SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
PRICKLY PEAR FUNGUS. 
The Institute has received from Mr. ©. French, junior, Entomologist, 
Victorian Department of Agriculture, specimens of prickly pear infested 
with fungi. The pear was found growing at the Race-course, Williams- 
town. Mr. C. C. Brittlebank, Plant Pathologist, Department of Agri- 
culture, has examined the fungus, and reports that it agrees in all par- 
ticulars with Hendersonia opuntia, Ell. et Ey., except in the size of the 
spores, which are smaller, being 12—16 x 4—4} mm., as against 
20—25  4—5 mm. of the named speaies. The difference in the measure- 
ment is, in Mr. Brittlebank’s opinion, sufficient cause to constitute a new 
species. The injury to the prickly pear is confined to the surface, and 
is caused more by the blocking up of the stomata than by injury to the 
plant cells. In cases of bad attack the whole surface becomes covered 
with a layer of corky tissue, and this, in conjunction with the plugging 
of the stomata, checks respiration and euts off the light, thus causing, 
in time, the death of the part attacked. 
MANGROVE TANNING. 
The Special Committee at Brisbane has completed its experimental 
work. <A successful method of overcoming the decolourization problem 
has been devised, and it is hoped to include in the Committee’s final 
report, now in course of preparation, a sketch plan of a plant for carry- 
ing out the process, with estimates of working costs. 
ENGINEERING STANDARDIZATION. 
The Institute has been pleased to receive from the Victorian Ad- 
visory Committee of the Institution of Civil Engineers an offer to. assist 
in the work of engineering standardization. Tt is well known that the 
Institution of Civil Engineers in London has taken a leading part in the 
establishment and work of the British Engineering Standards Associa- 
tion, which was formed in 1901 as the Engineering Standards Coni- 
mittee by the Institutions of Civil Engineers, Mechanical Engineers. 
Naval Architects, and Electrical Engineers, and the Iron and Steet 
Institute. The whole question of establishing a Commonwealth 
Engineering Standards Association has been further considered by the 
Executive Committee, which has decided that the secretary, Mr. G. 
Lightfoot, shall visit each State, with a view to getting the States and 
various interests into line, and to promoting the formation of a Federal 
organization to take up the whole question. 
PAPER PULP. 
In Bulletin No. 11, “Paper Pulp: Possibilities of its Manufacture 
in Australia,” information was given regarding the results of experi- 
mental work in the pulping qualities of certain eucalypts, especially 
young karri trees. Proposals are now on foot for the erection of a 
pulping plant for the manufacture of news printing paper and brown 
paper in Western Australia. It is intended to establish the plant in 
the vicinity of timber mills, and to utilize the jarrah refuse for pulping 
purposes. 
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