8 SCIENCE 
See. K—J. J. MecCleod, Cleveland, Ohio. 
Sec. L—J. McKeen Cattell, Columbia Univer- 
sity. 
Secretaries of Sections: 
See. B—W. J. Humphreys, Mount Weather, Va. 
Sec. E—Geo. F. Kay, University of Iowa. 
See. K—Waldemar Koch, Chicago University. 
General Secretary—H. HE. Summers, Iowa State 
College. 
Secretary of the Councii—H. W. Springsteen, 
Western Reserve University. 
JOHN ZELENY, 
General Secretary 
THE WORK OF THE ELECTRICAL DIVISION 
OF THE BUREAU OF STANDARDS? 
1. INTRODUCTION 
THe Bureau of Standards has grown 
considerably, both in equipment and per- 
sonnel, since its inception in 1901. The 
original staff of fourteen has increased to 
nearly three hundred, and the material 
equipment has been augmented in a simi- 
lar ratio. Its functions also have de- 
veloped, although authority for all its 
manifold activities is contained in the 
brief act of Congress of March 3, 1901, 
which established the Bureau, and its 
growth has been closely along the lines laid 
down by the director in his first announce- 
ments of the policy of the new bureau. 
The name Bureau of Standards does not 
signify to the average person the wide 
scope of the work of the bureau, which is 
really a national physical, chemical and 
engineering laboratory. In Germany 
there are three similar national institu- 
tions, and the establishment of a fourth 
has been proposed; these four combined 
would cover the field occupied in this coun- 
try by the Bureau of Standards. The 
German institutions referred to are the 
Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, for 
physics; the Normal Hichungs-Kommis- 
1 Address of the vice-president and chairman of 
Section B, Washington, 1911. 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 888 
sion, for weights and measures, and the 
Material Prufungs Amt, for engineering 
and the testing of materials. In addition 
to these three institutions, which have been 
in active operation for many years, a royal 
chemical institute for chemistry has been 
for some time under consideration. In 
England the National Physical Labora- 
tory occupies a field more nearly like that 
of the Bureau of Standards, but the 
Board of Trade divides with it some of 
these functions. 
The work of the Bureau of Standards is 
distributed among seven divisions, as fol- 
lows: 
I. Electricity and photometry. 
II. Weights and measures. 
. Heat and thermometry. 
IV. Opties. 
V. Chemistry. 
Vi. and VII. Engineering and the test- 
ing of materials. 
Thus, it will be seen that the work of 
Divisions I., I1f. and IV. correspond to 
that of the Reichsanstalt of Germany, and 
the remaining four divisions to the other 
three German institutions mentioned 
above. 
The work of the bureau may be broadly 
divided into two parts, research and test- 
ing, although much time is devoted to the 
preparation of specifications, the standard- 
ization of practise and the diffusion of in- 
formation that does not fall under either 
of these heads. To undertake to describe 
the work of research, testing and stand- 
ardization carried on in all the divisions of 
the bureau would be a task requiring 
more time than is at present available. I 
shall, therefore, limit myself to the work 
of Division I., and if I succeed in bringing 
to your minds a full appreciation of the 
character and importance of the work we 
are trying to do in electricity, magnetism 
and photometry, you may take this when 
