o 
mines in the Eastern States are closed down. Though this is due 
in part to new conditions which are outside the scope of the 
scientist, there are still many factors involved with which the 
scientist is alone equipped to deal. There certainly seems much 
that may be done to defer the closing of the fatal scissors formed 
of the converging lines of grade of ore and cost of treatment. 
Taking as axioms that knowledge is power, and that ordered 
knowledge is the domain of the scientist, the two considerations 
that I have detailed offer abundant scope to the scientist in 
(Western) Australia, in the direction of sustaining and improving 
a flagging industry, whilst at the same time rendering our land 
during times of peace more secure in future times of stress. 
The work that has been done during the present generation 
by our geologists in Australia is a monument to the value of geo- 
logical science to all branches of the community. This work has 
received wide publicity and earned a large measure of popular 
recognition. For these reasons I do not intend to deal with it 
to-night, but shall confine myself rather to the position of the 
mineral and industrial chemist and physicist in relation to the 
mineral industry. In passing one might, however, be permitted 
to point out the great utility and urgency of an accurate definition 
by our geologists of the regional distribution of all the economic 
minerals. 
Except indirectly through the engineer and metallurgist, the 
physicist has not come closely into contact with our mineral in- 
dustry. For the metallurgical physicist there is still much to be 
done in the study of the effects of varying heat treatment upon 
the physical properties of simple metals and alloys, a thorough 
understanding of which would certainly tend to reduce the cost 
and widen the utilisation of these mineral products. For many 
generations there has been a widespread belief in the theory that 
ore deposits and underground water channels cause a local modi- 
fication of the magnetic elements, a fact of the highest importance 
in prospecting if it should prove to be so. In the past the lack of 
detailed magnetic surveys has been a bar to any proper scientific 
investigation of this theory, and various charlatans and self-deluded 
persons have played on the credulity of the public and wasted 
capital and labour on the supposed evidence of various simple or 
complex instruments said to be capable of detecting ore, water, or 
petroleum at depths up to several thousands of feet. Now that 
the Carnegie Institute is well advanced with its magnetic survey 
and has chosen Western Australia as one of its first spheres of 
action, there is room for physicists to test this still doubtful theory, 
and to incidentally settle once for all, in a manner which will admit 
of no question, the value or otherwise of the many forms of mineral 
detectors, ranging from divining rods to complex instruments 
quoted at prices running into hundreds of pounds. 
