136 TlMEHRl. 
cimens to the Colonial Exhibition, the time for sending in 
essays, &c., would be restricted to six weeks. 
Sugar. — Mr. Alexander, of Tuschen de Vrienden, 
laid over a diagram showing the average percentage 
of sucrose by volume in the juice from the canes grown 
on Pin. Tuschen de Vrienden during eighteen corres- 
ponding weeks in the last three years ; and a second 
diagram showing the average percentage of glucose by 
volume in the same. He said the lines for 1885 showed 
very clearly the effect of the late droughts on the 
quality of the canes. 
The President said that the diagrams shewed in a very 
conclusive way the variations in the quality of cane- 
juice derived from the product of the colony. The 
growth of the last year not only gave poor cane-juice, 
but also contained a very high percentage of woody mat- 
ter, — he should think that 13 percent, of woody matter 
would represent the fibre in our canes for the last twelve 
months. These fa6ts, coupled with the very low price 
of our staple products — for not only sugar, but rum and 
molasses had been at stagnation prices, — made him as- 
tonished that we had been able to pull through as well 
as we had done. 
Mr. Jones was quite certain that with the assis- 
tance of the able chemists we had in the colony 
we were going the right road in learning what 
to us in this colony was simply a matter of life and 
death ; and the results of scientific research must cer- 
tainly prove of great value to us in these hard times, 
in helping us to meet the great depression of our staple 
products. There was one matter to which he wished to 
attract the attention of engineers, — and that was, 
