PREPARED BY HIGGINBOTTOM AND CO., 116, PORTLAND STREET, MANCHESTER. The values stated are F.O.R. at maker's works, or at usual ports of shipment in U.K. The price in different localities may vary. CHEMICAL TRADE JOURNAL. No. 170. Lay Ignorance Official Memoranda Publishing Offices: 32, BLACKFRIARS STREET, MANCHESTER. Contents. PAGE SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1890. 109 Kainit 110 Analytical Notes.. 112 112 The Metal Markets New Coal-Tar Colours 113 The Volumetric Estimation of Zinc and Copper... 113 West of Scotland Chemicals.. Discovery of Novel Properties in Cast Iron 115 The Liverpool Colour Market...... 119 New Companies. Patent List Gazette Notices ..... 119 ...... 119 ....... 119 ....... 120 ..... 121 ... 124 Readers will oblige by making their remittances for subscriptions by Postal or Post Office Order, crossed. We shall esteem it a favour if any of our readers, in making inquiries of, or opening accounts with advertisers in this paper, will kindly mention the Chemical Trade Journal as the source of their information. Advertisements intended for insertion in the current week's issue, should reach the office by Wednesday morning at the latest. Communications for the Editor, if intended for insertion in the current week's issue, should reach the office not later than Tuesday Morning. Articles, reports, and correspondence on all matters of interest to the Chemical and allied industries, home and foreign, are solicited. Correspondents should condense their matter as much as possible, write on one side only of the paper, and in all cases give their names and addresses, not necessarily for publication. Sketches should be sent on separate sheets. We cannot undertake to return rejected manuscripts or drawings, unless accompanied by a stamped directed envelope. Readers are invited to forward items of intelligence, or cuttings from local newspapers, of interest to the trades concerned. As it is one of the special features of the Chemical Trade Journal to give the earliest information respecting new processes, improvements, inventions, etc., bearing upon the Chemical and allied industries, or which may be of interest to our readers, the Editor invites particulars of such-when in working order-from the originators; and if the subject is deemed of sufficient importance, an expert will visit and report upon the same in the columns of the Journal. There is no fee equired for visits of this kind. LAY IGNORANCE. Vol. VII. WE are told ad nauseam that we live in an age of educa tion and progress, moral and material, and in a certain limited sense it is unfortunately too true. The achievements of some vague personage usually referred to as Science (with a large S), and credited with belonging to the female sex when the average newspaper writer feels specially inspired, are sung with a fervour mercifully tempered with inanity. It must not be supposed, however, that this new Diana of the Ephesians is always treated with reverence. Let a colliery explosion occur, a balloon accident happen, or an intoxicated booby upset a kerosene lamp, and the same writer, with the versatility of an African aborigine, abuses his fetish in good round terms. "Such calamities it is the function of Science to avert; let her discover means to render them impossible, or she will fail in her manifest duty," sings the quondam encomium-monger, blissfully ignorant that neither the performances he praises nor the misfortunes he deplores concern science in even the remotest degree. Such a half-educated mind fails to perceive that science can, in the nature of things, deal only with the observation of phenomena and the elucidation of the laws which govern them, and must leave the application of the principles discovered to the inventor and the craftsman. It is they he must rate, if bent on scolding someone other than the careless or ignorant victim of his own folly, but in this there is little zest. Invention in the abstract seems somehow less attractive than Science as a target for abuse, and to attack any particular invention in the concrete is attended with the possibility of a certain degree of unpleasantness in the shape of a lawyer's letter, so he decides to belabour his traditional idol. All this would be amusing were it not so very sad; it must be remembered that a newspaper should reflect with more or less accuracy the tone of opinion current among its readers, and these, in the case of a non-technical paper, mean the general public. If such balderdash is received without comment, and even with approval, it is pretty evident that it about fits the mental calibre of a large number of persons, many of whom believe themselves intelligent. For such a state of things our system of education is partly answerable, though at least as weighty a cause is to be found in what seems an innate repugnance in the human mind to the reception of natural knowledge-i.e., scienceas opposed to the artificial fabric of information (for it is not knowledge) which has resulted from the tortuous cogitations of byegone generations on their own mental mechanism, and the doings of their contemporaries. Such being the condition of both writers and their audience, it is hardly surprising to find the average lay paper guilty on the minor count of gross ignorance of technical subjects. It may be said that these do not come within its province, and that it cannot be condemned for falling into errors when dealing with them. Such an argument rather recalls that urged by the defendants of an action which made some little stir not so very long ago, when they declined to fulfil an obli |