THE annual report of the Institute for the Encouragement of Scientific Research in Industry and Agriculture,-Belgium, for 1948, in addition to the budget and accounts and a list of members of Council, details they grante made during the year, with some notes on the researches in progress. Of thirty-two new grants, only one was to an individual investigator. The National Centre for Metallurgical Research at Haihault received 9,466,000 francs for metallurgical research, which during the last two years has been concerned with the determination of gases in metals, the spectrographical determination of carbon and phosphorus in steel, the study of the influence of the grain of steel on its weldability, the heterogeneity of ingots, the conditioning and control of the charge in blast furnaces, the influence of the chemical composition of the melt on the behaviour of the ingots, the micro-analysis of steels and X-ray diffraction studies. The Committee for the Establishment of a Pedological Map of Belgium received 8,085,000 francs for the systematic investigation of the pedological characteristics of Belgian soils ; and the Electrical Construction Works of Charleroi received 6,550,000 francs for investigations on applications of ultra-short waves, ultrasonics, the recording of over-voltage, Geiger-Müller tubes and counters, electronic medical appliances and sources of ions, all directed to the development in Belgium of a new branch of the electrical industry.