546 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1222 



who appreciates that there is an " inalienable right 

 to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 

 Smoke regulation of the character indicated should 

 be country-wide. 



Modern tendency in locomotive design: L. E. 

 Endslet. The locomotive of to-day is being 

 scientifically designed and constructed in order to 

 produce as ef&cient and powerful a locomotive as 

 possible with the minimum of weight. Special 

 grades of steel are used and some parts are being 

 heat-treated in order to get a stronger part of less 

 weight. To-day a horsepower is being developed 

 in the modern locomotive with thirty per cent, less 

 coal than that fifteen years ago. This has all been 

 brought about by the addition of superheaters, 

 brick arch, stoker, etc. 



Measuring telephone transmission: K. L. 

 Snyder. Brief review of the advance made in the 

 art of measuring transmission over telephone lines. 

 Notation of the charaoteristies of circuits which 

 cause losses in telephone transmission. Pointing 

 out that savings are accomplished by the advance 

 in the art of calculating and measuring telephone 

 transmission. 



Industrial housing and town planning: George 

 W. Case. Many of *he industrial towns being 

 built in America are laid out according to the 

 G-arden City idea, a method of city planning which 

 originated in England. A Garden City plan is one 

 in wihich sufficient ground is devoted to each house 

 to provide, in addition to plenty of light and air, a 

 garden for every family. The streets are generally 

 laid out to curve with the contours, to reduce the 

 amount of grading and allow the placing of 

 houses to obtain the best architectural effects. 

 Parks and playgrounds provide places for recrea- 

 tion and proper restrictions insure permanent 

 homes. Under an enabling act of 1890 the British 

 governiment lends money on long-term bonds, to be 

 used in building houses for working people, on 

 tracts laid out in the above manner. We need such 

 a law, in this country, to properly develop the 

 boundaries of our industrial cities, so they will 

 not become slum areas and also to build permanent 

 houses for our working people, in well-laid-out 

 tracts, and finance them so that the payments can 

 be made to fit the income of the wage-earner. The 

 high labor turn-over, being experienced in our in- 

 dustries at the present time, is receiving much at- 

 tention from employers, and those who are build- 

 ing houses, of the right sort, report substantial 

 successes in stabilizing their labor forces by this 



The electrical safety worh of the Bureau of 

 Standards: M. G. Llotd. A study of the accident 

 hazards connected with electrical work led the 

 Bureau of Standards to formulate a set of rules 

 for the construction and operation of electrical 

 equipment which is known as the National Elec- 

 trical Safety Code. These rules were published 

 over a year ago after many tentative drafts had 

 been criticized and revised by conferees represent- 

 ing the various utilities, inspection interests and 

 state commissions interested in and affected by the 

 rules. The Code has been cordially received and 

 is receiving general application on trial with ten- 

 tative and in some cases formal adoption by fed- 

 eral, state, municipal authorities and private bodies. 



Higher harmonics of polyphase electrical sys- 

 tems: V. Kakapetoep. Higher harmonics in a 

 symmetrical ?n-phase system are considered for 

 both the star and the mesh connection. It is 

 shown which harmonies can not exist in the mesh 

 voltage although present in the star voltages, and 

 which harmonics give rise to circulating currents 

 in a mesh. The phenomenon of oscillating neutral 

 is explained and the effect of secondary mesh cur- 

 rents in furnishing transformer magnetizing cur- 

 rents is discussed. Polyphase magnetomotive 

 forces are treated in the most general case when 

 harmonics are present both in time and in space. 

 Pormulffi are given for the order of harmonics 

 which produce gliding and pulsating M.M.E. 's. 



Mineral composition of refractory silica iricJc: 

 J. S. McDowell. Of the minerals tridymite, cris- 

 tobalite and quartz constituting silica brick, tridy- 

 mite has the lowest thermal expansion. An all- 

 tridymite brick would, therefore, have the lowest 

 spaUing tendency. Microscopic analyses of brick 

 burned from one to ten times show that at the slow 

 rate of inversion of the quartz to tridymite, an all- 

 tridymite brick would not be commercially prac- 

 tical. Analyses of two bricks, one made of Bara- 

 boo and the other of Medina quartzite, illustrate 

 the greater rapidity of the inversions of quartz to 

 cristobalite and tridymite with the finer textured 

 Medina rock. 



Why dams fail: Edward Godfrey. History of 

 under pressure as an idea in the professional mind. 

 Present status of the idea of under pressure. Loss 

 of weight of damS and submerged piers discussed 

 and compared. Tests of under pressure. Expla- 

 nations of the failure of dams. The kind of 

 masonry dams that fail. IneflSciency of some at- 

 tempts at prevention of failure by uplift. 



Arthur H. Blanchakd, 



Secretary 



