X. ITU RE 



[August 12, 19: 



The "Immured Standards" in the House of Commons. 



AX interesting ceremony recently .took place in 

 the House of Commons, when the copies of the 

 Imperial Yard and found which normally rest within 

 the wall of the staircase leading up to the com; 

 rooms, were replaced in their recess, and re-immured 

 bv cementing in place the stone slab covering the 

 opening. These "immured standards," officially 

 I. 31 ribed as " Parliamentary Copies No. 4," constitute 

 one of the four original sets of copies of the present 

 primary standards of the yard and pound, and were 

 constructed simultaneously with them in 1844-45, 

 with the view of providing a ready means of replace- 

 ment, should the originals at any time be lost or 

 destroyed. Such a catastrophe occurred in 1834, 

 when the Houses of Parliament were burnt down, 

 the then existing standards being destroyed in the 

 fire. The other sets of Parliamentary Copies were 

 placed, and still remain, in the custody of the Royal 

 .Mint, the Royal Society, and the Royal Observatory, 

 Greenwich. At a later date, a fifth set was provided 

 for the Board of Trade, to obviate the necessity for 

 using the primaries in important comparisons, as had 

 been the practice hitherto. 



Under statute, these copies must be compared with 

 each other every ten years, and with the primary 

 standards every twenty years, but the immured 

 copies are expresslv exempted from this requirement. 

 Hence they have seldom been examined, and were 

 only cursorily re-verified for the first time in 1892, 

 when Mr. H. J. Chaney, the then Superintendent of 

 the Standards, compared them with the Board of 

 Trade copies, by means of apparatus which was taken 

 to the House for the purpose. Since then they have 

 not been disturbed until this year. Upon the present 

 occasion, since this year marks the end of the twenty- 

 year period, it was thought desirable to include the 

 immured copies also in a complete set of inter-com- 

 parisons with the other copies and with the Imperial 

 Standards themselves. With the kind consent of the 

 Speaker, and in his presence, the recess was opened, 

 and the standards taken out and inspected, before 

 being removed to the Standards Department for 

 verification. Upon the box there was found the 

 certificate, in original, of their deposit in the present 

 position, after the original site had been demolished 

 during structural alterations. This certificate was 

 dated March 7, 1872, and bore, among others, the 

 signatures of Sir George B. Airy, Astronomer Royal, 

 and Prof. YV. II. Miller, both of whom had been closely 

 concerned in the original construction of these 

 standards. 



All the comparisons in which the immured copies \ 



were involved having been completed, they wen.' 

 returned upon August 3. Mr. J. E. Sears, Deputy- 

 Warden of the Standards, produced them for identi- 

 fication by means of their inscriptions, and after Mr. 

 Percy Ashley, Assistant Secretary to the Board of 

 Trade, had explained the general purpose of the 

 ceremony, the Deputy-Warden announced the result 

 obtained by comparing them against the Imperial 

 Standards. They were then formally replaced in 

 their boxes, which were then hermetically sealed up 

 within a lead sheathing, within an outer oak box, and 

 replaced in the recess, in which they were again 

 immured by cementing the front stone in place. 

 Upon the box there had been placed a record of the 

 proceedings, signed bv the principal witnesses, 

 together with the original certificate above referred 

 to, whi< li had been found when the recess was opened. 

 The results of the comparison of the immured 

 standards with the primaries were given by Mr. 

 Sears as follows : 



Yard PC. No. 4 = Imperial Standard Yard -o-oooioi 



inch. 

 Pound P.C. No. 4 = Imperial Standard Pound + 



0-00286 grain. 



I hese figures are, however, provisional, since due 

 weight will ultimately have to be given to the results 

 of the other comparisons which are not yet completed, 

 and some adjustment will therefore be necessary. It 

 is interesting to compare these figures with, those 

 arrived at in 1844-45, when the standards were first 

 constructed, namely : 

 Yard P.C. No. 4= Imperial Standard Yard -t 0-000007 



inch. 

 Pound P.C. No. 4 = Imperial Standard Pound - 



0-00314 grain. 



The apparent variation in the yard is of the order 

 of the differences which have been observed from time 

 to time in the past among the other standard bars, 

 but the apparent change in the pound is more con- 

 siderable. It may perhaps be explained by the fact 

 that the weight is by no means a good piece of metal, 

 and of all the copies, it constitutes probably the one 

 least fitted to form a trustworthy standard. Some 

 evidence is, however, available, though it cannot be 

 regarded as conclusive, that prior to 1878 the primary 

 standard was rendered a little lighter by wear, arising 

 from its relatively frequent use for important com- 

 parisons. The present series of comparisons may 

 render it possible to form some conclusion as to 

 whether this is the case. 



The International Research Council. 



A MEETING of the International Research 

 -^*- Council was held at Brussels on July 25 and 

 the four succeeding days, under the presidency of M. 

 I' Picard, secretary of the Academie des Sciences, 

 Paris ; simultaneously the recently formed Union of 

 Scientific Radio-Telegraphy held its first general 

 assembly. 



Twenty countries have now joined the International 

 Research Council, the following seventeen being 

 represented at the meeting : Belgium, Canada, Den- 

 mark, France, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Italy, 

 Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, 

 Switzerland, United States of^merica, and Czecho- 

 slovakia. The representatives of Great Britain for 

 the general proceedings of the Council were Prof. 



NO. 2754, VOL. I IO] 



J. R. Ash worth, Sir William Bragg, Sir Charles Close, 

 Sir Richard Glazebrook ; .Air. A. R. Hinks, Col. H. G. 

 Lyons, Sir Arthur Schuster, and Dr. E. H. Starling ; 

 while in addition Admiral Sir Henry Jackson, Dr, 

 Erskine Murraj', and Mr. Shaughnessy represented, 

 together with Sir Richard Glazebrook, the National 

 Council for Radio-Telegraphy. 



The greater part of the business of the meeting 

 was concerned with the organisation of international 

 scientific unions additional to the five for Astronomy, 

 Geodesy and Geophysics, Chemistry, Mathematics, 

 and Scientific Radio-Telegraphy, which are already 

 in activity. As a result of the meeting the forma- 

 tion of Unions for Pure and Applied Physics and for 

 Geography seems assured. The proposed Union in 



