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A smoke tunnel for lecture demonstrations was described in the May issue of TECHNICAL EDUCATION. May I put in a plea for demonstration water tunnels? Flow phenomena have been observed with water for a long time — indeed a simple instructional water tunnel was marketed between the two world wars.

This is the first of a short series describing some of the simple yet effective teaching techniques in use at Shrivenham

Early in an engineering drawing course, students are given simple views of elementary objects, e.g. FIGURE 1, from which they are asked to project auxiliary views and from them other auxiliary views, and perhaps in time produce FIGURE 2. Most students experience difficulty, because whereas the early views are easy to draw, subsequent projections of even the simplest objects are of increasing complexity — they have been asked to do the most difficult tasks too far from their base as it were, and their incomplete and often ‘inside out’ solutions show that they have been lured too deeply into the unknown and have got lost in space.

Teachers of Engineering Drawing normally spend much of their time correcting students' drawings. This is a time‐honoured occupation, but when they see the same errors being perpetuated they begin to doubt whether their efforts have really been worthwhile. One can labour a particular point week after week and still meet resistance, for young people do not always like being told.

Engineering Drawing is a technical subject, which suggests that it is one of mechanical skill in making a working drawing with the aid of instruments, i.e. draughting. When one reflects, however, that few students who complete some Engineering Drawing courses will ever again make another drawing, one wonders whether it would not be better to put the main emphasis on reading drawings, rather than on making them.

When an Engineering Drawing course assembles, it is not unusual for a whole term to pass before one can pick out those students who require special help in the subject. One assumes, often erroneously, that those having previous drawing experience will out‐perform those starting from scratch. This may be true in the early weeks, but it is often the reverse at the end of the session. Most students take engineering drawing in their stride but some, unfortunately, find it very difficult, and devote far too much time to it. This can reflect on their progress in other subjects. Indeed it can happen that a student whose sole poor subject is drawing fails at the end of his first year at college. Frequently a student is mathematically bright but his lack of drawing sense, his inability to conceive a solid object when projected on to a plane surface many times goes unnoticed until it is too late.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

A comprehensive scheme of lubrication now being carried out for the British Ship building Research Association by the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, in their Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering has included work on journal bearings, and a paper entitled “Some Factors in the Design and Lubrication of Journal Bearings” by Prof. A. S. T. Thomson, D.Sc., Ph.D., Prof. A. W. Scott, B.Sc., Ph.D., W. Ferguson, B.Sc., and H. L. McBroom, B.Sc., Ph.D. was recently read before the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, and this gave details of this work. We give here a shortened version of this paper.