DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY. 23 



manufacture of macaroni and spaghetti — has injuriously aflfeeted the 

 market value of that most important cereal. 



Under the authoritj^ of the Secretary of Agriculture, a study of the 

 causes which produce this deterioration and of the means of prevent- 

 ing il has been commenced in connection with certain exi^erinKMit sta- 

 tions, which have expressed a willingness to cooperate in this work. 

 Samples of the same wheat have been planted in different parts of the 

 country under widelj" varying meteorological conditions, and already 

 the products of the first year's growth have been received f or anatysis. 

 It is believed that much practical good to wheat growing will result 

 from these studies. 



COOPERATIOX WITH OTHER EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 



During the year the cooperative work of the Division with the Execu- 

 tive Departments has been continued, under the direction of the Sec- 

 retary' of Agriculture. 



For the AVar Department tests have been made of the chemical and 

 physical properties of the cloth intended for the manufacture of uni- 

 forms for soldiers in the Tropics, and on the results of these analyses 

 the contracts for the cloth were concluded. 



Numerous analyses of food materials have also been made, at the 

 requesr of the Secretary of War, for the guidance of the ration board 

 in selecting materials for an appropriate emergency ration for the 

 Army. 



Analytical investigations have also been conducted during the year 

 for the Departments of State and of Justice, the Post-Office and Navy 

 Departments, and for the U. S. Fish Commission. 



Collaboration with the Treasury Department in connection with the 

 methods of collecting duties on imported sugars has been continued, 

 and the chief of the Division gave more than a month of his time to 

 the work during the year. The principle of the metliod of correcting 

 polariscopic readings for the effect of temperature, which has been 

 adoi3ted b}' the Treasury Department for fixing duties on sugar, and 

 which the investigations of the Division have shown to be rigidl}^ cor- 

 rect, has been approved by the international committee appointed to 

 determine uniform methods of sugar analysis. This committee, at its 

 meeting in Paris in July, 1900, recommended that in all countries the 

 polariscopes emploj'ed should be graduated for the temperature at which 

 they are to be used. This is an unqualified approval by the highest 

 international authority of the methods of sugar analj'sis established 

 as correct by the investigations of the Division of Chemistry. 



Within the past year American scientific workers have taken active 

 steps to secure in this country a naticnal standardizing bureau equal 

 in i:)oint of equipment and working force to similar institutions estab- 

 lished by foreign Governments, notably those of Germany, which 

 have placed German scientific workers and those engaged in indus- 

 trial and commercial operations dependent ujion them at a decided 

 advantage over our own in many res^jects. The Association of Ofti- 

 cial Agricultural Chemists and the American Chemical Society have 

 been among the first and the most active scientific bodies working 

 for the success of this movement. Two members of the Division of 

 Chemistry are connected with committees appointed, one by each 

 of the societies named, to ascertain the best means of increasing the 

 uniformity and of improving the accuracy of chemical measuring 

 instruments. These committees have reported to their respective 

 bodies that the establishment of a national standardizing bureau is 

 the first step toward accomplishing this end. During the past year 



