6 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
For the solution of these problems an experimental research station is 
to be established near London. This locality has been chosen owing to 
the generous action of the Chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas 
Company, who offers to lease a site adjoining their works at a nominal 
rent, to give facilities for the transport of coal, and to take over at market 
prices the gas, tar, liquor, and coke resulting from the operations. 
In connection with the vast deposits of peat in Ireland, amounting to 
nearly three millions of acres, the Fuel Research Board have taken an 
important step. They have appointed a Committee to inquire into and to 
consider the experience already gained in Ireland regarding the utilisation 
of peat for fuel and other purposes, and to suggest means whereby it can 
be profitably won, prepared, and used. This branch of inquiry deserves 
careful investigation, for the peat industry has not received sufficient 
attention in this country owing to our large supplies of coal. Experi- 
ments have proved that peat will produce gas suitable for gas-engines, 
a considerable quantity of ammonium sulphate, and coke which may be 
used for heating purposes. In Sweden, peat-gas plant has been erected 
to transform power won from peat into electric power, which is conducted 
to towns for consumption. From the installations now at work in several 
countries, there is ground for the belief that there may yet be great 
commercial possibilities in this industry. 
Among other economic questions, the Advisory Council are dealing 
with problems concerning working conditions in mines, mine - rescue 
apparatus, concrete, the glass industry, and technical optics. But the 
range of their activities is not confined to the initiation of research and 
preliminary inquiries. They have launched a new periodical which is 
intended to record the progress made at home and abroad in the application 
of science to industry. The first number is devoted to an account of 
Industrial Research in the United States, by A. P. M. Fleming, M.I.E.E. 
This valuable report gives descriptions of the industrial research laboratories 
in various works, and in educational, State, and private institutions, with 
a statement of the funds available, and of the methods of selecting and 
training scientific investigators. At the head of these organisations stands 
the Carnegie Institution, Washington, with an endowment of about four 
and a half million pounds. Its aim, as defined in the articles of incorpora- 
tion, is to encourage, in the broadest and most liberal manner, investigation, 
research, and discovery, and the application of knowledge to the improve- 
ment of mankind. Is it too much to hope that the magnificent founder 
of this institute may establish a similar organisation in this country for 
the British Empire ? 
