112 TWENTY-FIVE YEAKS OF CHEMICAL INVESTIGATION. 



out, SO that the broad characteristics of typical coal from each 

 of these localities is now well ascertained. These analyses were 

 some three hundred in number, and, taken collectively, they 

 constitute a fairly thorough investigation into the technico- 

 chemical composition of South African coal. 



All the above work — distinctly investigational in character 

 when the summarised results are considered — was undertaken 

 in the ordinary routine of the laboratories. 



Milk. 



In an earlier part of this paper allusion was made to the 

 fact that the late Cape Government's Agricultural Products Bill 

 had grown out of the analyses of butter and cheese that had been 

 made in the Cape laboratories. But no -word was said about 

 milk. It would be strange indeed if I closed this paper without 

 making any further reference to the eleven thousand odd samples 

 of milk that have been analysed in the laboratories under my 

 direction. In many cases milk of poor quality has been un- 

 doubtedly drawn straight from the cow, and the question has 

 been raised whether the sale of such undoubtedly a'bnormal milk 

 should be permitted. That point has been discussed by me at 

 length elsewhere.* Frisian cattle are remarkable no less for the 

 abundance of their milk than for its poor quality, and so a series 

 of experiments was conducted on a Cape Town farm with a 

 view to test the standard of milk supplied by Frisian cows, the 

 effect of our climate on such cattle, and the possibility of im- 

 proving the quality of the milk by cross-breeding. The in- 

 ference from the investigation was that the quality of the milk 

 would improve and its quantity diminish by Colonial breeding. 

 I need scarcely refer to the paper read before the Bloemfontein 

 meeting of this Association by Mr. Sinclair in IQ09, wherein 

 he tabulated some of the thousands of analyses of milk repre- 

 senting the Cape Peninsula supply that had been made in the 

 Government laboratories for many years, and dealt exhaustively 

 with the results arrived at. From a series of analyses made in 

 the Eastern Districts of the Colony, and comprising over four 

 hundred milk samples, a similar compilation was made by Mr. 

 J. Muller, now Senior Analyst at Cape Town. 1 These are 

 instances of the manner in which numerous individual and, 

 primarily, purely routine analyses, added together, constitute in- 

 vestigations of the most valuable type, for it must never be 

 forgotten that in scientific investigation, as in finance, it is care 

 of the pence that ultimately places the thrifty in the possession 

 of pounds. By thus hoarding up the analyses of individual 

 milks for years, we have been enabled to gauge the variation 

 of fat and other constituents in milk between summer and 

 winter, and to note the difference in this respect between Kim- 

 berley and Cape Town, for instance, the milk of the former 



* See Senior Analyst's Report for 1902- 



t See Union Agricultural Journal. March, iqii, pp. 194-198. 



