The chemist depends for his most note-worthy results upon those qualities possessed by the elements that enable them to blend in varying proportions to produce the vast range of gases, liquids, and solids known to modern science. These combinations vary in their effects, from the universal usefulness of water to the crashing cataclysm of volcanic eruption.

Human thought is actuated on the same principle, and has results ranging over an equally extensive gamut. There are men so dynamic that their direct meeting brings with it an element of danger, and calls for the presence of intermediaries to act as shock-absorbers. Others again, quiescent of nature and turgid of soul, may be stirred to quite unwonted mental and imaginative activity by meeting in conference people interested in the same movement or line of business, or working upon the same problems. New Zealand's supremacy as a tourist resort is largely due to the gifts of Nature that have blent colour, climate and contour to make so irresistible an appeal to the senses.

A blending of knowledge upon railway problems has done much to account for the progress made in this form of transport. Hence the provision of conferences and conventions in all parts of the world upon different phases of railway work.

Even such an apparently simple subject as fuel lends itself to treatment in this way. The New Zealand Railways use one-eighth of their total operating expenditure upon the purchase of coal, and the fuel figure probably bears a similar high relationship to the whole cost in most countries. Experiments in this country have shewn how, by an apt blending of different types of coal, and suitable adaptation of fireboxes, the percentages of New Zealand coal used for railway purposes could be increased. Put into effect, this has resulted in a three-fold increase in the percentage of native coal burned by the railways.

There have already been twenty annual conventions of the International Railway Fuel Association to discuss in what ways the uses of fuel could be better conserved, and the best types for special purposes employed. The twenty-first convention meets this month in Chicago. Special committees will present reports upon steam turbine locomotives; Diesel locomotives; front ends, grates and ashpans; oil, coal, and general firing practice; bituminous coal; fuel stations, bulletins, and fuel distribution and statistics.

The importance attached to this conference may be judged from the fact that the principal general addresses will be given by three men of the highest page 8 standing in their respective spheres in the railway world—Sir Henry Thornton, President and Chairman of the Board of the Canadian National Railways, Mr. R. H. Aishton, President of the American Railway Association and Mr. H. L. Gandy, President of America's National Coal Association.

The application of blended theoretical and practical knowledge to the fuel problem has already done much good, and when the reports and discussions on the subject of this year's Fuel Convention are made available, a still further development in the direction of fuel economy in locomotive operation may confidently be expected.