190 JOUENAL OF SCIENCE. 



" No Iron was produced during last year from Colonial Ores. A 

 great impetus to the Colonial Iron Industry will, no doubt, be given by 

 the fact that the Goveimment have invited tenders (to be 1'eceived up to 

 24th June next) for the supply of 175,000 tons of steel rails, to be 

 entirely manufactured in this colony out of colonial ores ; fluxes, fuel 

 and other materials required for their production to be also raised in 

 this colony. From a report of Mr. C. S. Wilkinson, F.G.S., the 

 Government Geologist, to the Minister of Mines, dated 30th January 

 last, it would appear that the quantity of Iron Ore available in this 

 colony, so far as can at present be ascertained, amounts to 12,944,000 

 tons, estimated to contain 5,853,180 tons of metallic Iron. This 

 quantity, calculated upon the present imports of Iron and Iron manu- 

 factures, would be sufficient to supply the demands of this colony for a 

 period of 35 years." 



Sydney, 3rd June, 1891.— Professor W. A. Dixon, F.C.S., Vice- 

 President, in the chair. 



New members. — Messrs. E. A. Amphlett, E. M. De Burgh, R. D. 

 Fitzgerald, T. Haughton, R,. E. Jones, and T. Poole. 



Paper (1) "Notes on the large Death-rate among Australian 

 Sheep in Counties infected with Cumberland Disease," by Mons. A. 

 Loir. The author said that the death-rate in New South Wales 

 through Cumberland disease had been placed at 200,000 sheep a year, 

 but this number was very much under the reality. The death-rate in 

 infected animals ranged from 25 to 40 per cent. In France the death- 

 rate through the same disease was, prior to the introduction of the 

 anthrax vaccination, only 10 or 12 percent., and now it was considerably 

 less. This difference could be accounted for as follows :— By compara- 

 tive experiments it was easy to prove that the microbe had the same 

 virulence in Australia as in Europe. It was, therefore, necessary to 

 look for some other cause for the higher percentage in Australia. Not 

 only was the dangerous season much longer here than in Europe, but 

 the conditions under which sheep were kept in Australia were very 

 favourable to exhaustion, and it was known by experiments recently 

 made in Paris, as well as in Australia, that exhaustion favoured the 

 development of the infection by anthrax as it did for many other 

 diseases. A third eause which could easily be avoided by pastoralists, 

 if the importance of it were well understood, was the following : — In 

 Australia, when an animal died, its carcase remained on the same spot, 

 and was torn to pieces by birds of prey, which spread the disease. This 

 gross carelessness had been continued for many years past, so that the 

 soil was literally saturated with microbes of infection. If stockowners 

 properly understood how dangerous it was to leave undestroyed the 

 bodies of the dead animals, they would, doubtless, devise some simple 

 expedient for burning the remains without incurring the risk of bush 

 fires. It was regarded as certain that as soon as vaccination became 

 generally adopted the number of cases of " Cumberland disease " would 

 diminish year by year, as was the case in those countries in which this 

 valuable means of prevention was the ctistom. If the process of burning 

 the bodies were adopted, the actual causes of contagion for men and 



