for the year 1883. xiii 



that the knowledge derived from the museum collection 

 of Indian timber has led to the opening of a new trade 

 between this colony and India; and we may hope that 

 the very extensive collection of our economic timbers pre- 

 pared in the museum workshop for the Calcutta Exhibition 

 may have a like result. The economic botany series has 

 been greatly extended, and is now a really useful educa- 

 tional collection ; in it may be found all the more common 

 vegetable substances as used in the arts classified under 

 their natural orders, &c. Another important section, which 

 will be of value, is being formed under the name of the com- 

 mercial products of the sea. The classes in chemistry, 

 metallurgy, engineering, have been well attended, 149 

 students having entered during the year. The practical 

 work in the laboratory has been of considerable public inte- 

 rest, and has included the working out of several new metal- 

 lurgical processes connected with the treatment of the ores 

 of gold, copper, cobalt, tin, &c, and some interesting experi- 

 ments in the treatment of iron. In the chemical laboratory 

 some advance has been made in the chemistry of waste 

 animal products, and it seems probable that when the labo- 

 ratory process is properly applied to the noxious trades 

 (factories for manures, &c.) that the manufacturer will find 

 it profitable to decompose and save all offensive material, 

 whether solid, liquid, or gas. This is most important work 

 in the right direction, and one in which I hope Mr. Newbery 

 may have both means and time to prosecute with vigour ; 

 for with increasing manufacture, and in the absence of 

 efficient sanitary measures, the importance of the applica- 

 tion of science to the discovery of commercially practicable 

 processes for preventing the pollution of the air we breathe, 

 or our streams and rivers, by the waste products of our 

 manufactories, cannot be too urgently or too persistently 

 dwelt upon. The waste products of combustion, more 

 especially smoke, is fast becoming in Melbourne a general 

 polluter of the atmosphere; and although science has provided 

 ample, cheap, and efficient means of preventing this, no heed 



