Mat 31, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



545 



Mechanical manufacture of xcindow glass: Dk. 

 F. L. Bishop. 



A manufacturer's experience with graduate 

 chemical engineers: S. E. Church. Two years' 

 experience with about one hundred graduate chem- 

 ical engineers has suggested the following appar- 

 ent deficiencies in training seemingly common to 

 men from a large number of colleges: 



1. Lack of judgment necessary to weigh correctly 



(a) the value or limitations of test data; 

 (6) the degree of accuracy required; 

 (c) the occasion for choosing quantitative or 

 qualitative methods of analysis. 



2. Lack of sufBcient imagination to grasp the indi- 



cated possibilities for further work pointed 

 out by experiments themselves partial or com- 

 plete failures. 



3. Lack of ability to write a report sufficiently 



well ordered and comprehensive to do justice 

 to the merits of the work accomplished. 



The writer favors the five- or six-year course for 

 chemical engineers but urges that especially in 

 abbreviated courses the student be given a better 

 practical sense of commercial values. 



A survey of high-school chemistry in Pennsyl- 

 vania: Alex.\nt)er Silverman. The report in- 

 cludes graphs and tabulated answers on college 

 preparatory chemistry from 126 of 971 schools re- 

 ceiving information blanks. Answers cover length 

 of course, when given, whether preceded or fol- 

 lowed by physics, number of lecture periods per 

 week, recitation periods, length ami number of 

 laboratory periods, number of sections of each and 

 number of pupils per section, text -books employed, 

 laboratory manuals employed, elements omitted, 

 theories, laws and principles omitted. Also infor- 

 mation about general science and other chemistry 

 courses given, number of subjects taught by in- 

 structors together with number of hours of lecture, 

 recitation and laboratory practise conducted. Fur- 

 ther, the training received in preparation for 

 teaching. The great lack of uniformity already 

 observed leads the author to recommend standardi- 

 zation by a state commission, or preferably by the 

 United States Commissioner of Education, with 

 power to enforce standards so that colleges and 

 universities may begin their work where the high 

 schools end, thus avoiding duplication. 



The following resolution was unanimously 

 adopted : 



Sesolved, That the thanks of the Joint Confer- 

 ence be extended to the New York World, the New 

 Tork Times and the Jeweler's Circular for co- 

 operating with the chemists of the United States 



in the conservation of platinum by excluding the 

 word platinum from their advertising columns. 



The third session was held on the morning of 

 Saturday, December 29, in the Applied Science 

 Building of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, 

 Vice-president Dr. Henry S. Drinker in the chair, 

 with an attendance of about forty-five. The pro- 

 gram of the session was as follows: 



Solution of spherical triangles by diagrams: 

 Horace R. Thayer. All spherical triangles may be 

 solved by the use of two simple formulse. If now 

 these be accurately computed and plotted, they 

 may be employed to solve many cases which occur 

 in practise with a minimum of cost, at the same 

 time lessening the danger of serious error. 



Conservation of fuel through smoke regulation: 

 J. W. Henderson. Conservation that merely con- 

 templates withholding the natural resources from 

 use, keeping them in their natural state, can 

 hardly be considered conservation in its broadest 

 application. The logical starting point is that of 

 "taking stock" of the natural resources. Having 

 this knowledge, conservation can be carried on, on 

 the basis of "the application of common sense to 

 common problems for the common good. ' ' The 

 needless waste of fuel and of recoverable by-prod- 

 ucts, in this country, has been conservatively esti- 

 mated at one billion ($1,000,000,000) dollars an- 

 nually. Investigations and experience demon- 

 strate that the production and emission from 

 stacks, of smoke prohibited by law, means xvaste — 

 direct waste of combustible materials and their by- 

 products and contributory, contingent waste of 

 building materials, household goods, vegetation 

 and of human energy, both physical and mental. In 

 a few eases smoke regulation is under state control. 

 Many foreign countries have placed it within the 

 activities of their central governing powers. The 

 work in Pittsburgh has proved that smoke regu- 

 lation is a fuel conservation problem. Smoke 

 means waste. Proi)er smoke regulation results in 

 saving fuels. Conservation as proposed will induce 

 comjilete combustion of them and stop the pro- 

 duction of smoke. Smoke regulation is so closely 

 related to conservation as to indicate the necessity 

 of the government adopting it in its program of 

 conservation. The work can not be of a construc- 

 tive and permanent character if left to the fluctu- 

 ating political activities of the cities, counties or 

 states. The way to meet the requirements is to 

 not make the smoke. This is accomplished by se- 

 curing more perfect combustion. The subject de- 

 serves the attention of scientists and of practical 

 engineers and of every thinking man and woman 



