A WONDERLAND OF SCIENCE 



169 



when it is realized that considerably more 

 than lOO million dollars is taken each 

 year from the pocket of the ultimate con- 

 sumer by the retailer who, often quite 

 innocently, uses dishonest weights and 

 measures. 



During the period from 1909 to 191 3 

 the Bureau undertook to test some of the 

 commercial weights and measures of the 

 country, and the revelations made thereby 

 were startling. It was found that 44 out 

 of every 100 scales tested were incor- 

 rect — nearly one-half of the dry meas- 

 ures and more than a fourth of the liciuid 

 measures. Some one has estimated that 

 the total loss to the people as a result of 

 this inaccuracy of weights and measures 

 would be enough to build ten of the big- 

 gest battleships afloat every year. 



When the investigation started there 

 were only four States in the Union which 

 had efficient systems of inspecting weights 

 and measures. Such were the revelations 

 that today 24 States and most of the im- 

 portant cities of the country have effi- 



cient inspection systems, and most of the 

 other States are expected soon to fall into 

 line. 



The Bureau of Standards is striving 

 to have uniform State laws for weights 

 and measures enacted in all of the 48 

 States. It wants a pound to be a pound 

 everywhere and a bushel a bushel. At 

 present it is not always so. A bushel of 

 potatoes may be more than a bushel in 

 one State and less than a bushel in an- 

 other, depending upon the number of 

 pounds each State says shall constitute a 

 bushel. 



False measures have a habit of running 

 away from progressive laws. Not long 

 ago a hundred thousand milk jars were 

 condemned for short measure by the 

 sealers of a certain State. These jars 

 were hastily collected and sent to another 

 State, where the laws were more lax. 

 Here they were soon overtaken by a sim- 

 ilar fate and were hurried off to a new 

 localit}^ and are probably still on the 

 move. 



A CITY OF REALIZED DREAMS 



By Franklin K. Lane 



Secretary oi? the Interior 



IN THE three days following April 

 18, 1906, the entire business and 

 manufacturing portions of San Fran- 

 cisco and a large part of the residential 

 section were swept by flames. Three 

 hundred and fifty million dollars went up 

 in smoke. February 20, 191 5, saw that 

 city rebuilt, more l3eautiful than ever, 

 and its people demonstrating to the world 

 their own courage and self-confidence 

 by opening an International Exposition 

 which, in point of situation and beauty, 

 has had no equal. 



AVhen it was proposed some five years 

 ago that such a fair should be held its 

 promoters were divided as to the site. 

 Some favored placing the fair within the 

 grounds of that remarkable bit of land- 

 scape gardening the reclaimed sand-dunes 

 of Golden Gate Park; but now all con- 

 cede that there could have been no better 

 site chosen than the stretch of sand 



which flanks the entrance to the Golden 

 Gate, looks out across the bay and be- 

 yond to Mount Tamalpais, upon which 

 the fair has been built. The ]\Iarin hills 

 in their soft green coat, the red bluft's of 

 the Golden Gate, the great vault of the 

 sky, and the long sweep of the bay and 

 ocean — these have made a setting worthy 

 the foreground which man has made. 

 The great buildings face an esplanade 

 which runs for miles along the shore 

 itself. 



ONE BUILDING WORTH A TRIP ACROSS THE 

 CONTINENT 



It is worth a trip across the continent 

 to spend a day looking at a single build- 

 ing — the Palace of Fine Arts. There is 

 no other building like it that I know of. 

 There is no single picture in Venice that 

 I think so fine. You see it across a la- 

 goon in which its colored pillars and its 



