EDITORIAL. 
seen at Eucla. Recent reports from Tarcoola indicate that the birds 
arrive at that place at frequent intervals. Captain White has made the 
necessary arrangements to prevent the spread of the birds, which are 
shot from time to time, as they arrive. The sparrows seen at Eucla 
have also been destroyed. 
MODE OF OCCURRENCE OF GOLD. 
Investigations of an exhaustive nature are being carried out on the 
Bendigo gold-fields. ‘Their main object is to determine the principles 
which have caused the erratic localization of the gold shoots in the 
quartz reefs, and thus, among other things, to cheapen the cost of deep 
prospecting. The results of the first two years’ work have been pub- 
lished in ‘bulletin form, and have aroused considerable interest among 
mining men and geologists. Some of the conclusions are not only of 
local application, but have an important bearing on the genesis of 
auriferous ores in other gold-fields. 
SCIENCE AND WAR. 
Lieutenant-Colonel (Professor) David, C.M.G., D.S.O., replying at 
the annual meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales the other 
night to words of welcome upon his return from the Western Front, said 
that science had played a far more important part in the war than any 
one would imagine from the small hints that had been dropped from 
time to time. For obvious reasons, the War Office and ithe Navy had kept 
to themselves many of the most recent types of scientific discovery; but 
it was a simple hard fact that science had played an enormous part in 
the winning of the war. “It is up to each one of us, as scientific men,” 
proceeded Colonel David, “to see that the importance of science for 
national existence, whether in peace or in war, is properly appreciated 
by the public, and that scientific research finds its proper place in the 
history of this great Commonwealth.” One was too apt to forget, he 
added, the importance of science in the storm and the stress of war. 
It was proposed in the Old Country, for instance, to appoint a certain 
able scientific man to conduct research on lines which would be useful 
both in peace and in war; but as soon as the League of Nations was 
drawn across the trail it was stated, in effect:—“ Well, you see, the 
League of Nations will make big wars impossible, and, after all, is the 
expenditure on a scientific bureau really justified?” There was the 
tendency. ‘They had seen it already in the Old Country. 
LEGUMES AND OIL-YIELDING SEEDS. 
Mr. Edwin Cheel, of the Sydney Botanic Gardens, some time back 
wrote to the Institute suggesting that it should give assistance towards 
the cultivating and testing of a number of legumes and pulses, together 
with a list of oil-yielding seeds. On a definite proposal being asked for 
as to the manner in which such assistance should be rendered, Mr. Cheel 
replied that, in regard to— 
(a) Pulse or other leguminous crop plants, the work should be 
carried on by a practical man possessing a fair technical 
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