EDITORIAL. 
a sum of £2,341,664. Having regard to the scarcity of liquid fuel, that 
in itself is important, and, as Mr. Bury declared, it is national suicide 
to continue to burn any substance which can be converted into liquid 
fuel. But the possibilities do not end there. He pointed out that the 
recovery of alcohol at the gasworks of the country would yield a further 
27,000,000 gallons, or, taking alcohol and benzol together, the tota: 
quantity of liquid fuel available for extraction through the carbonizing 
of coal would be 114,000,000 gallons, as against the country’s present 
total requirement of 160,000,000 gallons per annum. The process of 
extract by contact with sulphuric acid is not a new discovery, but Mr. 
Bury has been the first to establish it as a commercial proposition. His 
principal discovery is that the best results are achieved at a temperature 
of 60 to 80 degrees Centigrade, and in his process he has carried the 
utilization of heat from the coke-oven plant to the utmost limit. Ether, 
chloroform, iodoform, acetic acid, and acetone are amongst the deriva- 
tives he has obtained from this coke-oven gas after the benzol has been 
extracted; and, at thé meeting at which the results were disclosed, some 
of the foremost metallurgists of the day, amongst them Dr. J. E. Stead, 
paid tribute to this brilliant young scientist, and also to the progressive 
policy of the company at whose works these experiments were carried 
out. Skinningrove was the only ironworks in the country which during 
the war produced T.N.T. for the Ministry of Munitions, and produced 
it on a prodigious scale. At Skinningrove, too, was installed one of the 
first plants for extracting potash from blast-furnace dust, and the policy 
of the firm in encouraging research and experimental work is an indica-- 
tion of a new spirit amongst the leaders of industry, who are now show- 
ing an appreciation of the true value of the scientist in the development 
of new methods of manufacture. 
RESEARCH IN CONCRETE. 
The more recent activities of the British Department of Scientific 
and Industrial Research include the formation of a British Portland 
Cement Research Association. A Building Materials Research Com- 
mittee has been at work for some time, and it is expected that a report 
will appear very shortly. This committee has superintended investi- 
gations at several different centres, tests of floors having been made at 
the British Fire Prevention Committee Testing Station, experiments on 
the properties of mixtures of lime and cement at the L.G.C. School of 
Building, Brixton, tests on the passage of gases through various 
materials for the construction of walls at the National Physical 
Laboratory, and tests on thin walls and on the properties of slag and 
coke-breeze aggregates in other laboratories. A separate committee is 
dealing with the possible use of certain local materials for building pur- 
poses. The public interest taken in the housing question at the present 
moment, and the fact that the’ British Government has made itself 
responsible for the progress of housing schemes, have made it essential 
that researches of this kind should be pushed forward as rapidly as 
. possible, in order that materials may be employed in the most economical 
manner, due regard being paid to safety, comfort, and permanence. The 
co-operation of the geologist is evidently called for in this connexion, 
and it may be noted that the organization of the Geological Survey, 
which has rendered such excellent services to science and to the nation 
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