Each District Office of the United States Corps of Engineers is given a research programme related to a particular problem in engineering construction. It is of interest to record that the St. Paul Engineer District Office of the Upper Mississippi Valley Division of the United States Corps of Engineers has been assigned a comprehensive long-range research programme on permanently frozen ground. Work is in progress at a field Iaboratory near Fairbanks, Alaska. Also, the laboratories of the University of Minnesota have provided facilities for determining the thermal properties of soils and insulating materials. The object of this work is to find solutions to the many problems which are encountered in permanently frozen ground in the course of general service construction in the cold regions (Highway Magazine, April 1946).

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Investigations on partly built houses on chalk were carried out in this country in February 1947 at Saffron Walden. These were found to have frost-heaved about in. (3.8 cm.), the frost having penetrated 9 in. (22.9 cm.). It appears that the chalk is more seriously affected by frost-heaving than any other ground in the South. The Downs were obviously subjected to severe solifluction in the past when the climate was colder.