Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-12

fs7S5T=aS7( AONG the many scientific
tkAH All activities of the federal gov
I& N M ernment there is none OF
lM @ deeper interest to every ody
l@Sa from the highe t to the low
SsSsseszza est, from the greatest to the
smallest, from the richest TO the poor
est, tan the bureau of standards. 1t
enters into the daily life of every one
of the nearly ninety million souls with
In the boundaries of the United States
Whether it be in what we eat, what
we wear, what we buy, or what we
sell, it affects us al, for to 1t we all
must look for the standards of our
measure Whether we buy a pound of
sugar. a yard of CLOTH pint of milk,
an acre of land, a cubic yard of stone,
a dram of medicine or a pennyweight
of gold, the 'how much" of it is in
directly determined by the bureau of
standards Every measure in the land
that is true measure must be either
direct or collateral descendant of the
prototype measures at the bureau or
standards Some idea of what short
measure means to the people may be
cleaned from the fact that it is author
itatively estimated that short milk
bottles cost the people of New York
SO, 100000 annually.
Through the international bureau of
standards and the French and Engllsh
governments, the United states has Sc
cured its standards of the various
measurements al we use the Engllsh
and French systems. These are kept
at the bureau of standards, and all
governmental measures are determined
by them. Then each state has a bu-
reau whose function it is % MAINTAIN
copies of the standards. Through the
bureau of standards these are made
to exactly agree with the prototype
/ MI. ,,I, fxr
its standards with the state standards,
and from these the people get the
standards that tell just what is
FOUND, a yard or bushel.
A study of the history of length
measurement will throw light on
the thoroughness with which standards
of measurement are ascertained. Te
foot has long been the unit of length
measurement, and tradition says that
Hercules foot fixed its length. An
other tradition says that it was Charlie
magnes pedal extremity whose length
is handed down to us in a measurement
of everyday use. The history OF the
British yard is an interesting one Ihe
ancient fixed standard was destroyed
with the parliament buildings in the
fire of 1884. The Rev. Mr.. Sheepshanks
devised a new standard, which has
since been legalized in England. This
is the standard in the United States,
also, for English measure.
Although the English system obtains
in ordinary use, congress has adopted
the metric system, and the meter ana
the kilogram have become the stand
ards Of measurement. The parent meas
ure in this country, on deposit in the
bureau of standards, is an exact copy
of the world parent meter at st.
Clouds, near Paris. 1t largely resem-
bles a capital Fl with the two sides
pressed outward at the top and bottom
like the rear part of the capital K.
The plane made by the cross bar OF
the II corresponds to the neutral plane
which constitutes the exact standard
The bar is made of 80 per cent plat
mum and 10 per cent iridium, about
$50 kilograms having been melted to
make the first standard and the copies
from il, thus insuring absolute uni
formity at all times.
This standard meter of ours is kept
in a room as carefully guarded by
bolted steel doors as if 1t were the
treasure of a great trust company or
banking house. This room is perfectly
ventilated, is carefully lighted, and
kept at a given temperature at all
times. It is seldom brought into use,
as standards made from 1t are used
for most of the verifying processes.
When a measure is to be verified or
a new one made, the secondary stand
ard from which it is made is kept
packed in ice, and the temperature
kept at an exact point while the meas
ure is being tested:
One of the measures tested by the
bureau where absolute accuracy Is es-
sential is the surveyors tape for the
coast and geodetic survey. They are
made of invar, and have only one
twenty eighth as much expansion
through heat as steel, and they are
tested by a standard measure kept
packed in ice, in a laboratory under
ground. This laboratory is in tunnel
which connects two of the buildings
of the bureau, and is filled with sys-
tenn of steam and brine pipes which
keeps the temperature uniform at all
times So accurate must these tapes
be that If, in measuring four lines
from the Atlantic TO the Pacific, and
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Can
adian border to find the exact center
of the United States, there should be
failure OF these lines to meet by
eight inches, the surveyors would not
| attribute it to error on their part, but
to other causes, like the difference
of level of the two oceans, for in
| stance.
In the matter of weight there is the
same demand for accuracy. The bu-
reau has scales so accurate that the
man who does the weighing must
stand at least twenty feet away from
it. lest the heat of his body affect the
operation. The graphite deposited on
piece of paper by marking with a
sharp lead pencil will turn the bal
ance, and the tread of fly would be
to it as a blow of a trip hammer to
the ordinary platform scales.
The measures of heat and cold musI
! he enuallv accurate. To the world
the boiling and freezing points are the
ones that determine the scale Of the