St Petersburg, and
the Academy at once dispatched a well-equipped expedi-
tion to excavate the remains.

So perfect were they found to be that the flesh was
fresh and eatable. Some of it was actually thawed,
cooked, and eaten, as an experiment. Truly a strange
experience, to eat the meat of an animal which had died
perhaps fifty thousand years earlier I The skin was taken
off and sent back to Russia with the skeleton, and the
whole animal was set up. And there it is to-day, looking
almost as it did on the day it died.

Even the cause of the great beast's death was dis-
covered. Its legs were twisted under it, and the scientists
found that a large blood-vessel near the heart had been
ruptured. It was quite clear that the animal had fallen
into a hole while grazing, and that the force of the fall or
its first struggle to get out had killed it. The grass which
it had been eating was actually still in its mouth, showing
that it had not even had time to swallow the mouthful.

Although the mammoth had a long coat of thick hair,
and was therefore protected to some extent against the

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 277

cold, it is fairly certain that when herds of these giants
roamed the wide plains the climate of Northern Siberia
was much milder than at present. Great quantities of
mammoth ivory come at times to the London market.
Some of the tusks are very large, and, though cracked and
discoloured on- the outside, they are still solid and fit to
be carved into various useful objects.

Sir Arthur has travelled thousands of miles in his
searches for fossil remains. Four times he went to North
America, twice to South America, and he has been to
Greece, Spain, and other European countries. One of his
happiest hunting-grounds is in the province of Aragon, in
Spain, where there is an old lake-bed containing very
interesting fossils.

This part of Spain is never visited by the average
tourist, and it is so wild that on the occasion of his first
visit Sir Arthur wrote to the British Embassy at Madrid
to discover whether it was safe to take Lady Smith Wood-
ward with him. Getting no reply, they started out, and
reached their destination without trouble. Sir Arthur got
the alcalde (mayor) to find him men to do the digging, and
they unearthed quantities of bones of the remote ancestors
of our present horses and pigs. The Spaniards were con-
vinced that these bones must be of enormous value.
Otherwise, why should an English senor come from the
other side of the world (they think that England is
thousands of miles away) in order to dig for them ? It
was Sir Arthur's hardest task to convince them that the
bones were not worth much gold, but when they did at
last understand they settled down and dug nobly, and
became most friendly.

When the work was done Sir Arthur expressed his
appreciation by presenting the alcalde with a mayoral
chair, and now any other English folk who visit this part
of Spain are sure of a warm welcome. When at last Sir
Arthur and his wife returned to England they found at

278 Master Minds of Modern Science

their home a letter from the Embassy assuring them that
it was impossible to find accommodation in Aragon and
that they had better not dream of going there !

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward began his scientific career
in 1882 by obtaining a post as assistant in the British
Museum, and for years he worked upon fossil fishes. The
Trustees gave him the task of making a catalogue of
these fishes, a task which took fourteen years and ended
in the production of four thick volumes. There is no
branch of geology in which Sir Arthur has not exercised
his talents, and he has contributed nearly three hundred
papers to various scientific journals, on such varied sub-
jects as British crocodiles, horned tortoises, the Sarga
antelope, whose remains were found near Twickenham,
dinosaurs from Transylvania, and great fish from the
chalk of Kansas.

Sir Arthur has received the Royal Medal of the Royal
Society, the Cuvier Prize of the French Academy, the
Lyell Medal of the Geological Society, and in 1924 the
honour of knighthood. And after nearly half a century
of devotion to it he is still as keen on geological work
as ever.