EDITORIAL. 
provide accurate data concerning the behaviour of power-alcohol, 
aleohol-benzole, alcohol-ether and other alcohol mixture vapours, in their 
combustion with different volumes of air, and with varying percentages 
of water and denaturants. Professor Dixon has pointed out that the 
supply of petrol will not last nearly so long as the supply of coal. 
Petroleum experts, he stated, all say that the supply will not last very 
many years, if the demand increases at what appears to be the present 
rate of consumption. If our coal supply will last 400 years, it is quite 
possible that the supply of petrol might only last 40 years. It is, there- 
fore, necessary to look out for some substitute which will be more 
perennial and more permanent than the supplies of petrol, and amongst 
the possible substitutes alcohol is an obvious one. Referring to the aims 
of the Alcohol Motor-fuel Committee, Professor Dixon said they were 
out to discover whether alcohol could be made cheaply, whether by fer- 
mentation of grain of some sort, or of potatoes or fruits, or whether it 
could be made synthetically from ethylene, or from hydrecarbons to be 
extracted from coal gas or from coke-oven gas. If a new petrol substi- 
tute is found to be of practical utility, it would be used not only for 
motor cars, but for other internal combustion engines. There are 
certain physical properties of alcohol which have to be studied in order 
that engines which burn it can be rightly designed, and it is research 
on those physical properties that Professor Dixon has been asked to 
undertake for the Committee. 
POWER-ALCOHOL—RAW MATERIALS. 
In the report of the British Committee which is investigating the 
questions of the production and utilisation of aleohol for power and 
traction purposes, the information given regarding the various raw 
materials confirms the conclusions reached by the Special Committee of 
the Institute of Science and Industry. In its report the British Com- 
mittee states that-steps should be taken to insure increased production 
of power-alcohol by the extended use of the vegetable matters from which 
it may be obtained. Important materials of this nature are— 
1. Sugar-containing products, such as molasses, mahua flowers, 
sugar-beet, and mangolds. 
2. Starch or inulin-containing products, such as maize and other 
_ cereals, potatoes, and artichokes; and ar: 
8. Cellulose-containing products, such as peat, -sulphite wood- — 
pulp, lyes, and wood. 
With a large scale cultivation of maize and other cereals as raw 
materials, the manufacture of power-alcohol has admitted possibilities, 
and the prospective production of alcohol from these sources in the 
overseas Dominions and other parts of the Empire is encouraging as 
regards quantities and cost. Some interesting information is given 
regarding the production costs and yields of power-aleohol from the . 
flowers of the mahua tree (Bassia latifolia), which flourishes in the 
Central Provinces of India and in Hyderabad. ‘The sun-dried flowers 
of this tree contain on the average 60 per cent. by weight of fermentable 
sugar. They can be collected and delivered to the factory in the zone 
of growth at a cost of £1 10s. per ton, and the yield is found to be about 
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