EDITORIAL. 
it for all time. It eventually will ruin the great majority of beautiful 
lakes and Similar places in California, to say nothing of the damage it 
will do in irrigation and drainage canals and in navigable water-ways.” 
Australian experience would suggest the wisdom of prompt action and 
large initial expenditure in an attempt to rid the country of the scourge, 
which, if unchecked, will do all that the Californian Department of 
Agriculture predicts that it will do. An illustrated article in Science 
and Industry (Vol, 1, No. 4) indicates the extent of the damage the 
plant has caused in New South Wales and Queensland. Professor 
_ Newell, Plant Commissioner of Florida, writing about the plant, states 
that “there is no way of estimating the enormous loss which this plant 
has caused to Florida and also to practically all of the other Gulf 
States.’ Florida is essentially a land of beautiful lakes. Many of these 
have become entirely covered with the water hyacinth, and the lakes, of 
course, are of no further use for bathing, fishing, or boating, and instead 
of being points which are attractive to tourists, ‘they are merely eye- 
sores, and resemble nothing so much as marsh lands. During the war 
a couple of aviators, circling over the central portion of this State, 
spied what they thought was a beautiful green meadow, and dropped 
down on it to make a landing. They lit in a vast expanse of water 
hyacinths with several feet of water underneath, and ‘no one has yet 
reported how much it cost the Government to get those two aeroplanes 
out.” 
SCIENTIFIC ROAD-MAKING. 
Professor Whitfeld, of the Western Australian University, has 
cireularized the local. governing bodies in Western Australia with 
respect to a proposed laboratory for testing road-making materials. He 
points out that a suitable laboratory for testing would probably cost | 
from £1,000 to £1,500, and he suggests that the Government and the 
various municipalities and road boards might be willing to combine 
to erect such a laboratory in Perth. In this way some use could be 
made of the technical staff of the University. Even with the co-opera- 
tion of this staff, however, the Professor estimates that the laboratory 
would probably cost from £200 to £300 a year to run, assuming that a’ 
considerable number of tests would be required. ‘The circular has 
already been considered ‘by several local governing bodies, who, for the 
most part, are agreed as to the value of such a laboratory, but are not 
prepared to contribute to its maintenance. 
In this connexion it may be mentioned that last year the Institute 
of Science and Industry appo‘nted a special committee *to consider the 
question of establishing a Federal organization in connexion with the 
Institute to undertake research work in regard to \ road-making 
materials, &¢. -The committee recommended that a central roads 
research laboratory should be established to work in co-operation with 
existing State and University laboratories, which would continue to 
carry out and develop their present work. (See Science and Industry, 
Vol. I., No. 2, pp. 104-108.) ‘The temporary Institute has not’ been 
able to take any further action in this direction, and the scheme is one 
of the many which are awaiting the consideration of the Director of the 
proposed permanent. Institute. : 
455 
