172 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. Xo. .327. 



rations, and it is a matter of considerable 

 importance to Imow whether the conditions 

 of the contracts are met by the manufac- 

 turers. 



In addition to the exhibit made by the 

 bureau of standards in the govei-nment 

 building at the St. Louis exposition, an 

 electrical laboratory was equipiied and 

 maintained in the electricity building, 

 'i bis was done at the request of the exposi- 

 ti(in management, the object being twofold; 

 tirst to exhibit a working electrical labora- 

 tory, and, second, to do electrical testing 

 for the jury of awards, for the railway 

 test commission, and other electrical in- 

 terests at the fair. The laboratory build- 

 ing, which was within the palace of elec- 

 tricity, and extended along one of its walls 

 for a distance of about 175 feet, was di- 

 vided into six rooms. Notwithstanding the 

 fact that it was a temporary structure the 

 laboratory possessed many of the appoint- 

 ments of a permanent installation ; and, 

 although many disadvantages and limita- 

 tions were experienced in doing scientific 

 work amid such surroundings, we succeed- 

 ed in doing a good deal of satisfactory 

 work, including both research and testing. 

 So complete a laboratory has never been 

 installed in any previous woi-ld"s fair, and 

 it proved to be of considerable interest 

 both to visitors and to those electrical in- 

 terests which availed themselves of its fa- 

 cilities for testing instruments. A refrig- 

 erating machine, installed adjacent to the 

 laboratory as an exhibit, furnished refrig- 

 eration for experimental purposes and also 

 for controlling the temperature and re- 

 ducing the humidity of the atmosphere 

 within the laboratory. This proved not 

 only a great convenience in doing experi- 

 mental work, but also a comfort to the 

 workers, and the cool office of the l)ureau 

 was a favorite retreat for the electrical 

 jury in tlie hottest days of the jury period. 



The third division of the \vo)-k of the 



bureau is the chemical division, in charge 

 of Pi'ofessor W. A. Noyes. The develop- 

 ment of this work has waited on the com- 

 pletion of our laboratory buildings. The 

 installation of the equipment of the chem- 

 ical laboratory is, however, now in progress 

 and chemical work will be well under way. 

 before the end of the present fiscal year. 

 The work in chemistry will consist in part 

 in cooperating in certain lines of physical 

 research, and in part in serving the chem- 

 ical interests of the country. This will be 

 done partly by research and partly by 

 testing. 



The bureau has already done consider- 

 able testing of apparatus used in volu- 

 metric analysis. The American Chemical 

 Society, through its committee, has been 

 cooperating with the bureau in fixing the 

 limits of tolerance for such apparatus and 

 in defining the specifications to be followed 

 ])y the manufacturers. Another commit- 

 tee of the American Chemical Society has 

 pi'oposed a plan whereby standards of 

 purity of chemical reagents shall be set, 

 after careful investigation of the subject, 

 and specific labels selected to indicate def- 

 inite degrees of purity of such reagents. 

 The bureau of standards, according to this 

 plan, is to cooperate with the society in 

 securing conformity to these standards on 

 the part of manufacturers. I will not 

 undertake to give details of the proposi- 

 tion ; the work is of great importance and 

 promises to bring the bureau of standards 

 into close relations with the manufac- 

 turing and analytical chemists of the coun- 

 try. Another subject in which the bureau 

 has been invited to cooperate Avith the 

 American Chemical Society is in the mat- 

 ter of .securing uniformity in technical an- 

 alyses. Too great discrepancies ai'e found 

 in the resvdts obtained by different public 

 and other chemists when analyzing por- 

 tions of the same sample. This is largely 

 due to the different methods of analysis. 



