70 
The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. [April 
The present position of meat is only the natural result of the late war, 
and consequent loss of shipping and general disorganization of transport 
and distribution. The delay in discharging overseas steamers, the present 
oversupply of meat in the stores of the United Kingdom and the resultant 
shortage of freezing-space in New Zealand, must be only a temporary phase 
of the aftermath resulting from the world’s upheaval and struggle during 
the past five years, and the situation cannot be altered by blaming the 
Government of the United Kingdom or of New Zealand, or any one else. 
In the early days of the frozen-meat industry in New Zealand men like 
the late John Gregg, Thomas Brydone, and John Roberts were prepared 
to risk practically all they possessed in order to put the industry on its 
feet. They struggled through, and manfully overcame difficulties which 
appeared many times worse than any now confronting us. The lessons 
of the past should surely teach us that the only proper way to meet the 
situation is by adopting the self-reliant spirit that characterized the early 
settlers of this country. 
THE CALCIUM - CARBONATE CONTENT OF SOME 
SOILS FROM CANTERBURY AND SOUTHLAND. 
By L. J. Wild and N. P. Neal, Canterbury Agricultural College. 
In making the determinations recorded herein a good deal of preliminary, 
trial work was necessary. As the amount of lime in the form of carbonate 
is very small, ordinary gravimetric methods involving calculation from 
loss of weight—as, for example, the use of Schrotter’s apparatus—are out 
of the question, owing to the magnitude of the experimental error. 
Among methods depending on the liberation of C0 2 and its absorption 
in standard alkali are those of Amos (1905), and of Hutchinson and Mac- 
Lennan (1914). The method of Amos is recommended by Russell (1917), 
and it was by means of a modification of it that we obtained the results 
shown in Table I below. The modification consisted in using baryta water 
in an ordinary absorption-flask, and by this means we got perfectly satis¬ 
factory results in trials with pure calcium carbonate. 
No. of 
Table I. 
Weight of CaC0 3 
Weight of CaCO 
Experiment. 
taken. 
found. 
1 
(Grammes.) 
.. 0-134 
(Grammes.) 
0-1345 
2 
.. 0-118 
0-116 
3 
.. 0-128 
0-1284 
In working with soils, however, our results were not always consistent. 
Preliminary experiments with soils showed that any method which involves 
boiling the soil either with acid or with water is faulty, since under these 
conditions C0 2 is produced by decomposition of the organic matter. This 
is a fault of the method of Amos as originally described, as Marr (1909) 
showed in an investigation of the subject. In one of Marr’s experiments a 
soil labelled “New Zealand virgin pasture ” yielded 0-047 per cent, of C0 2 
when boiled with water alone. We have obtained similar and even larger 
