— 
"SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
_ The local manufacture of pure alumina would, on the whole, seem to be 
‘the one most practicable, and need not involve any very heavy capital 
expenditure. Aluminium being producible from bauxite by means of 
the electric furnace, it naturally suggests itself as to whether the coals 
of the Collie Field could not be utilized for the production of the 
electric power necessary for this and any other allied purpose. 
INDUSTRIAL’ OXYGEN RESEARCH .IN UNITED STATES 
OF AMERICA. 
As the result of a gift of £1,000 by the Research Corporation, of ~ 
which Dr. Frederick G. Cottrell, Director of the Bureau of Mines, is 
the founder, and Elon H. Hooker the president, research work is to 
be undertaken by the Harvard Engineering ‘School, under the direction 
of Professor H. K. Davis, in the manufacture and industrial uses of 
oxygen. In consideration of its financial support, any patents ensuing 
from the research will become the property of the Research Corpora- 
tion. Dr. Cottrell estimates the production of oxygen in the United 
States at 3,000,000 cubic feet, or about 130 tons, over 95 per cent. of 
which probably is used for cutting and welding purposes. The Linde 
Air Producis Co., using the Linde process and operating about 50 
liquefaction plants, and the Air Reduction Co., using chiefly the Claude 
process, produce about 75 per cent. of the oxygen consumed, which they 
compress in steel cylinders and distribute to the trade. The remaining 
25 per cent. is obtained by electrolysis in several hundred privately- | 
owned installations producing gas for immediate industrial consumption 
in the plant. At Muscle Shoals, Nitrate Plant No. 2, were installed 
30 of the largest-size Claude units, primarily for the separation of 
nitrogen used in the production of cyanamide. If this installation, it 
is stated, were used for oxygen production, the daily output would about 
equal the total oxygen production noted above. The great economic 
importance of oxygen research, and the value of increased knowledge 
of cheap and efficient methods of separation of this gas, particularly to 
the metallurgical industries, will be recognised by the fact that a single- 
blast furnace, with a daily production of 500 tons of pig-iron, requires 
to have blown into it for this yield a volume of air containing five times 
the oxygen produced daily by present methods and resources. 
BAHIA GRASS.* 
A large number of species of Paspalum are native to Florida. These 
are generally known as blanket grass or water grass, but sometimes as 
goose grass. In addition, several valuable species have been introduced 
from South America, including Dallis grass (Paspalum dilatatum), 
Vasey grass (Paspalum larranyagai), and, lastly, the species here dis- 
cussed, Paspalum notatum, native in South America and northward to 
Mexico, for which the Bureau of Plant Industry suggests the name of 
Bahia grass. It gives most promise as a pasture grass. This was intro- 
duced into the United States, in 1913, by the Bureau of Plant Industry. 
Another introduction was made in 1914. 
* Florida Agricultural Experiment Station, Gainesville, Fla. 
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