France and National Scientific Research Applied to Industry

Abstract

THE French Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale, always to the fore in matters of vital moment to industry, has recently been dealing with the question of scientific investigation as applied to manufacture. The “Economic Arts” Sub-Committee in particular is greatly interested in the co-ordination and cooperation of the various research and test laboratories in the country with the view of bringing science and industry into more direct contact after the war. In No. i (1917) of the societys Bulletin General Sebert has an article on the various establishments of the kind. Many of the Government departments in France have their own special laboratories, e.g. the various research laboratories of the French War Office and the Munitions Inventions Committee. A number of the scientific societies also have their own establishments, e.g. that founded by the Society of Electrical Engineers in 1886. Many tests are made there for different Government departments, and a number of important researches in electricity have been undertaken. Then there is the laboratory created by the French Photographic Society, which has done good work for the photographic profession and trade, and, more recently, for the kinematograph trade. By a decree passed in 1900 it was decided to widen the scope of the mechanical laboratory founded in 1854 by General Morin, the result being the foundation of the Laboratoire dessais at the Conservatoire national des arts et metiers. To this institution many technical societies have made grants. It is divided into five sections, viz, physics, metals, materials of construction, mechanics, and chemistry. Here certain primary and secondary standards are kept. This lthoratory has done good work in the carrying out of routine testing of all kinds, but its operations are evidently circumscribed through lack of funds. The laboratory had to close at the beginning of the war, though it has since been reopened at the instance of the Munitions Inventions Committee for the carrying out of experiments relating to war problems.