Section B. 
CHEMISTRY AND MINERALOGY. 
President op the Section: Professor E. H. Rennie, M.A., D.Sc., 
University of Adelaide. 
1—ON AN APPLICATION OF CHEMICAL CONTROL 
TO A MANUFACTURING BUSINESS. 
By Ep. W. Knox. 
As there are still doubts in many minds about the money value 
of scientific aid in practical work, I have thought that some 
interest might be taken in a short account of a purely commercial 
application of chemical science to a manufacturing business— 
an application, I think, unique in its completeness as far as 
Australasia is concerned, though in Europe many better examples 
might easily be found, but few, if any, where the staff of experts 
is so large or the work done so wide in its scope. 
The business I speak of is that of the company known as the 
Sugar Company, which is largely interested in the manufacture 
and refining of sugar in five of the colonies of the Australasian 
group. Having entered the service of this company twenty-five 
years ago, and having since passed through all its grades, I can 
speak with some authority of its transactions ; but as I have not 
enjoyed any training in science, I will deal with the subject on 
which J am to address you merely from the point of view of one 
concerned with the results alone. 
About ten years since we were led by the great attention then 
being paid to chemical research in connection with the beet-sugar 
industry to commence such investigations into our mode of work. 
We did not know clearly what was wanted, nor did the man we 
engaged, so the first start was not a success; but it showed us 
we were on the right track, and we accordingly engaged in 
Scotland a refinery chemist, and a year later two beet-sugar 
chemists in Germany, and began the systematic check on our 
working. Of these gentlemen, the former is now our head 
chemist (Mr. T. U. Walton, B.Sc., F.1.C., F.C.S.), and one of the 
latter our inspecting chemist (Dr. Gustav Kottmann, Ph.D.) ; 
and it is to the patience and industry of these two gentlemen, and 
to the system they introduced, that much of the success we have 
. 
