Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 79.djvu/223

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE BUREAU OF STANDARDS
219

necessarily incomplete. It touches the high spots and refers only to matters likely to be of most popular interest. The work is progressing in all divisions with a vigor and comprehensiveness that promise even better results for the near future. The last congress made an appropriation of $200,000 for the erection of an additional building for the exclusive use of the division of electricity. The pay roll of the bureau includes about 280 names, and after July first it will be increased to something over 300. The additional assistants will enable several divisions to push forward work of great practical significance.

It would be an injustice not to say that the success of the bureau has been due in no small degree to the continuous service in their respective positions of Dr. S. W. Stratton as director, Dr. Edward B. Rosa as chief physicist, and Mr. L. A. Fisher and Mr. Charles W. Waidner as associate physicists at the head, respectively, of the divisions of weights and measures and of heat.

The scientific conclusions and data secured are published in a series of bulletins, which have now reached the seventh volume and which bear witness to the activity of this branch of the public service. In addition to the bulletins, circulars on important practical problems are issued from time to time; these are sent freely to persons and firms likely to need them in their professional practise or in manufacture. It is a matter worthy of the highest praise that party politics has never had any place whatever in the support or work of the Bureau of Standards.