What is your opinion about that?— a determination of sulphuric acid was asked for. It was requested as a matter of convenience that the results should be stated in their equivalent of sulphate of soda. It is immaterial really in what form the sulphuric acid is stated. In ordinary soil analyses it is usual to state sulphuric acid a such, and this has been my own practice. But for the investigation of salt problems it is convenient to state as sulphate of soda. This is the usual practice, and I produce a report received last week showing that this is so (copy of latest American bulletin produced). One knows that the sulphuric acid is not all combined with soda, just as with common salt in these analyses, one knows that the chlorine found is not all sodium chloride. It is merely the manner of stating how much sulphuric acid is found. If he cannot guarantee the figures I very much regret it will ne necessary to have those particular analyses made elsewhere. 1070. Have you had previous experience of alkali trouble with soils?— Yes. Such problems occasionally cropped up in Victoria. The last occasion was with an important rise of salt at Cohuna, which occupied me for several months. The Government subsequently acted on the recommendations made, and carried out and extensive system of drainage. 1071. Did you ask for a determination of carbonate of soda in these soils?— No. I asked for carbonic acid as carbonates. Carbonic acid might be poresent in other forms , and it was necessary to specify as carbonates. Sulphuric acid could only exist as sulphates. There was that difference which is generally known to chemists. For the carbonic acid existing as carbonates, I asked as a matter of convenience that it should be stated in terms of the normal carbonate of soda just as the chlorine and sulphuric acid were asked to be stated as the normal sodium salts; this is the usual practice. 1072. Were you aware that percentages appearing in the tables under the column of carbonic carbonate of claim to know how the results obtained from the analyst should be interpreted. 1073. Would a high percentage of lime and magnesia mitigate the effect of the salts stated as salts of sodium?— It would, and especially if much lime appeared in the waster extracts. With a mixture of the basic radicels as existing in lime, magnesia, potas, and soda, given an amount of the salts would be less harmful than if all existed as sodium salts. This would naturally be considered in drafting any report. At the same time there is no doubt that the harmfulness if the salts is determined chiefly by the character of the acid radicel or anion. It is partly for that reason that it has become customary to talk of the effects of chlorides, sulphates, and carbonates stated as sodium salts, without specifying particularly the kind of base with which the acids are combined. Some of the recent workers indeed claim that the toxicity of salts is determined by the acid radicel, and not by the basic radicel at all. I do not fully agree with this. 1074. Did you get the percentage of lime and magnesia in the extracts of all the soils determined?— No. in four only. 1075. Why were these not determined in all of these samples?— In view of the lesser importance of these determinations, and in order to save time. Lime and