PRESIDEXTIAL ADDRESS. — SECTION II. 33 



is seldom absent from the waters of the Middle and Upper Beaufort 

 beds. 



The existence of salt springs in the Uitenhage formation may 

 indicate the presence of beds of rock salt below, but much remains 

 to be done in tracing out this subject. Some six dozen analyses 

 of salt from various saltpans in South Africa were recently made 

 public by me,* and they represent practically all that has been 

 done in this direction. They demonstrate that South Africa is 

 able to produce salt of purity equal to any in the world, and in 

 such abundance as to obviate entirely the need of importing the 

 thirty million pounds which now enter the country from overseas 

 every year. 



I 'mentioned incidentally just now the subject of technological 

 chemistry in its connection with manufacturing processes, but 

 there are other phases of technology in operation in this country 

 for which already chemical advice has been of the highest import- 

 ance, for instance, in relation to the Government Railway Service. 

 In the Cape Government Laboratories over a thousand analyses 

 have been performed for this purpose, of such articles as boiler 

 waters, lubricating and illuminating oils, coal, sleeper woods, 

 tallow, tarpaulin dressings, etc., and very important information 

 of great practical value has thus been elicited. 



From these cursory glances at some of the almost routine 

 matters that have called forth what little chemical investigation 

 has hitherto been carried on in this country, I turn to place before 

 you. in conclusion, just one of the many functions which the science 

 must fulfil in the Union we are now entering upon. I purposely 

 brought to your notice the transitional state of science in my 

 opening remarks, because it is a condition wherewith we as a people 

 can sympathise keenly to-day. Under the circumstances you 

 will, I am sure, agree that the relation of chemistry to agriculture 

 should be in the very forefront of our thoughts. It is altogether 

 too large a theme to deal with adequately, but let me pass on a 

 thought or two concerning just one aspect thereof. 



One of my first recommendations to the Government of the 

 Cape Colony, when I first took charge of the laboratory there, 

 was that an agricultural chemical soil survey should be started 

 forthwith. The results up to date have, I confess, come far short 

 of mv anticipations, but good fruit will have been borne if that 

 incipient work does no more than form a nucleus from which 

 may radiate to every part of the Union a wider, fuller, and in 

 every way better network of investigations. As I placed my 

 proposals before the Cape Government in 1892, so it is my privilege 

 to-day to put the importance of these wider investigations before 

 this greater constituency. It is not alone of the chemical analysis 

 of the soil that I now speak ; the subject of soil investigation 

 extends into a considerably ampler field, and embraces such matters 

 as soil physics and soil bacteriology. I would not even place the 

 actual chemical analysis of the soil absolutely first in order of 

 +ime, for. if only the facilities be given, it should be accompanied, 



*C.G.H. Agr. Journal, Vol. 33, pp. 648-655. 



