EDITORIAL. 
cases, worked out entirely new units, which they have attempted to 
force upon industry. The result in one country was that, in one par- 
ticular case, a set of standards was decided upon by the committee 
appointed, and handed on to the industries concerned as the official . 
lines to be followed. Instead of following these lines, the industries 
in question simply nodded their heads, put their hands in their pockets, 
and looked the other way, and not one of them ever used the standards 
that were fixed. It is not the drawing up of standards which is diffi- 
cult, it is persuading people to adopt them; and it is here that the fact 
must be recognised that it is pointless to treat the industries which 
are to use these standards with suspicion and contempt. They must 
be treated with a spirit of encouragement, and requested to bring 
forward their own suggestions for standardization, and in this way, the 
manufacturers who do not adopt the suggestions put forward by their 
fellows will gradually realize that they will be unable to stand out. 
One by one they will adopt the standards, and those who do not will 
inevitably suffer. It is here that the British Engineering Standards’ 
Association is doing such good work. It is encouraging practical men, 
right down at the very basis of industry, to form amongst themselves 
standardization committees, and to submit their suggestions to experts 
for comparison and possible adoption, and when. the worker himself 
brings forward proposals which are accepted, no fear need be enter- 
tained that the enforcement of these standards will meet with opposi- 
tion on his part. Engineering and Industrial Management.” 
POWER ALCOHOL.—RECENT PATENTS ON MIXED FUELS. - 
During the year 1919, the United States alone are credited with 
having produced 1,900,000 road-motor vehicles driven by liquid-fuel 
engines; the total production of the world was hardly less than 
9,500,000. Allowing each vehicle an average fuel supply of 400 gallons 
per annum, some 15,000,000 tons of crude oil were probably wanted for 
road-motor propulsion. The total production of crude oil had risen 
from 50,000,000 tons in 1912, to 75,000,000 tons in 1919, and now repre- 
sents, in weight, more than one quarter of the British coal production. 
The claims of agriculture are nowhere disregarded at present, and the 
farmers’ demand for motor vehicles will increase. How is the demand 
to be met? The problem is by no means new; the general public is 
interested, and progress has been made. ‘The prejudice against alcohol 
and other petrol substitutes has been overcome; power alcohol enjoys 
official patronage. But, owing to its low thermal value, and its low 
vapour pressure, alcohol is not an ideal automobile fuel,* and as long 
as the volatile hydrocarbons known as petrol were readily available, 
there was little necessity in this country to encourage the use of either 
aleohol alone or of mixtures of alcohol with other material. Yet, to 
judge by the Patent Office records, alcohol in some form or other is 
universally assumed to be a constituent of the motor fuel of the future. 
In his paper on “Recent Patents on Mixed Fuels,” read before the 
Tnstitution of Petroleum Technologists last Tuesday, 17th February, 
Dr. W. R. Ormandy restricted himself to British patents, for . two 
[2S rr rt ee ee 
* This statement refers only to the use of alcohol as a |fuel in existing types of petrol engines.—Ed . 
Science ani Industry. 
339 
