METALS AND SCIENCE.

Western Star, 30 March 1920, Page 4

METALS AND SCIENCE.

A significant sign of the times today is the extreme attention that is being paid in this country to metallurgical subjects. It unfortunately has to be admitted that, in days gone by, we, as ® nation, have been content to plod along, leaving both Germany and the United States to set tho pace in the race for supremacy in the metallurgical world, as iu so many others. The war has taught us many lessons, and it now remains to us a. nation to see to it that there shall he no> slackening in efforts to make good the deficiency of bygone days, and prove our capacity to get abreast, if not to out-dis-tance, our rivals in both hemispheres. The British are an intensely practical nation, with, as Thomas Carlyle says, a wonderful faculty for getting things done; but I think no one will seriously question the statement that our activity has not always been wisely directed, and our methods have not always been up 1 to the standards which present-day science marks out as the. right ones to follow”. There have been notable advances not only in the great national educational institutions in and around London, but also in the provinces, and to-day there is a great demand for the highly trained metallurgist in many of our great British business organisations. So great is tho demand that I am told that every member of the staff of a well-known laboratory has the choice of half a dozen appointments at remuneration far in advance of anything that he had ever figured upon; ancli I know that in another similar educational establishment there are numbers of young students who are fitting themselves for service in metallurgical fields.

In spite of the enormous progress made in the science of metallurgy within recent years, it is quite clear that the field has been by no 1 means fully explored. True, we know today more than ever of the nature and the characteristics of metals, and we have learned that there is hardly a limit to the uses to which they may be put, If only the treatment to which they are subjected be carried out on the right lines. During the stress of war we have learned to l what extent the science of metal fusion may be employed! to make up for difficulty of rehabilitating machinery and replacing fractured units. What can be done with cast iron, given perfect treatment, is little short of miraculous, and it would seem that this will offer by far the greatest opportunities for the exorcise of the art off the welder in. d)ays to come. But metal fusion is by no means confined to cast iron. Tens of thousands of repairs have annually been, made in other metals, such, as steel, copper, aluminium, brass, and bronze. Indeed, there is .scarcely a known metal to-day that is not amenable to treatment by one or other of the special processes in use by specialists who have given close attention to the practical application of the principles off metal fusion year hy year. —■ Birmingham Metallurgical Society’s Journal.’