Abstract
THE presidential address delivered last week by Mr. J. W. Swan, F.R.S., to the Society of Chemical Industry, though it covers the same ground as the one he delivered three years ago as President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, does so in a much more comprehensive and detailed manner. The paper is very valuable and instructive, though not always pleasant reading for the English electrochemist, who cannot help reflecting that his country is much behindhand in the development of those industries of which Davy and Faraday laid the foundations. It cannot be urged that our backwardness is wholly due to the lack of water power in the British Islands, though doubtless this has contributed in many instances to our failure to keep pace with our competitors. But there are many electrochemical industries in which, though cheap power is by no means essential, other nations have been the pioneers and are likely to reap the reward. Thus, to quote one striking example, there appears to be no English bullion refinery using electrochemical processes, although these are finding extensive employment in America and Germany. The value of the output for 1900 from two out of the three German refineries is given by Mr. Swan as 2,500,000l., the source of power in all three cases being steam.
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Position and Prospects of Electrochemical Industries . Nature 64, 329 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/064329a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/064329a0