Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-12
The Bureau of Standards
Bv Frederic j. Haskin

! thermometer. But the boiling point
/ is as the North Pole cold compared to
the high temperatures that must be
registered in the studies of the seien-
tiic world. 1t has been found, for in
stance, that the temperatures of the
arc light, at its maximum brilliancy,
is 1900 degrees centigrade. In order
to effect a perfect scale on up from
| the boiling point to the maximum Of
all heat, experiments are made to de-
termine the melting point of iron, tin,
nickel, cobalt, palladium, platinum,
etc. The most delicate machinery
imaginable is there with which to test
thermometers, promoters, and other
measures of heat. The services of the
bureau are in great demand by the
commercial world, in furnishing exact
tests of thermometers. Particularly is
this true of the little clinical ther-
Imometers. Many thermometer manu-
facturers have been lent secondary
standards with which to test their
product and to insure accuracy. Other
| manufacturers have the bureau make
the tests for them, paying a fee there
for.
And so it is with every sort of meas
ure the bureau has. Here every kind
| of unit by which the people buy and
sell may be thoroughly tested by the
most accurate standards extant. But
| even this is a small part of the great
work done by the bureau of stand
ards. Its value to the government
is many times as great as is the eX-
pense of maintaining it. Uncle Sam
is one of the greatest buyers in the
world. When he goes into the market
and buys ink it is highly important
that it shall be good ink. 1t is esti-
mated that nine-tenths of the writing
fluids used in America will become in
visible before the lapse of a hundred
years. Thousands of documents are
\ written by the government that must
be preserved beyond that time. The
bureau of standards tests it and makes
sure. 1t is the same with its paper,
its muscilage, the coal 1t uses-every-
thing.
The bureau of standard bears an in
! teresting relation to the tariff-and the
| tariff was largely instrumental in ere
ating a universal standard of measure
ments in the United States. In the
| testing of sugar imported there may
be room for false standards that
might defraud the government and the
people out of vast sums of money. The
| tests are now being made by the bur
eau which determine the quality. The
bureau tests and standards also apply
to hundreds of other articles of inn
port Under the earlier tariff systems
| of the country there was such a wide
range of standards of measurement
used that the government was de-
frauded out of hundreds of thousands
! of dollars worth of revenue, owing to
the importation of things measured
by different standards than those laid
down by the government. This re-
| suited in the congressional enactmentS
| setting a standard for all measure
ments in which the customs houses
were interested. Since that time all
quantities and values have been
measured by those standards, and the
bureau sees that they are kept exact.
One may get some idea of the ex-
tent of the work of the bureau through
a statement of its activities during the
| last fiscal year. There were more than
10000 tests made, one-half of which
were tests of temperature measuring
apparatus. OF these 2S2 were of length,
| 1891 of mass, 2S30 of capacity, 1891 OPP
tical, 1910 engineering, and 2275 chem
ical OF the tests made approximately
half were for the government. So far
as the public is concerned seven
eighths of the tests were of thermome-
ters.
The measure of length is perhaps the
most essential of all measures. If all
standards of measurement were sud
denly blotted from the earth most of
them could be restored If only the
standard of length could be arrived
at again. Two ways have been found
| whereby this standard could be re-
stored to the ffty-millonth part of an
inch in accuracy. Professor Rowland
has devised a dividing engine which
will draw $4,000 lines to the inch with
none of them touching at any point
The production of these gratings has
enabled the physicist in his study of
the spectrum to enter fields of re-
| Lee nj
plore worlds hitherto beyond the ken
of man. In addition to this wonderful
| instrument Nicholson has devised
| what he calls an interferometer, and
| with it he can measure with the ut
most accurancy the length of a ray
of light. With these two instruments
left to mankind almost any measure
in the category could be re-estab-
lished if any accident should befall the
prototypes in England. Germany
/ France and the United States.
The average man does not realize
the Importance Of absolute eXactness
of measurement. In measuring a base
line for many astronomical calcula-
tions the variance of a pin head in
several miles would upset the verify
of the calculations. In the establish
ment Of these base lines the measure
| ments are made with measuring in
struments standardized with the ut
most care, and they are kept packed
in shaved ice in order to assure uni
formity of length at all times.
In a thousand ways the bureau of
standards comes into the home life
of the youngest infant that lives and
the oldest man that breathes. In some
cases it comes with a directness that
everybody feels. In other cases its
bearing and influence are vastly re-
mote.
TomOrrOw-'NIaking Big Guns"