TWELFTH ANNUAL REPORT 69 



CHEMICAL LABORATORY 



This Bureau has continued to cooperate with the University 

 of the Philippines and to give instruction in chemistry. During 

 the last fiscal year Dr. Harry D. Gibbs, chief of the division 

 of organic chemistry and assistant to the director; Mr. Robert 

 R. Williams, Mr. Albert H. Wells, and Mr. J. del Rosario, as- 

 sistants in the division; and Mr. T. Dar Juan, an assistant in 

 the division of general, inorganic, and physical chemistry, were 

 detailed for part of their time to instruction and administration 

 in the department of chemistry of the University of the Philip- 

 pines, and Dr. A. P. West, an assistant in the latter division, 

 was detailed to give all of his time to instruction in the uni- 

 versity. This assistance has been given to the university at 

 considerable sacrifice of our own work on account of vacancies 

 which existed in our staff of chemists. However, the head of the 

 department of chemistry of the university especially requested 

 the detail of several chemists for half time in order that he 

 might have a greater number of assistants in handling the large 

 classes. Except to enable the university to have a larger 

 number of instructors at a given time, this arrangement is not 

 the best for the Government, for it is easier to secure good in- 

 structors than it is to secure chemists capable of meeting the 

 many requirements of this Bureau. The continuity of our work 

 is destroyed by the detail of so many men. Resignations and 

 readjustments in the Bureau of Science have left several va- 

 cancies, all of which will be filled as soon as practicable. Three 

 new chemists sailed from San Francisco on June 28, 1913. 



Physical research. — During the past year an extensive in- 

 vestigation of the electrical condition of the atmosphere has been 

 begun in the Bureau of Science by the members of the depart- 

 ment of physics of the University of the Philippines under the 

 direction of Dr. J. R. Wright. This work is closely related to 

 that recently carried on in the Bureau on tropical sunlight, and 

 has an important bearing on the effect of a tropical climate 

 on both animal and vegetable life. 



A complete study of the electrical condition of the atmosphere 

 involves a thorough investigation at different locations and at 

 different altitudes of the following closely related factors: 



(a.) The total ionization of the atmosphere. 



(6) The radium-emanation content of the atmosphere. 



(c) The effect of the penetrating radiation from the radioactive products in 



the atmosphere and the earth's crust on the ionization in closed 

 vessels. 



(d) The variation of the electrical potential gradient. 



(e) The absolute value of the intensity of the rays from the sun. 



