RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 675 



a favorable opportunity in an issue brought before the proper tri- 

 bunal, it convinced the judges that there were no instruments, 

 apparatus, or preparations which to-day were exclusively used in 

 teaching or research; that, on the contrary, our manufacturers 

 and practitioners are so keen to utilize every resource at command 

 that they are the first usually to test, and if found profitable, to 

 adopt any new invention in apparatus or discovery in preparation, 

 while teachers must usually await the voting of appropriations 

 or gifts from benefactors before they can possess them, and that 

 as no distinction can be drawn either arbitrarily or from the rule 

 of "principal use," we must revert to the "evident intent" of Con- 

 gress to exempt education from the burden of the tariff, and in 

 each instance the levying of duties or admission of the goods free 

 must be determined solely by the fact as to whether or not they 

 are to be used in the institutions designated by the act for educa- 

 tional purposes and research. It is pleasant to record that the board 

 of appraisers, after thoroughly reviewing the history, adopted this 

 view, and that during the present year Assistant Secretary Arm- 

 strong, in charge of the customs service, has promulgated it in a 

 very satisfactory form for the instruction of his subordinates. 



This is but one instance of a multitude which may be cited show- 

 ing how technical chemistry "treads on the heels" of pure chem- 

 istry. It depends especially on the votaries of the latter for accu- 

 rate determinations of chemical constants. Prof. F. W. Clarke 

 has emphasized the importance of this in the case of atomic weights, 

 taking the case of chromium 1 as an example. He says: "The older 

 and less accurate determinations for chromium led to the figure 

 52.5. The more recent and more accurate have given 52.1 as the 

 number. The European technical analysts, who analyze chro- 

 mium ores for the sellers, use the first-mentioned number; the 

 chemists for the consumers in this country use the latter number, 

 with the result that the difference in value on a cargo of ore weigh- 

 ing 3500 tons is $367.50." 



The technical chemist has been keen to appreciate the necessity 

 for authoritative standards by which his work might be controlled 

 and to which matters in controversy might be referred. He has 

 especially welcomed and willingly assisted in the formation of 

 standard bureaus. In fact, the movement for the creation of a 

 National Bureau of Standards in the United States originated in 

 the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists through Mr. Ewell, 

 and though when, on the motion of this gentleman, the plan was 

 afterwards indorsed by the American Chemical Society, it received 

 the complete approval of the pure chemists, Dr. William McMurtrie 

 and Dr. Charles B. Dudley, who stand in the front rank as tech- 

 1 Journal of American Chemical Society, vol. xix, p. 359, 1897. 



