300 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



work of last century, and he tells us something about a very large number of 

 its great names. 



We have received from the Controller, H.M. Stationery Ofl&ce (Imperial 

 House, Kingsway, W.C.2.), the Report of the Inter-departmental Committee 

 on The Methods of dealing with Inventions made by Workers aided or main- 

 tained from Public Funds (price 6d.) ; the first report of the Adhesives Research 

 Committee (price 4s.) and a report from the Fuel Research Board dealing 

 with Tests on Ranges and Cooking Appliances (price 25. 6d.). The general 

 tenor of the report of the Inventions Committee can be gathered by the 

 general principle laid down, i.e. that when a research worker is employed 

 by the Government and is provided with equipment and accommodation 

 at the cost of the State then the invention is the property of the State and 

 the reward to the inventor (either by way of a money grant or of a share of 

 patent rights or otherwise) should be increased or diminished in proportion 

 to the remoteness or proximity of the invention to the work for which he 

 was engaged or for which he had special facilities or knowledge as the result 

 of his employment. 



It is recommended that all questions relating to inventions by Government 

 servants be referred to an Inter-departmental Patents Board, which should 

 take over the whole of the present work of the Royal Commission on Awards 

 to Inventors so far as inventions by persons in Government employ are 

 concerned. It is further suggested that the development of such patents 

 be entrusted to an Exploitation Committee consisting partly of officials and 

 partly of business men willing to assist in the work. It is recognised that 

 the success or failure of the scheme would hinge on the personnel of the 

 Patents Board, and it is recommended that this board should not comprise 

 any representatives of the Treasury or the Department in which the inventor 

 is working, but should be composed of impartial persons (lawyers or men 

 of distinction in science or commerce) with an experienced chairman. 



The report of the Adhesives Research Committee contains an account 

 of a number of experiments that have been made on methods of preparing 

 and testing glues of various sorts together with a long monograph on Gelatin 

 by Dr. Slater Price, who has used some of the material in an article which 

 he has written for Science Progress. The report on cooking ranges is 

 based on a large amount of experimental work carried out under the direction 

 of Mr. A. H. Barker, Lecturer in Heating and Ventilating Engineering at 

 University College, London. The outstanding result is the extraordinarily 

 low efficiency of such stoves. The heat supplied through the hot plate and 

 oven represents only from 5-10 per cent, of that given out by the fuel which 

 is burnt — all the rest is lost as far as cooking is concerned. This small efi&- 

 ciency is due in part to bad design of existing types of ranges and partly to 

 the fact that when a fire is lighted the heat is distributed to a large number 

 of parts which are not required. It is not possible to heat the boiler alone 

 or the oven alone or the hot plate alone, although only one of the three may 

 be needed. Until this can be done the domestic coal cooker must remain 

 an exceedingly inefiicient appliance. Turning to the present-day type of 

 range, it was found to be important to exclude leakage of air into flues 

 and oven, thus cleaning doors, rings, etc., should fit properly. Also to 

 enclose the fire itself as completely as possible so that air should only 

 have access through the grate bars. It is also important to line the door 

 of the oven and the iron plates on top and in front of the stove with non- 

 conducting material. Finally the oven, fire, and flues should be so arranged 

 that the flame gases first pass under the oven and then over it. 



A large number of very practical tests were made on ranges of different 

 types — including the cooking of a dinner. The results showed that, while 

 it was possible to perform a standard series of operations by burning as little 

 as 7 lb. of coal in a specially designed range, the ordinary article cooked 



