SCIENCE CONGRESS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 297, 11 September 1919, Page 5

SCIENCE CONGRESS

MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOI CIATION, (Rec. September 10, 0.15 p.m). London, September 9. The British Association met at Bournemouth. Sir Charles Parsons, in his presidential address, surveyed the development of engineering devices during tho war, particularly the sources of industrial enorgv, scientific coal consumption, and the provision of cheap electricity. He said that before the war there were few steel electric furnaces in Britain. There were now 117, producing 20,000 tons of steel monthly. —; , A number of papers of Australian and. New Zealand interest were read. Mr. G. W. Walker (Director of Magnetic Survey of the British Isles) advocated the establishment of first-rate'-seis-inology stations in Australia and New Zealand, co'-operatirig with tho English experts.. .. , , ~ Mr. P. Chinnery detailed the evidenco respecting primitive gold-mining in -Papua by the builders .of the megahthio monuments. . •, The Rev. Francis Allen gave evidence regarding the Mclanesian and Polynesian Australoid stocks represented in the native population of America. . Dr Charles Mercier read an interestin" -pr per ov. the results of oight years experiments ill the electrical treatment of seeds. The increased corn crops averaced 30 per cent., and the cost of electrification 'was small, whilo the process was simple. , ... •, Professor Somerville, in his presidential address to the agricultural section, referred to tho effects of potash and other manures upon grass lands.- . , ~ ' Mr A. Oldershaw emphasised the value of lupins in the cultivation of lWit lands poor in lime,.owing to the power of lupins in assimilating tree nitrogen. It was claimed that a method had been discovered in Holland whereby poisons were extracted from lupin grain, which rendered it fit for stock feeding. —Aus.-N.Z. Cablo Assn.