DAMAGE TO VEGETATION BY SMOKE AND FUMES. 53 



a plant pathologists, an entomologist, 2 soil experts, a proto- 

 zoologist and bacteriologist, and 9 assistants to these, and the 

 Commission had power to call and examine witnesses. No 

 skilled practical agriculturists, horticulturists or silviculturists 

 are mentioned as forming part of the Commission, and presum- 

 ably anything which they may have had to say about the 

 matter would be in the form of "evidence," the pros and cons 

 of which would be weighed up by three scientists, instead of by 

 a judge, or judges, in a court of law. After a great amount of 

 fresh scientific investigation the Commission came to the same 

 conclusion that the legal court, following "familiar lines," had 

 already arrived at, and if, as seems likely, the same object, viz., 

 the abatement of the injury and nuisance, could have been 

 obtained simply by the enforcement of the Court's decree, the 

 work of the Commission, so far as this goes, seems to have been 

 a great waste of time and money. Besides, by the decision of 

 the Court the Company were bound to carry out such alterations 

 as would have accomplished this at their own expense, and as it 

 could have been done quite well by the employment of one or 

 two experts in this particular line to advise them as to the best 

 methods of preventing the escape into the air of matters injurious 

 to vegetation and people's health, the Commission seems to 

 have been superfluous. 



The Commission began its work by reviewing the evidence 

 given in the legal actions, and, as they found that much of it 

 "would not stand the test of scientific scrutiny," the whole of it 

 was rejected, and a fresh investigation commenced. The out- 

 come of this was that methods for purifying the smoke before 

 allowing it to escape into the air, and various other alterations 

 in the methods employed at the works were adopted, "partly 

 by the Company themselves and partly at the request of the 

 Commission," so that the inquiry was " narrowed down to 

 determining the amount of sulphur dioxide in the air in the 

 neighbourhood of the works under varying atmospheric con- 

 ditions, and to discovering how much of this gas must be present 

 in the air in order to cause definite damage to vegetation." But 

 although it was narrowed down to this point, and although no 

 less than 4862 analyses of the air were made, unless Dr Lauder 

 has omitted to mention it, we are not told either what proportion 

 of sulphur dioxide there was in the air, or what proportion of 

 this gas must be present in the atmosphere in order to cause 



