The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1915-04-15

~ tons capital is group of tn
greatest aggregations Of won
e der workers in the New World. Il
their enchanted chambers trrtl
makes fiction seem tame and common
! place. Men make fairies appear weak
, insipid and impotent as doors o.
strange things.
Entering there, one may see 4 grair
of sand become mountain, an incl
become mile, an unappreciablt
zephyr become a bowling storm the
football of fly become the thunder
ing tread of draft horse upon a
threshing floor, the heat Of a candle
roaring furnace, the unperceived
warmth of star cheering Preside,
and the pressure of finger the force
of thousand giants ~ one.
These enchanted chambers are the
creation of the Uu:red States Bureau
of Standards.
Here can he seen instruments of
such delicacy and precision that the
mind at first fails to grasp the full
significance of what they can accom-
plish.
In one room is a balance so sensi-
tive that the mere presence of the
operators body generates an amount
of heat sufficient to disturb its accu-
racy.
In another there is one SO delicately
adjusted that it shows the loss of
weight due to the reduction of the
earth's attraction when two pieces
of metal are weighed one upon anoth-
er instead of side by side.
Remarkable beyond the imagination
are the heat measuring instruments
which register infnitesimal fuctua
tions of temperature. A ray of light
may have started ten years ago from
some distant star, and may have spent
all of those ten years hurting earth
ward bound through space at gait
so astounding that it could girdle the
globe in far less time than it takes to
blink the eye. Yet when it falls upon
the sensitive bolometers at the bu-
reau of standards they will tell the
observer how much heat that ray
brought with it from the star to the |
earth.
Such are few of the most delicate
instruments. But there are others
which are as powerful as they are
sensitive.
In the engineering laboratory there
is huge testing machine which can
tear apart the strongest steel girders
used in building great skyscrapers,
while on the floor above are little
electrical furnaces capable of gener-
ating heat intense enough to melt
the most refractory materials. The
bureau can measure accurately cold
great enough to liquefy the very air
we breathe, and heat which can melt
solid rocks.
This is commercial age, and even
his institution, so eminently scientific,
mas something to sell. For example,
t will supply pure-absolutely pure
sugar for the trifiing sum of SIS
cost price, in fact, and
yet, surprising as it may seem, there
S a ready sale. ;
The weights tested by the bureau {
.ange from those used by city and
state scalers in testing the weights s
md measures of commerce down to {
hose used by scientists in most pre- '
Use and exacting work. To do such G
esting as this the finest Instruments /
re required, and weights which vary O
rom great masses as big as steam
r trunk down to tiny atoms which o
you'd look lonely on pins head. The a
mallest of these is the 1-20 MILL v
ram, or 100000 of an ounce. Tho
lade of the highest metal known, r
luminum, when set on a balance one s
as to look carefully in order to be a
are that it is not a mere scratch on l.
lie surface OF the weighing pan. The
alance on which this weight is used u
an weigh with accuracy down to II
50,000,000 of an ounce. Il
On one of the balances the weigh al
& is made in a vacuum, so that the a,
eight and buoyancy of the air does OF
Vt Interfere with tie result. b,
Another balance is so sensitive that
can detect the difference due to the tn
intuition of the earth's attraction. SC
prove this, an experiment was spe ca
,ly made for the purpose of this tn
ticle. Two Kilograms were weighed in
lie by side, then one kilogram was of
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