140 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 421. 



standard cells, and instruments used in 

 measuring resistance and electromotive 

 forces. These standards are fundamental 

 to all electrical measurements, and special 

 stress has been laid upon the development 

 of this department. 



Rooms 28 and 29 are to be employed for 

 the investigation and testing of standards 

 of capacity and inductance, and for study- 

 ing problems in which capacity and induc- 

 tance are involved. Rooms 36, 38 and 39 

 are to be used for research in other alter- 

 nating- or direct-current problems. 



The third floor provides accommodation 

 at one end for a museum, apparatus and 

 supplies; at the other end for the library 

 and reading room, and in the central por- 

 tion for the offices of administration. 

 These rooms were placed on the third floor, 

 in order to devote the two lower floors 

 to laboratory purposes — where freedom 

 from mechanical disturbance is of greater 

 importance. The library measures 28 X 48 

 feet. 



Room 61 on the fourth floor is to be 

 devoted to researches on photometric 

 standards, work which will be carried on 

 in connection with the photometric labora- 

 tory of the mechanical building. Room 60 

 will accommodate the work on mercurial 

 thermometers, including ordinary ther- 

 mometers, precision thermometers, and 

 clinical thermometei-s. Room 70, at the 

 east end of this floor, is a large general 

 laboratory which may be used for either 

 physical or chemical investigations. The 

 other rooms of this floor will be fitted up as 

 a chemical laboratory, for work in ana- 

 lytical, physical and electrochemistry. 



On the fifth floor is to be located a com- 

 modious lecture room, which may also be 

 used to some extent as a laboratory; an 

 apparatus room, and two or three storage 

 rooms. 



In addition to the heating and ventila- 



ting system, in which each room has a flue 

 for supplying fresh air (heated or cooled 

 as the case may be), and a second flue for 

 carrying air away from the room, there 

 is to be a separate exhaust system with a 

 connection to each laboratory room, and 

 also to each toilet room, the storage battery 

 rooms, the hoods of the chemical labora- 

 tories, etc. These exhaust flues open down 

 into the basement, where they are gathered 

 into one large duct, which is carried 

 through the tunnel to an exhaust fan in 

 the engine room. This fan will run at a 

 comparatively high speed, and will insure 

 a positive draft at each inlet to the system. 



Much thought has also been given to 

 such features of the laboratory equipment 

 as plumbing, work tables, cases, etc., but 

 space forbids giving any particulars. 



Edward B. Rosa. 



National Bureau of Standards, 

 Washington, D. C. 



AMERICAN PHILOSOPEIGAL ASSOCIATION. 

 OvEK flfty members attended the second 

 meeting of the American Philosophical 

 Association, held in Washington, in affilia- 

 tion with the American Society of Natural- 

 ists and the other societies meeting under 

 the auspices of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, on De- 

 cember 30 and 31. The affiliation of the 

 association with the scientific societies at 

 this its flrst meeting following the meeting 

 last Easter, at Avhich it was organized, is 

 significant of the close relation felt to exist 

 between philosophy and the special sci- 

 ences, a significance emphasized by the fact 

 that a member of the association was this 

 year president of the Society of Natural- 

 ists. Probably there was something of the 

 old contempt for abstract speculation on 

 the part of men of science in the good- 

 natured laughter which broke out at the 

 dinner of the naturalists, when it was an- 

 nounced that the psychologists and phi- 



