Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-10-08

acres of Arkansas lands, they approved
! and accepted original surveys covering
fed under railroad and wagon road
! grants 1,624,14 acres. and they allowed
entries of public and Indian lands for
| 16,S61.214 acres.
| Some of the most interesting expert
mental work which is carried on by
! Uncle Sans govern
Forest Products ment is &C m :
| plished at the forest
Laboratory. products laboratory
maintained by the United States forest
service in cooperation with the Uni
versity of Wisconsin. at Madison, Wis
, The results obtained have a direct in
terest for the various industries which
depend upon wood in some form for
| their material, and also a general in
terest for every one.
| To benefit both these industries and
| the consumers of their products by
bringing about better and more eco
nomical use of wood in all Its forms is
| the object of the laboratory's expert
ments.
| Although wood seems to furnish an
| excellent material for street paving,
| the consumption for this purpose has
fallen off 80 per cent since 1911. One
| of the chief reasons for this is the
| tendency of oil to exude from the
| treated blocks and of the blocks them
selves to swell. Tests carried on by
| the laboratory to remove these defects
have been very successful, and the
methods of treatment evolved have
| been adopted by the committee on
paving of the American Society OF Mu-
| nicipal improvements and by several
| cities in the United States Briefly
the method is to apply both prelimi-
| nary and a final vacuum in the course
| of preservative treatment.
Another interesting experiment re-
| Gently carried out by the laboratory
| included the construction of an expert
| mental firehouse, in which it is posi-
| BILE to duplicate conditions existing in
modern Offices. Several test fires were
built in this house, and the results
promise to yield valuable information
| regarding the extent to which wood
| constitutes a fire hazard in modern
| buildings. Fire tests were made OF
| eighteen commercial paints designed
! for exterior use. of which only five
proved to have fire-retarding proper
| ties. Imprinted test pieces used for
comparison resisted ignition forty
three seconds while the five pieces just
| referred to resisted for periods vary
| ing from one minute and three seconds
| to two minutes and ten seconds. Four
| interior paints tested gave good re-
| suits
wood. Patents were applied for, to be
! dedicated to the public, on new fire.
proofng compound developed by the
! laboratory.
| Officals of the laboratory say that
tests carried on for the past few
! wears by the laboratory and a number
F.! of textile schools have finally demon
strated the value of Usage orange rae
tory waste source OF dyestuH
Commercial tests in dyeing leather ana
4 n
| Usage orange gave highly satisfactory
results. Usage orange grown In the
north is relatively lacking in dyestun.
and only material grown IN Iexas ana
| Oklahoma is suitable for commercial
use. The yellow dye which Usage or
ange is capable of providing IS now
| largely obtained from fustic. an I'm.
| ported wood. according to experts OF
| the laboratory.
Some s2,ooo.Ooo pounds of paper and
| S. 900 pounds of ink are used annually
by Uncle Sans big print
| Government cry. the government
| . printing Office. and the
| fflHtlHS. total expense of the Of
fee is something like se.ooo,ooo year
| Employees work eight hours day, re-
ceive compensation comparing IA
| vorably with union wages throughout
| the country, and are allowed thirty
days vacation with pay each year
Some divisions of the office run night
| forces all year and others only during
| the sessions of Congress. Employees
| working at night receive 20 per cent
advance over day rates of pay.
| It was not until 1852 that the Office
of public printer was created, with an
annual salary fixed at $4,000, prior to
which printing was done by contract
| and by special acts of Congress which
appointed various printers to do the
congressional work for certain speclhc
amounts, all of which were found
| wanting in practicability. It was not,
f, however, until 1851 that a printing
plant was established. AT that time
there were some 800 employees and the
building and equipment cost about
| sl35, 600 At the present time there are
more than 1000 employees, and the
| building and equipment are valued at
| several millions. There are now SIX
teen elevators in operation IN the OF
| fees, besides several lifts for handling
| forms of type from the pressrooms or
F, foundry: there are also eight automo-
| bile trucks in service. with special ca
| pacity ranging from 1000 to 5000
| hounds each. for delivering work done
at the office The pressrooms are equip
| ped with overhead carriers for handling
| roll stock, and pneumatic tubes furnish
| rapid communications between the va
| rious divisions.
| One section of the office which has
| proved to be of ususual interest to the
| general public is the division of public
| documents. This division is central
distributing agency for government
publications. and receives by law
| copies of all public documents printed
| in the government printing office A
specified number of these documents
are distributed to certain designated
repositories throughout the country
and other copies are sold at cost to the
public, no more than one copy to any
| one person. The interest shown by the
| public is evidenced by the fact that
| about 100000 letters making inquiries
| about documents arc received by this
division a year. More than $4,000, 900
| documents were sent out by the super
! intendent of documents last year, and
| the work along that line is increasing
| each year. The current stock of docu-
ments on hand is about $4,000, 900. Prop
! erly to handle this work requires the
services of some 200 employees and an
almost perfect system for keeping the
4 work current. To facilitate mailing, a
| thirty inch belt conveyor. operating
J through a tunnel seven feet high, eight
| feet wide and Ass feet long, connects
the government printing office with the
4 Of Z bo cit