SCIENCE CONGRESS

Southland Times, Issue 19025, 22 August 1923, Page 5

SCIENCE CONGRESS

VARIETY OF TOPICS DISCUSSED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright). (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) MELBOURNE, August 21. The Science Congress discussed the question of wheat diseases, and the production of wood alcohol, which it was claimed would be of the most fundamental importance to Australia, as alcohol must become the fuel of the future. The botanical section discussed the vegetation of Krakatoa, where all plant life was destroyed by the great eruption of 1883. It was stated that the vegetation is now almost impenetrably thick. Dr Armstrong, the, medical officer of a portion of mandated Samoa, told the conference that the natives there, owing to the introduction of civilisation, are replacing their healthy huts with corrugated iron structures; also they are wearing European clothing without understanding the necessity for changing it when they get wet. In a discussion on terrestrial magnetism, it was asserted that the variation and consequent chart® errors in some parts of the Pacific had been found so great that similar errors near the shore might easily cause disaster to a ship in foggy weather. Doctor Calento read a paper dealing with the decline of native races in the Pacific since they were in contact with white races. The chief causes of decline were imported diseases and economical, social and psychological factors.