364 ROSA: SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE GOVERNMENT 



value of the service that would be rendered to the public would 

 possibly be fifty or a hundred times the cost. 



STANDARDIZATION OF ELECTRICAL BATTERIES 



22. One of the most productive lines of research at the Bureau 

 of Standards recently has been a study of electrical batteries, 

 primary and secondary. They are used in great numbers for 

 starting and lighting automobiles, for tractors and other electric 

 vehicles, for electrical power stations, for telephone exchanges, 

 railway signals, door bells, flash lights and a hundred other pur- 

 poses. No adequate specifications or methods of test had ever 

 been generally agreed upon when the Bureau took up the work. 

 They were sold without guarantee or adequate statement of per- 

 formance, and the purchaser had no way of ascertaining just 

 what he was getting. The manufacturers have cooperated cor- 

 dially and intelligently in the study that has been in progress, 

 and in time it is expected that a complete set of specifications and 

 methods of tests will be developed. In the meantime the manu- 

 facturers have derived important benefit from the investigation 

 and the public is getting a better product. Possibly a hundred 

 million dollars worth of these batteries are made and sold each 

 year, and if this work could be carried on more adequately and 

 as thoroughly in all lines as it has already been in some lines, it 

 seems a safe statement to make that the public would be benefited 

 not less than five per cent on the entire product. This would 

 amount to five million dollars per year, which is several times 

 the cost of all the work of the Bureau of Standards, and more 

 than a hundred times what the battery work would cost. This 

 kind of research and educational work is like seed that falls on 

 good ground and springs up and bears fruit, some thirty, some 

 sixty, and some a hundred fold. 



TESTING OF GOVERNMENT SUPPLIES 



23. For many years electric lamps purchased by the govern- 

 ment have been systematically inspected at the factory and 

 samples selected for life test in the laboratory. The information 

 so obtained is utilized in the preparation and periodical revision 



