SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
AN AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRIAL LABORATORY. 
In a recent issue of the Australasian Manufacturer, we note with 
pleasure an article on “ Industrial and Chemical Research Work,” and 
the announcement of the establishment of extensive well-equipped 
laboratories for the firm of F. A. Henriques, Limited, Sydney. The 
illustrations indicate the extensive nature of the investigations which 
the firm is prepared to undertake, not only on its own behalf, but in 
the interests of all engaged in industrial chemistry. The company has 
erected models of actual manufacturing plants, covering the more 
usual operations of mixing, heating in various ways, evaporating 
(normal or in vacuo), drying by hot blast, filtering (press), centrifugal 
extracting and smelting, &¢., where processes can be tested on a larger 
scale than in the analytical laboratory, thus preventing disappointment 
on taking up immature, but hopeful, processes and inventions. 
The illustrations give some indication that provision is made for 
examinations demanding the use of the microscope, polariscope, and 
spectroscope. Australia is exceptionally backward in the use of such 
instruments in applied scientific work. The extent to which they are 
now used, together with many modified photographic processes, and 
the ease, accuracy, and rapidity with which many determinations are 
made, demand that any institution that claims to be able to engage in 
such branches of work as organic and inorganic chemical analysis, the 
examination of food and drugs, leather and paper, cements and 
ceramics, pigments and paints, as well as the investigations of many 
metallurgical processes, especially on alloys, must be adequately 
equipped with such apparatus, in charge of some one well qualified to 
use it. In Europe and United States of America it is possible to obtain 
certain instruction in such branches of work, which we might call 
industrial and chemical microscopy, and the introduction of some 
comprehensive course in our Australian institutions would be a step 
in advance. : 
We would like to emphasize one other subject with which we 
cordially agree, viz., the use of a reference library. A well-stocked 
and classified scientific library is one of the first and most pressing 
needs in such a research institution, and it must be kept up to date 
with all the trade, technical, and scientific journals, proceedings of 
learned societies, and monographs of scientific work, no matter in what 
language they may be printed. : 
PROPOSED DUTY ON SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 
In response to representations made by the Executive Committee 
to the Minister for Trade and Customs regarding the imposition of a 
prohibitive duty on scientific publications containing advertisements, 
a letter was received from the Acting Comptroller-General pointing 
out that the Government did not contemplate the imposition of a duty 
that would affect the free introduction of scientific or other journals 
containing advertisements provided the object of such publications was 
not the advertisement of an individual business. It was added that 
no representations in favour of a duty of the kind suggested had 
been received in connexion with the revision of the tariff. 
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