September 19, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



277 



This latter conjecture is the correct one so 

 far as its age is concerned. It is a modem 

 Chinese lamp made in the vicinity of Canton. 

 I give a rough sketch of one given to me in 



1854 when I was a boy, for my cabinet of 

 curiosities. It had been brought from Canton 

 and was probably made by the same artisan 

 who carved the lamp figured by Mr. Gann. 

 In the Peabody Museum at Salem are two 

 lamps of identical character and design. As 

 there were probably no Chinese coolies in 

 Yucatan fifty years ago is it not possible that 

 some one buried the object within recent years 

 to support the contention by some that the 

 cidture of Middle America was introduced 

 from China! Edward S. Morse 



Salem, Mass., 

 August 27, 1919 



QUOTATIONS 



INDUSTRIAL FATIGUE AND SCIENTIFIC 

 MANAGEMENT 



The Industrial Fatigue Research Board was 

 appointed at the end of 1917 by the Depart- 

 ment of Scientific and Industrial Research to 

 investigate the relations of the hours of labor 

 and other conditions of employment to the 

 production of fatigue having regard both to 

 industrial efficiency and to the preservation 

 of the health of workers. This board has 

 recently issued two reports. One of these. 



Ethel E. Osborne, M.Sc, on the output of 

 women workers in relation to hours of work 

 in shell-making, arrives at results for which 

 previous investigations have prepared us. The 

 investigations were concerned with the first 

 operation to which the rough forging is sub- 

 jected; it consists in cutting off the end por- 

 tion of the forging to reduce it to the required 

 length. It is considered the hardest work in 

 shell-making, must be done rapidly, and en- 

 tails constant changing of shells. For eigh- 

 teen months the women doing this in the 

 National Ordnance Factory worked on shifts 

 of twelve hours' duration, with night and day 

 work in alternate weeks. It then became evi- 

 dent that the hours were affecting the women 

 adversely, and the shifts were shortened. 

 Some time previously the machines had been 

 changed to a type which considerably reduced 

 the demands for violent physical exertion. 

 The method in which the investigation was 

 conducted is described at length, but we can 

 only notice the chief general results. Under 

 the earlier scheme the average number of 

 hours worked was 55.85 a week, under the 

 shortened scheme 35.65 a week. On the long 

 hours system the average number of shells 

 each operator turned out in an hour was 8.17; 

 on the shortened shift it was 8.70. Study of 

 the actual fraction of the total working time 

 occupied in the automatic cutting of shells 

 and in their handling respectively — the latter 

 being a period in which speeding up was 

 possible — showed that the work accomplished 

 in 100 minutes of the long hour system was 

 carried out in 80.5 minutes of the short system 

 — a decrease of 19.5 per cent, in time. 

 Taking the average hourly output of shells 

 per hour of actual work as 100, the average 

 hourly output of shells per hour in the fac- 

 tory under the long hour scheme was 85.43, 

 and under the short hour scheme 92.41. The 

 second part of the report is based on a study 

 of actual hourly output; it shows a uniformly 

 low efficiency in . the last hour of the long 

 shifts, whereas no such uniformity was to be 

 observed in the case of the short shifts. In 

 some instances there was no falling off at all. 

 A comparison of the records of the same 



