RESEARCH WORK

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 125, 29 May 1928, Page 12

RESEARCH WORK

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY PIUVY COUNCIL COMMITTEE (From "The Post's" Representative.) .LONDON, 17th March. The report of the Committee of the Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research for the year 1020-27 has been published in the form of a White Paper. The main activities of the Department fall under three headings:— (a) Researches undertaken for national purposes and for the general benefit of flic community. (b) The encouragement of industrial scientific research through the formation of co-operative research associations and in other ways. (c) The encouragement of the work of individual "scientific workers and the training of research workers to supply uatiouaK and industrial needs. The report foreshadows that work is about to be undertaken on the possibility of detecting underground minerals by new methods depending on the determination of the force of gravity, the electrical conductivity of the earth, and other phenomena which are known to vary according to the nature of the deposits below the surface. These methods have been used by private companies with reported success, but no reliable published data are available for the information of interested persons. The results obtained hitherto by the Geological Survey are very promising. In connection with the work of the Fuel riet-.eareli Board," attention is called to the loan guaranteed by tlie Government to a subsidiary company of the Gas Light and Coke Company' tv enable them to erect; on a commercial scale, a low temperature carbonisation plant, using retorts of the design developed at" the Department's Fuel Research Station. Tlic plant will be capable of producing 100 tons of smokeless fuel per day, besides a considerable yield of gas of high calorific value, oils, and tar. The scheme should provide facts on which a sound judgment can be based of the commercial success, on a large scale, of this low temperature carbonisation "process. The report recalls the arrangements entered into with Dr. Bergiua and the British Bergius Syndicate, by which selected British c*.ls have been treated by the Bergius process for the conversion of coal into light petroleum products. The results of the experiments show that a large proportion of the coal substance can be converted into liquid iuel, but that it is not yet possible to assess the commercial value of these developments. TRANSPORT OF FOOD. In connection with the Department's investigations on the storage and transport of food, the Empire Marketing Board has made a grant of a sum not exceeding £35,000 to enable the Low Temperature Research Station at' Cambridge to be enlarged. The development of the work on the storage and transport of fish and on the treatment of fish by-products has been prevented by lack of funds, but as a result of special grants from the IJmpire Marketing Board active work on these subjects will soon be resumed. The _ report summarises briefly the results of investigations undertaken on the storage of ham and bacon, the freezing^ of tissues and the transport of fruit and yegetables.The work carried out on the recommendation of the Department's co-ordinating boards and committees dealing with engineering, physics, chemistry, radio-telegraphy and illumination research, etc., is mainly initiated at the request of the fighting services and other Government Departments on the understanding that the results will be made available for industry in due course. From information placed before the Advisory Council by the Admiralty and War Office it appeared that the production of sound steel castings left much to be desired. The matter is obviously one of considerable importance to the Service departments and industry.in general, and arrangements have accordingly been made for the Engineering Research Board to undertake a full investigation of the causes of and the methods of preventing ilaws in the castings. The increasingly high temperatures at whi." modern machinery is required to work has led to the Engineering Research Board carrying out, in co-operation with industry, investigations 'of the properties of existing materials at such temperatures, and also investigations likely to lead to Die1 discovery of new alloys suitable tor withstanding'the stresses applied at lugn temperatures. SIR E. RUTHERFORD'S WORK. Among the more important grants made by the Department to assist individual research workers mention may be made-qt that to Sir Ernest Rutherford to enable him to carry out research at Cambridge on the production of intense magnetic fields. By means of a specially designed dynamo, the use of magnetic fields ot the order of 320,000 units over a "volume" of two cubic cms. has been made possible. If coils can be designed to withstand the tremendous forces produced, fields up to nearly a million units can be produced by the machine. ' Such magnetic fields are about ten times more intense than any previously produced by any apparatus in the world, The great importance of such intense- fields in the continuation of research on atomic physics was emphasised by Sir Ernest Rutherford in his recent presidential address to the Royal Society. _ The grant to the Royal Institution, in support of Sir William Bragg's work onthe analysis of crystals by means of X-rays has been continued. His methods have put into the hands of scientists a means of studying the internal construction of many materials to an extent not possible by the older methods of chemical analysis. , The report also records a grant ot approximately £1500-for three years to enable the Imperial College to appoint research assistants to Professor Bone for work on chemical reactions at high pressures. Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., are supplying the college with the expensive' equipment necessary. The, use ot very high pressures in chemical .manufacture is rapidly extending, and it is important in the opinion of the Advisory Council, to encourage at least one university centre to organise scientifil research in directions which promise such great industrial advances.