The Western Australian Minister for Industries, Mr. J. Scaddan, 
thus describes what he saw during a visit to the Rowley Forest Producis_ 
Gompany’s works at Maylands, near Perth :— 
“The company was formed about the end of last year, and it 
has acquired the patent rights and processes and concessions of the> 
late Mr. Henry Rowley, -who for many years devoted his time to 
investigating the potentialities of the blackboy, kingyia, and zamia. 
The company has spent something like £3,000 on the plant, con- 
‘sisting of nineteen sets of retorts and furnaces, condensers, receiving 
tanks, stills, &e., and the works are capable of dealing with 100 tons 
of blackboy per week. When the factory is in full swing, employ- 
ment will be given to fifteen mén, exclusive of the office and selling 
staff, and three or four cutters will be employed continuously in 
supplying raw material from the country. The company is now 
producing, in a readily marketable form, tars free from harmful” 
acids, tarpaulin dressings, rope tar, and sanitary tars; lacquers— 
such as Japan black—steam and refrigerating pipe coatings, paints 
for bedsteads and other ironwork requiring stoving at high tempera- 
tures; stains and paints of various grades and colours. Pitches for 
marine insulating and such-like purposes are also being produced; 
valuable oils (phenols, benzols, and alcohols) are being distilled 
from the tar, and a coke of high calorific value remains after the 
blackboy has been through the retorts. In fact, it is claimed that 
practically every constituent part of the blackboy is turned to good 
account; even the final ash produced in the retorts is used in the 
manufacture of a fertilizer of a high potash content. Pyroligneous 
acid fluid is distilled from blackboy for use as a weed destroyer. 
This fluid also forms the foundation for the manufacture of acetic 
acid, acetate of lime, and acetone. ° In addition to these lines, the 
company also intends to produce picric acid, formalin, dyes, and: 
perfumes, and to extend its operations in refining blackboy and 
other gums for use in the manufacture of varnishes and stains.” 
CHEAPER ARSENIC. 
_The Queensland Government is determined to reduce the cost of 
arsenic if that be humanly possible. It has had a plant for treating 
arsenic erected at the State Arsenic Mine at Jibbenbar. The Minister 
for Mines, Mr. Jones, recently said the object of the works was, in the. 
first place, to supply arsenic for poisoning prickly pear and making 
cattle-dip; but there was another direction in which it might be used to 
advantage and save a lot of money. That was in the destruction of 
weeds along the railway lines of the State. At the present time a good 
deal of money was being spent in employing labour to keep down the 
weeds, and this could be better achieved by running a motor along the 
lines, with an attachment working on the principle of a street watering 
van, which could throw a shower of poison on either side of the line 
and destroy the vegetation. If this were done once in three years it. 
would suffice. nites bed r golane Digoe 
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