SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
district, and similar experiments on a more limited scale will be 
afterwards arranged at Townsville and Bingleburra. The members 
of that committee are Messrs. G. E. Bunning (chairman) and ©. J. 
Booker, representing the Institute; A. H. Cory (Chief Inspector of 
Stock) and J. ©. Brunnich (Agricultural Chemist), representing 
Queensland; and F. B. Guthrie (Agricultural Chemist) and S. T, D. 
Symons (Chief Inspector of Stock), representing New. South Wales. 
WHITE ANT PEST. 
A special committee appointed by the Institute to investigate the 
white ant problem has outlined a scheme of investigations. Before 
this is’ undertaken, Mr. G. F. Hill, entomologist, of the Institute of 
Tropical Medicine, who for some years studied and made considerable 
collections of termites in the Northern Territory, will be asked to 
prepare a monograph upon the subject. The committee points out that 
the inquiries will constitute a task of great magnitude and of far- 
reaching importance. The Government of New South Wales has under- 
taken to contribute to the cost of the work upon a £1 for £1 basis. . 
The committee consists of Dr. G. P. Darnell-Smith, and Messrs. L. 
Harrison, B.A., B.Sc, E. E. Turner, B.A., M.Sc, A. A. Ramsay, and 
G. F. Hill. 
POWER ALCOHOL. 
In the February issue of Science and. Industry there appeared an 
article by Mr. T. Baker, a member of the special committee appointed 
by the Institute to investigate the Production and Use of Power Alcohol 
in Australia, entitled “ Power Alcohol.” ‘It is desired to point out that 
the views expressed by Mr. Baker do not necessarily represent the views 
of the other members of that special committee, and that the article 
expressed only the opinion of Mr. Baker. In this connexion, an 
extract from the Report on Power Alcohol (Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind., 
July 15, 1919, p. 25 O.R.) will be of interest. “It is considered,” 
states the report, “that the State should foster the production and 
utilization of aleohol for power purposes, because, as has already 
- been indicated, the chief raw materials for its production are sus- 
ceptible of great expansion, while the materials from which benzol, 
petrol, &c., are derived are limited to deposits, definite in extent, that 
cannot be renewed.” Commenting upon that statement, the Journal 
of the Society of Chemical Industry (July 31, 1919, p. 264 R.) con- 
tained the following:—* The Report of the Inter-Departmental Com- 
mittee on the Production and Utilization of Alcohol for Power and 
Traction Purposes marks a far-reaching and welcome advance in Go- 
_vernment enterprise. Comparatively few of the public realize how im- 
portant power alcohol will become in the future if rapid transport, 
whether by land, sea, or air, is to be developed to the extent which recent 
achievements have made probable. The known oil supplies of the 
world are estimated to last only a limited period, and even if pro- 
ductive new fields are discovered there still remains the néed of pro- 
viding alternative supplies of motor fuels derived from new raw 
materials. The fundamental fact that the vegetable raw materials from 
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