tically as a pure metal with a few globules of oxide scattered throughout it. When this was as done the tubes were drawn easily and well. Science succeeded where experience had failed.
This is an example of the kind of difficulty in which a well-equipped University laboratory might be of the greatest assistance to the manufacturing community. As it is, with our present limited resources, we do something, but much more would be possible if our equipment were sufficient. To do this sort of thing efficiently requires, of .course, laboratories, apparatus, and suitable assistance, and all this costs money. Clearly the exuberant enthusiasm of the professor must be kept within bounds. We cannot expect the State of South Australia, with a population of less than half a million of people, and with the demands upon its revenue due to the vast area that it covers, can afford to provide the same facilities for research work that are given at Manchester or Columbia. But that is no reason why we should do nothing. No one in touch with engineering practice will deny that there are plenty of problems that S.A. engineers would like to have solved, many of them, like that of our brown coals, being local problems that we can scarcely expect outsiders to solve for us.
Let me illustrate the value to the nation of scientific research, combined with engineering invention, by a story from our own recent history. In 1905 Mr. A. G. M. Michell, a graduate in Engineering of Melbourne University, published the results of an elaborate mathematical investigation into the flow of lubricating oils under certain conditions. As the result of his mathematical work, which was of a very high-class character, he made certain remarkable deductions, which he verified by ingenious experiment. He deduced that it should be possible to construct a thrust bearing, such as that required on*the main propeller shaft of a ship, in which metallic contact of moving surfaces would be
