EDITORIAL. 
UTILIZING SLATE WASTE. 
For many years the bugbear of slate quarries has been the waste. 
An average of 10 per cent. of the rock is saleable material, and the cost 
of quarrying and handling the waste has been a great drawback to the 
quarries. Numerous experiments have been made with a view to the 
utilization of this waste, and it is reported that success has now been 
achieved. Machinery has been installed at Bethesda, in Wales, to 
erush slate waste to a fine powder, from 60 to 200 mesh, for use in 
making asphalt and linoleums, for proofing mixtures, for mechanical 
and moulding works, for weather-resisting paints, and for insulating 
purposes. It is stated that the powder will supersede, to some extent, 
barytes, fossil meals, and other powders, and that asphalt manufacturers 
say that it is the best material possible for their purpose. It is, of 
course, not likely that the whole of the waste from quarries will be 
utilized-for the purposes indicated, at any rate for the present. 
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL. 
Information has already been given in this Journal regarding the 
formation of a National Research Council for Australia as a branch of 
the International Research Council which has recently been established 
by Allied and neutral nations to take the place of previously-existing 
International Committees for work in various branches of science. <A 
meeting of the International Research Council was opened at Brussels 
last July, in the presence of the King of the Belgians. Much successful 
work was accomplished. The statutes of the International Research 
Council were finally agreed to, and unions embracing the whole subject 
of astronomy and the various sections of geophysics were formed. In 
other branches of pure and applied science, proposals for the formation 
of International Unions were discussed and formulated. These will 
have to be submitted to the National Councils in the different countries 
and Dominions before they can be formally adopted. Brussels was 
selected as the legal domicile of the International Research Council. 
Tis triennial meetings will be held in that city, and gifts or legacies 
will be administered according to Belgian law; but the Unions dealing 
with special subjects will probably follow the established custom of 
holding their conferences successively in different countries. The 
Secretariat of the Council will be at Burlington House, London, where 
the Royal Society has placed a room at the disposal of the General 
Secretary. 
POWER-ALCOHOL: TRIAL WITH LONDON OMNIBUSES. 
The British Departmental Committee on Power-Alcohol has arranged 
with the London General Omnibus Company to run a number of motor 
omnibuses for six months on alcohol-benzol and alcohol-benzol-petrol 
mixtures, the results to be compared with running on petrol and other 
fuel. It is stated that, by the end of this year, the British Committee 
will be able to publish information of such value as to enable the 
Government to take definite steps towards rendering power-alcohol 
available for all users of internal combustion engines. 
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