The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-27
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
TNFORMATION BUREAU
By FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
washington, ID. C.
THE NEW WARFARE.
U.-some of Its Problems.

ing conditions. This required piA-
marily a high altitude. The engineers
in charge went to Pixies peak in Colo
RADIO, where they had an altitude OF
1900 feet to start from.
The Liberty motor had been devel-
oped at the bureau of standards. the
scientists of the bureau attacked the
matter of testing the engine along a
the necessity for tests at a high alti-
tude, but from the purely scientific
standpoint a high altitude does not
necessarily mean climbing a mountain
range. It represents simply low at
mospheric pressure and low tempera-
ture So at the bureau of standards
they have built an artificial high-alti-
tude chamber, which is the most sue
cessful thing of it's kind in existence,
for testing airplane motors under the
conditions of actual flight
This chamber has heavy alright
walls and enormously thick doors.
The air-pressure within can be varied
to correspond with that found at any
height-five thousand feet, or ten, or
twenty. A special refrigerating sys-
tenn permits the temperature to be
varied accordingly. Artificial wind
currents can be produced at will The
whole furnishes a means for testing
airplane engines that is much more
convenient, accessible and adaptable
than any combination of natural con-
ditions.
Science VIII Win the War.
At the Bureau of Standards. they
believe implicitly that science will
win the war. They believe that only
rigid application of scientific
method to every process of warfare
will bring victory. They point to their
system of testing airplane motors as
an example of the purely scientific
method as it differs from methods
r-il 20 7eri-
neering. Both scientist and engineer
realize that high conditions
are needed for testing engines. The
engineer goes to a mountain peak to
find them. The scientist creates them
in his laboratory.
The force at the Bureau of Stand
ards has doubled since the war De-
gan. New buildings are going up rap
idly. There are $50 men at work in
the laboratories. hundreds of them
scientific specialists, of the first rank.
Several hundred problems are under
investigation touching all of the i'm
portant phases of modern warfare.
Many of these problems cannot
even be indicated. Others lie in the
field that is common to all the bellig-
erents, SO that it can do no harm to
mention them.
Poison gas warfare is a warfare of
chemists. The rapidity with which
the allies rallied from the first Ger
that they had chemists in the first
line. The remedy was found and ap-
piled instantly. Within a single day,
thousands of adequate masks were
available for the men in the trenches.
The problems Of gas warfare, on
which our scientists are at work, in
clude the perfection of means of de-
Tense, the development of new gases
for attack, and the devising of gas
tight containers for purposes of ship
ct &c in n
portant and difficult item. Leakage
Of poison gas is a serious matter.
One of the most abstruse applica-
tons of science in modern warfare is
the location of enemy batteries by
sound-waves. 1t is possible to mark
down the source of hostile shells from
invisible batteries firing from an I'M
known distance, simply by means of
the sound waves that come from the
exploding guns. The feat requires
the application of the most advanced
principles of physics, and the most
delicate instruments, but it has been
done, and America hopes to do it
more effectively than anyone else
hitherto.
Wireless-Tireless.
The field of wireless is one where
science is tirelessly at work. One of
the most important achievements of
the Bureau of Standards was the per-
lection of a means by which the di-
mined. A, ship at sea receiving a
wireless call can now tell whether it
comes from east, west, north or south
This is a matter of great practical i'm
portance when submarines send out
fake calls to lure merchant ships to
destruction.
The naked eye has practically gone
out of use in modern warfare as a
means OF observation. Everything of
this sort is done by glasses and sets
of glasses. Until, recently, the United
States was not able to make an opti-
cal glass to compete with that of
Germany. An interesting phase of it
lay in the fact that it is exceedingly
difficult to manufacture clay pots for
melting optical glass Even today.
itself and turn them over to American
manufacturers for use.
Experiments with the optical sys-
TENS of submarine and trench peri
scopes, airplane cameras, range find
ers and field glasses are going on con-
tiaually. The submarine periscope
was being steadily improved all over
the world, until quite suddenly a stage
was reached when in spite of an i'm
creased theoretical perfection, results
began to fall off. The bureau found
that the most improved periscopeS
were literally too good-too perfect
in their adjustment. By Stacking up
and introducing certain minor factors
of error, the practical efficiency of
the instrument was brought to a
higher point than ever before.
The Identifying Tag.
One of the less important inventions
made at the bureau, which is yet one
of the most interesting, is the little
etched metal tag to identify soldiers.
Each soldier will wear one of these
tags about his neck. 1t will identity
him his whole life thru, far more eff
f1n val Hor
for it will bear his finger-print pre-
served in metal. To accomplish this.
the tags are shaped of soft metal
with a low melting point. This is
warmed, and the soldier impresses the
ball of his thumb upon it. The tag
is thrown into an acid, which fixes
the print. The finished tag is imper-
Xious to rust or the action of sea