Chief Command, proved their good organization, their progressive adaptation to the methods of modern warfare, and the effectiveness of their work." All stocks of food in Greece were exhausted as the result of a long blockade, we are told, and in July, 1917, the country was in a state of famine. By constant representations to the Allies, THE HEAD-BREAKERS. NATIONALIST-"No conscription!" ULSTERMAN-"No Home Rule!" PRIME MINISTER-"Break my head by all means, gentlemen-if only you'll break the Kaiser's first!" -Punch (London). however, the Hellenic Government succeeded in increasing the tonnage allotted to secure the food-supply and by intelligent control of foodstuffs it succeeded in maintaining a supply sufficient for the needs of the population. All essential foodstuffs are under the control of the Government, maximum prices have been fixt, and a normal situation has been restored. A better harvest by 20 per cent. than last year is noted as an additional success of the Government's measures, which "may be in part attributed not only to the civil population's deep sense of its responsibilities, but also to the effect of certain legislative measures. Production has been intensified by the use of agricultural machinery; artificial manures have been imported from America; a military control has been formed for the collection of produce; and, finally, agricultural cooperative societies have been largely extended. "With reference to the economic and financial situation, which was very bad indeed, the Government has been energetic and successful. New resources were created by a rational system of taxation. The most important of the new taxes is that on war-profits, reckoned from 1915, which will not fail to yield a noticeable increase of revenue. The excise duties on tobacco and wines have been raised, and increases of 7,000,000 and 20,000,000 drachmæ respectively are promised from them. The Allies have seconded the economic effort of the Hellenic Government by granting it a loan of 750 millions of francs, of which 50 were paid during 1917 and 180 up to the end of June, 1918. The tables of revenue as submitted to the International Financial Commission show that the acute crisis which the country has traversed has not affected its vital resources. "The Government has given every attention to the normal working of communications and transport. A high control of transport has centralized everything connected with it, and in spite of the difficulties inherent in the work has obtained the most favorable results. The traffic on the railways is continually increasing. . . . The Government, further, will improve the railways by expending 36,000,000 francs." ULSTER'S CASE AGAINST HOME RULE T HE STUBBORN DETERMINATION shown by Ulster to refuse any form of Home Rule is often somewhat of a puzzle to the American reader, whose views on Ireland are frequently derived from Nationalist sources. The American press, as a whole, has regarded Irish Home Rule very favorably, and our quotations of them in our pages have perhaps unconsciously emphasized the Nationalist side of the argument more than the other. The Ulsterman, however, is anxious that America shall understand his view-point, and the Lord Mayor of Belfast recently issued what the London Spectator describes as "one of the most important and significant state papers that have ever appeared in connection with the Irish problem." Some months ago, continues The Spectator, "the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr. Dillon, and his ad hoc coworkers, the leaders of Sinn Fein, the self-styled allies of Germany, drew up a communication to the President of the United States setting forth the Irish case against conscription and generally proclaiming the wrongs of Ireland and her right to self-determination. This Nationalist manifesto has been answered by a communication to the President by the other Irish Lord Mayor, the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sir Edward Carson, and the representatives of commerce and labor in Northeast Ulster." This manifesto, The Spectator, itself a strong Unionist organ, regards as of great weight, for "If there had been no sound argument in the case set forth by Ulster, the mere existence of the protest would have been of great importance, for it shows America, and indeed the wide world, in the clearest and best possible way, the existence of the two Irelands, and so overthrows the monstrous fabric of falsehood and paradox reared by the Nationalists. America learns that if there is a Roman Catholic, anti-British, and largely proGerman organization headed by the Lord Mayor of Dublin for defeating conscription and breaking up the United Kingdom in one part of the island, there is another Lord Mayor in the other part of the island with an organization as determined to keep the Irish ship on the true course and to bear company with the good ships of Britain and America." The Unionists of Ulster think they are as much entitled to the sympathy of America as are the Nationalists, who have so long enjoyed American support. In their manifesto they say: "There is, however, one matter to which reference must be made, in order to make clear the position of the Irish minority, whom we represent. The Nationalist party have based their claim to American sympathy on the historic appeal addrest to Irishmen by the British colonists who fought for independence in America a hundred and fifty years ago. By no Irishmen was that appeal received with a more lively sympathy than by the Protestants of Ulster, the ancestors of those for whom we speak to-day-a fact that was not surprizing in view of the circumstance that more than one-sixth part of the entire Colonial population in America at the time of the Declaration of Independence consisted of emigrants from Ulster. "The Ulstermen of to-day, forming as they do the chief industrial community in Ireland, are as devoted adherents of the cause of democratic freedom as were their forefathers in the eighteenth century. But the experience of a century of social and economic progress under the legislative Union with Great Britain has convinced them that under no other system of government could more complete liberty be enjoyed by the Irish people. This, however, is not the occasion for a reasoned defense of 'Unionist' policy. Our sole purpose in referring to the matter is to show, whatever be the merits of the dispute, that a very substantial volume of Irish opinion is warmly attached to the existing Constitution of the United Kingdom, and regards as wholly unwarranted the theory that our political status affords any sort of parallel to that of the 'small nations' opprest by alien rule, for whose emancipation the Allied democracies are fighting in this war." Commenting on this paragraph, The Spectator asserts that "Instead of Ireland being politically or constitutionally neglected and opprest, the value of a vote in Ireland is almost double that of a vote in England. Whereas there is only one member for every 75,000 Englishmen, Ireland has a member for every 45,000 of her population. Ireland sends, in fact, to Westminster, and so to govern Britain, thirty-nine more members than she has any right to send on the only true and sound democratic system, that of equality of representation-a principle which is recognized as the ideal throughout the United States. In order to prove that the British connection has not, as is often alleged, left Ireland a ruined, famine-stricken, and desolate island, the Ulster manifesto calls only one witness. But he is one whose testimony can not be gainsaid by the Nationalists." This witness is the late John Redmond, who, speaking of the present condition of Ireland in a speech made on July 1, 1915, said: "To-day the people, broadly speaking, own the soil. To-day the laborers live in decent habitations. To-day there is absolute freedom in local government and local taxation of the country. To-day we have the widest parliamentary and municipal franchise. The congested districts, the scene of some of the most awful horrors of the old famine days, have been transformed. The farms have been enlarged, decent dwellings have been provided, and a new spirit of hope and independence is to-day among the people. In towns legislation has been passed facilitating the housing of the working classes-a piece of legislation far in advance of anything obtained for the town tenants of England. We have a system of old-age pensions in Ireland whereby every old man and woman over seventy is safe from the workhouse, and free to spend their last days in comparative comfort." The Ulster Unionists in their manifesto dot the i's and cross the t's of this statement by commenting thus: "Such are the conditions which in the eyes of Nationalist politicians constitute a tyranny so intolerable as to justify Ireland in repudiating her fair share in the burden of war against the enemies of civilization." The Spectator has still a point to emphasize, and says: "All these good conditions, we may add, were worked out in the Parliament at Westminster with the hearty good-will of the British people and paid for almost entirely by the British taxpayers." The position that Ulster takes up with regard to Home Rule is thus defined by The Spectator: "The people of Northeast Ulster believe as firmly as they have ever believed that the legislative Union with Great Britain gives Ireland her best chance for developing spiritually and materially, and for securing good government. But provided that the Imperial connection is maintained, they make no attempt to dictate to or interfere with the local majority in the South and West. Let those parts of Ireland which want Home Rule have it; but let those parts which do not want it be without it. In strong contrast to this point of view is the attitude of the Nationalists. The Sinn-Feiners and their feebler Nationalist allies not only demand absolute separation, but they demand it for the whole of Ireland. They will not for one moment listen to the principle just set forth. Their claim is for dominance, not for justice. What in the Southerner is but a rational word, that in the Ulsterman is flat mutiny." The Ulster manifesto is somewhat emphatic on this point. It says: "The appeal which the Nationalists make to the principle of 'self-determination' strikes Ulster Protestants as singularly inappropriate. Mr. Dillon and his cosignatories have been careful not to inform your Excellency that it was their own opposition that prevented the question of Irish government being settled in accordance with that principle in 1916. The British Government were prepared at that time to bring the Home-Rule Act of 1914 into immediate operation, if the Nationalists had consented to exclude from its scope the distinctively Protestant population of the North, who desired to adhere to the Union. This compromise was rejected by the Nationalist leaders, whose policy was thus shown to be one of 'self-determination' for themselves combined with coercive domination over us. "It is because the British Government, while prepared to concede the principle of self-determination impartially to both divisions in Ireland, has declined to drive us forcibly into such subjection that the Nationalist party conceive themselves IRISH-AMERICAN (from the fighting front)- Say, you're missing the scrap of your life." PAT-" An' how d'ye know I'll not be in it yet, now they're makin' conscription voluntary?" Punch (London). ecclesiastics who have not scrupled to employ weapons of spiritual terrorism which have elsewhere in the civilized world fallen out of political use since the Middle Ages." The Spectator claims to put the Irish question into a nutshell when it writes: "If Roman Catholic Ireland would adopt the principle adopted by Protestant Ireland and allow the will of the local majority to prevail, those parts of Ireland which ask for Home Rule would have it at once. What has killed Home Rule is the refusal of the South and West to abandon their claim to dominance, and to live up to their principles-to be honest HomeRulers. There is the Irish question in a single sentence." HUNGARY WANTS NO "CENTRAL EUROPE"-No great love has ever been lost between Berlin and Budapest, and now it seems quite clear that the Magyars wish the aggressive Germans at the bottom of the sea. The Budapest Az Est, one of the most important papers in Hungary, writes: "Community of fronts for death and bread is no longer sufficient. The chains with which the Germans have bound our country are no longer strong enough. They now need a guaranty that the Central Europe alliance will last forever. Our armies must be made over in order to make one sole army for Central Europe. Customs frontiers must disappear, together with the state frontiers. Navigation, money, commerce, industry, and all our country's laws must be in common with those of Central Europe. Our streams, the air we breathe, our customs, perhaps even the language we speak, must be in common. We live in a world dominated by the statue of Hindenburg, so high that it seems to touch heaven. Oh, lords of Central Europe, eternal adorers of war! know that you have to do with the Hungarian nation, which wishes to act independently. We can not live without liberty, and we fight to free ourselves from Austria. Know, then, that we wish for a customs frontier, a national independent army, and the preservation of Hungarian civilization." I THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE RACE T WILL BE NEWS to many to hear that the human race needs reconstruction. From the standpoint of the nervespecialist, Dr. Frederick Peterson, of New York, an alienist of note, assures us that there is no doubt of such a necessity. Speaking before the National Education Association at its Pittsburg meeting, on the subject that we use as our title, Dr. Peterson bids us note that the selective draft has revealed defects in an average of nearly 30 per cent. of our young men the school-children of yesterday. When we ask what was the matter with the schools of yesterday, we find the answer, he says, in the school-children of to-day. Through them and on them our plans for the reconstruction of the race must act, and he gives us a definite program for carrying it out. Says Dr. Peterson: "Authorities show us that there are physical defects in 75 per cent. of the 20,000,000 school-children of to-day, most of them preventable and remediable, heart- and lung-diseases, disorders of hearing and vision, malnutrition, diseased adenoids and tonsils, flatfoot, weak spines, imperfect teeth-and among them 1 per cent. of mental defect. The children in country schools are worse off than in city schools. We are sending the best we have to foreign battle-fields. We are retaining the 30 per cent. of imperfect citizens to leaven the race of to-morrow. There is such a thing as prepotence of inferiority. It is often said that we get what we deserve in the way of government, laws, and institutions. Since it is possible in our democracy for a moron to be elected mayor of a city and an imbecile to be made governor of a vast State, it may be easily imagined how the smaller offices in our legislatures, county boards, and city councils overflow with the inferior and the unfit. in the state. The root of the state is in the family. The root of the family is in the individual. So for the people--encourage them; lead them on; rectify them, straighten them; help them; give them wings!' "We must set up a standard. It might be that of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'to begin the education of the child a hundred years before it is born.' That can be attained in a few generations. To accomplish it, we must coordinate all the organizations now at work for the conservation of our citizenry-the maternity classes, the baby-saving societies, the mothers' committees, the kindergartens, the child welfare and physical training bodies, the seaside and countryside and sunshine associations, all that have to do with preschool welfare, the public and private schools, the Child Labor Committee, the Mental Hygiene Association, the boards of education, and the boards of health. The presidents of boards of education should be ex-officio members of these coordinated boards. This is a great undertaking, but we can begin by breaking into the curriculum of the public schools and establishing education in health, especially in foodknowledge and food-habits as a vital and essential part of the teaching. From the schools the health instruction will be carried home to the parents and younger children, and soon the whole movement of reconstruction will permeate the state." HE FAVORS "COMPULSORY HEALTH." Dr. Frederick Peterson thinks it just as important as compulsory education. "We have spent millions of dollars on swine plague, foot-andmouth disease of cattle, pine blister, chestnut blight, gipsy moth, chicken cholera, and we have that annual 'pork-barrel' of millions on millions of dollars devoted to all sorts of trivial and foolish exploitations of rural creeks and hamlets; but what have we spent on our greatest national asset-the health of body in our school-children? Body is the foundation on which mental structure must rise. It is of the first importance that the physical foundation be made and kept sound and strong. The mental structure is secondary to that. We are spending enormous sums on medical care of our insane and other defectives in institutions all over the country, and rightly so, to do what we can to repair our broken adults. This is relief work; but what we spend on preventive measures, on health education for our growing children, is, indeed, small by comparison... "Compulsory education we have compulsory feeding and training of the mind. Compuslory health we must have-compulsory feeding and training of the body. "In the war against ignorance we have conscripted the schoolchildren. They are the vast draft army of our second line of defense. But in what sort of cantonments do we house them? What physical drill do we give them, what medical inspection and care, what sanitation, what remedial steps do we take to restore them quickly to the ranks when they are ill? "But enough of destructive criticism. Let us turn to the idea of reconstruction of the race. Let us read the old books with a new comprehension. It is almost a hundred generations ago that a teacher (Mencius) wrote: 'The root of the empire is Dr. Peterson next outlines his program for reconstruction, which is a large one, with several requirements as follows: "1. The teachers themselves should be given better sanitary conditions for their own health and fuller instruction in all that has to do with the laws of health. "2. Every city and country school should be made sanitary and kept so, and the school and its grounds should be as beautiful as possible, not only for the benefit of the teachers and the pupils, but as an example to all other citizens who are beginning to use the school more and more as a community center. "3. Every child should be regularly weighed, measured, and examined and a health record kept, which should accompany him throughout his school-life. It should be the duty of the authorities to see that the defects of our young citizens are corrected and disorders of growth and nutrition remedied. As malnutrition is one of the most serious conditions, a hot luncheon should be made available for every child and every teacher. The health examination should include dental inspection and treatment. "4. Each school should have an adequate provision for physical training, gymnasiums, athletic-fields, playgrounds, gardens, and shops, together with specially qualified instructors in physical training and other vocational fields. "5. Finally, with the foregoing foundations there should be a thorough system of instruction in all matters pertaining to health with special emphasis on health problems rather than on disease, in physical and mental habits, in personal hygiene, in public health and sanitation, in methods to avoid communicable diseases, in the responsibilities of parenthood, and in all that relates to nutrition and growth, including foods and food-values. "This is a large program, too large for the inequalities of consciousness of our multitudinous States. It might be carried out in a few States soon and in others only after generations. "This is a scheme for the reconstruction of the whole people. It is a Federal program. It is an emergency program. It should have the immediate attention of our foremost teacher in the Presidential chair. We need a Hoover for the children—a children's health administration. "With all this in view and after months of careful planning, the National Child Health Organization has been formed, whose literature is being now distributed. Do the first practical thing for a beginning. The teachers can place scales and a measuringrod at once in every school and with the height and weight and age charts that will be sent on request, the campaign can be immediately started against one of the chief evils, namely, malnutrition. The Child Health Organization has some of the best teachers and educators in the country as members and counts on its board the foremost medical specialists on children and public health. Its publications will be supplied on request to all who desire them." GERMAN ARMY ENGINEERS INFERIOR Sin O MANY PEOPLE seem to think the Germans excel in these features of modern warfare that depend on engineering skill that it is interesting to find that the Germans themselves regard the French as their superiors in this respect. The German officer, we are told, is a military leader, pure and simple; he leaves technical matters to civilians. Civilians build the big guns; civilians also, it is to be presumed, have developed the details of such weapons of offense as gasgenerators and flame-throwers. Military men operate them, but they simply follow instructions. One can not help wondering whether this may not explain the fact that neither gas nor flame has yet won a battle for the Teutons. The point of view noted above is quoted by The Electrical Review (London), from a report in Le Génie Civil (Paris), of a speech delivered in Germany by Dr. von Rieppel, president of the German Society of Engineers. The editor of The Review believes that English army engineers are also suffering from some of the faults here set forth. Discussing Dr. von Rieppel's address, the writer says: "The speaker said that Germany did not foresee that the war would become an economic and technical war; the military schools were designed solely to produce men fitted to command and familiar with the art of war, and economic and technical questions were practically ignored by them. He had been struck by the difference between their own ideas on this subject and those of the French when he visited the Universal Exposition of 1900; as a member of the jury on civil engineering works, he had several times had to judge splendid buildings of which the architect was a French officer, and he was surprized to learn that a large number of French officers received a very comprehensive training, and at the end of their studies had to pass examinations in engineering. These young officers often acted as engineers, especially in the colonies, where they were able to make use of their general knowledge and render valuable service in connection with economic and technical matters. There was nothing of this kind in Germany, and this deficiency had led to serious results. During recent years the technology of the arms of war had made unprecedented progress; industry had provided the officer with greatly improved, but complicated, weapons, the mechanism of which he did not clearly understand. The German officer was accustomed to receive with material instructions for its use, and did not seek to become better acquainted with it, looking upon industrial technology as a thing apart, with which he need not trouble himself, and this false idea led him to underestimate the value of industry with regard to the art of war. Modern weapons had to be served by specialists who must possess not only the usual qualities of the soldier, but, above all, technical experience and professional skill; the German officers were not fitted to control such men, for in their case the purely military point of view was a secondary consideration. In future the training of their officers must be regarded from a totally different aspect." In suggesting that the British Royal Engineers may be suffering from this same malady, the editorial writer mentions particularly those branches of engineering which fall outside military operations, such as the use of electric light and power, watersupply, the industrial development of large areas of country, ete. He proceeds: "It is quite a common thing to find behind our lines several little petrol-electric sets at work within a few yards of each other, each supplying a different department, and all, of course, devouring petrol, as well as capital outlay, and working under uneconomical conditions of loading, where a single properly planned installation would have served the lot at less than half the cost and twice the efficiency. Even where a local supply of electric power has been available independent sets have been put down. Wholly unsuitable plant has been requisitioned from home owing to the lack of technical knowledge on the part of the local engineer officer in command. Petrol has been employed where coal would have been preferable, because the latter can be supplied by small vessels making short voyages, whereas petrol comes from far overseas in large and costly oilships, which are a special object of Hunnish hate. "Such questions as these demand broad views and wide knowledge, which can only be gained in the school of experience. Their correct solution is of immense importance, not only to the efficient conduct of the war, but also to our finances and to the prosperity of the peoples concerned after the war. They may seem to be far-fetched; they are not. Narrow views on the scope of an engineer officer's duties and responsibilities are out of date, and must go. It may be thought that the problem can be solved by commissioning as officers men who in civil life are engaged in such work, and this is perfectly true, but only on one condition-that they are invested with full powers to carry out their plans without interference. This, we believe, has not been the case, and if such wide powers can not be entrusted to engineer officers who are not professional soldiers, then the latter must be provided with such an adequate and catholic training in the sciences of engineering economics and industry as will enable them to carry out the work themselves." A THE GOOD OLD TABLE D'HÔTE LTHO OUR ANCESTORS did not know the table d'hôte by name, they had it and enjoyed it. The cheap boarding-house and the lavish farm alike flourished upon it. And it would seem that Mr. Hoover, who erstwhile frowned upon it, has changed his mind. He apparently now believes that it will encourage saving instead of waste. This is also the opinion of Paul Pierce, who writes the department of "Comments" in Table Talk (Cooperstown, N. Y., September). Mr. Pierce counts it among the blessings of war, that, at least until peace and plenty descend again upon us, we shall be served in public restaurants with simple, home-cooked meals. He says: "The Food Administration in its quest of finding the most economical way to dine seems to favor the à la carte method where a variety of dishes are listed and the diner makes his own selection as to soup, meat, vegetable, and dessert. This is the way we have always had it, except that the size of the menucard has been gradually shrinking. Gone are the enormous sheets, as large as a newspaper, which restaurants, especially German ones, used to delight in laying before patrons, but the choice of foods is still amazingly large. "But the hotel and restaurant men favor the good old-fashioned table d'hôte. Not the kind associated with small-town hotels and exploiting the three P's-pork, potatoes, and pie; but a carefully selected, well-balanced ration, chosen by chefs who know food-values and food-combinations and what's good for people. "Hotel men claim it will save enormously, since left-overs can be utilized in planning other meals, just as the housewife makes last night's roast into this night's hash, and the odds and ends of vegetables into a tempting salad. "Psychology enters largely into this suggestion. If food is put before people they'll eat it and like it. Men go to elaborate banquets which are nothing more or less than table d'hôte meals, and know nothing of what they are to eat-till they arrive. They accept each course as it comes, there is no waste nor any loss of food. Fancy a banquet of a thousand covers with each diner ordering what he wanted! "So it will be with the table d'hôte plan of the large hotels and restaurants. So much food will be ordered and stocked and prepared, smaller portions served, thus eliminating waste of food left on plates; more courses will be served than are ordinarily ordered, so that the average diner gets greater variety than he would if he had chosen à la carte; and if a course is not wanted it needn't be served. Hotels and restaurants will run their tables just as the housewife does hers, and the result will be a reasonable and sane way of eating, just as in the ‘old days' that patriarchs are so fond of holding up to our eyes." I' CHEMICALS AFTER THE WAR F WE ARE GOING TO TABU GERMAN GOODS after the war, would it not be well to see that we have facilities for producing, in our own country, all the things that we formerly bought from Germany? Among these things were all sorts of higher synthetic chemical products used for research. German firms, we are told by Prof. Ross A. Gortner, of the division of agricultural biochemistry, University of Minnesota, used to make and sell these products at less than cost, charging up the loss to the advertising campaign. for Kultur. The fact that such compounds were to be obtained only in Germany helped to create the impression that only Germans knew how to make them. We can make them perfectly well, but not as a commercial enterprise. As a matter of fact, we are not making them; and when the war is over we shall have to go back to Germany for them or stop our researches in the chemical industries. We quote parts of a letter from Professor Gortner, printed in Science (New York). He writes: "It is well enough to say that we will not use German-made goods, but there would appear to be only one alternative, i.e., the cessation, or at least the slowing up, of research in organic chemistry if these essential starting materials are not available, or if they are available at relatively enormous prices. "The question, therefore, arises in my mind: 'Why can not some man of wealth make his named blessed by endowing a laboratory which shall prepare these rarer organic chemicals against the needs of research work?' Undoubtedly the German supply-houses sold many of these products at a loss before the war, counting the loss as a necessary part of their advertising propaganda, which was meant to build up the idea that Germany was the great chemical center of the world. Our commercial firms, unfortunately, usually refuse to follow paths where a sure and handsome profit does not lead them. "If some man of wealth can not be found to whom this suggestion would appeal, what is there to prevent one of our research foundations from supplying the need? How could research and discovery be better furthered in this particular field of science than by furnishing the essential basic materials to a host of research-workers in our colleges and universities? If such a plan as is herein proposed were adopted the United States would without doubt secure and retain first rank in the field of organic research. The initial cost would be comparatively small as measured by the scientific results, for the investigators' salaries would be borne by the colleges and universities, and where now a research foundation is giving to scientific investigation the services of one man, the same sum would assist a score or more of investigators. "In my own laboratories approximately half of the time of the investigators' laboratory work must of necessity be devoted to the preparation of essential starting materials, pure amino acids, proteins, organic compounds, etc., in order later to use these for investigational purposes. These compounds are not available on the market except at exorbitant prices, tyrosin, for example, being quoted at $5 a gram (when obtainable), a price utterly out of proportion with the cost of preparation." Limited funds for research apparatus and chemicals in our colleges and the excessive cost of these materials are responsible for the small quantity of research work; the surprizing thing, Professor Gortner says, is that so much is done. The chemistry budget for our smaller colleges is usually from $350 to $600 per year, and will probably not exceed $3,000 in many of our larger institutions. This sum must first equip the student with his apparatus and chemicals, and if any funds remain research chemicals or apparatus are secured. Unfortunately in many instances no funds remain. The time of the instructor is taken up by teaching, and his aspirations toward real scientific investigation have no soil upon which to grow. The writer goes on: "The question may arise: 'Why does not such a man prepare his basic materials even if his time is limited?' In the first place, there is no glamour in such work. In the second place, there are often eight or ten synthetic steps from raw products to finished material, and the necessary chemicals and apparatus for certain of these steps are not available. "Such an endowed laboratory as I have in mind would be in charge of an organic research chemist and would prepare and keep in stock all sorts of organic compounds for researchworkers. If an investigator desired a certain compound he could obtain this without cost or for a nominal cost, providing that he first convinced the director of the laboratory that there was an actual need for the compound and that it would be used in bona-fide research work, acknowledgment of such a grant to be appropriately made in the published results. If, on the other hand, an industrial demand for the chemical should arise (such as that which did arise due to the depleted supplies of dimethylglyoxim after the war began), the laboratory should charge a fee at least large enough to cover the cost of preparation. This would prevent the possibility of exploitation, and in any event it should be definitely specified that there should be no resale of the article in question, and any supply remaining after the completion of the approved research should revert to the endowed laboratory. "The above plan is probably not perfect, but I feel that there is in it at least a suggestion worthy of the serious thought of our scientific men or scientific societies, and I only hope that in some manner it may bear fruit. We must not again be dependent upon Germany for our research needs, and unless some such endowed laboratory is brought into existence I can see no other alternative." G ARE THE GERMAN GUNS WEARING OUT? ERMAN PRISONERS have complained lately that their front line was being exposed to their own gun-fire. This leads The Scientific American (New York, September 14) to the conclusion that German fire is deteriorating, particularly in accuracy. Loss of accuracy is proportional to the wear of the rifling, or erosion-probably the most serious of all the causes of diminished effectiveness. According to a General recently from the Western Front, wastage due to wear completely overshadows that caused by accident and by the enemy's fire. Says the journal named above: "We have always known about erosion, which ever since the introduction of nitroglycerin powder has been the bête noire of the artillerist. It has taken the present war, with its enormous increase of the use of artillery, to prove how serious may become the wear of guns. Under modern conditions their life is very limited. In fact, experience on the Western Front has shown that, at the end of a single battle, some of the guns may be so worn as to have entirely lost their accuracy. Erosion, which has been serious even under normal conditions where the firing was more or less intermittent, has become extremely serious under present conditions, where field-guns, such as the French 75, can fire as many as fifteen to twenty shots a minute, and in cases of emergency may be called on to keep up that rate of fire for long stretches of time. Sustained rapid fire with full charges results in the guns becoming excessively heated. This is being met by the use of reduced charges and the enforcement of strict rules calling for pauses, after a certain number of rounds, of sufficient duration to give the guns a chance to cool. Another palliative has been found in the greasing of the bore with specially prepared substances. "Now, for the Germans the peril of this wearing out of the bore lies in the fact that they are extremely short of the raw materials for gun-manufacture and particularly for the manufacture of liners or inner tubes. The supply of manganese is becoming a serious problem for the German gun manufacturers, and it is at least reasonable to suppose that the notable decrease in the volume and accuracy of German gun-fire is due to the fact that their guns are wearing out faster than they can replace them. If this be so, the German High Command stands face to face with a stupendous problem: for the long-range shelling of back areas, particularly of shell-dumps, cross-roads, and concentration points; the silencing of batteries; and, above all, the exact placing and controlling of a creeping barrage, or, for that matter, of any kind of barrage, all demand that the sights of the guns shall correspond with mathematical accuracy to the ranges actually covered by the shells, This loss of accuracy keeps pace with the wear of the rifling of the gun and with the enlargement of the bore. Loss of accuracy is due both to the escape of gases past the base of the shell and to the failure of the worn rifling to impart the necessary speed of rotation to the projectile. The rapid wearing out of German guns is one among many contributory causes, which are slowly but very surely bringing the once seemingly omnipotent German Army to its knees." |