Show r 4 9 ot U 8 bureau of standards building at washington prepared by national geographic society washington D 0 C service N THE nations capital scientists I 1 IN and laymen employed by the united states government and private institutions are quietly at cvrk making life easier and safer washington today has the largest number of scientific men and women gathered in any one spot of equal size in the world in the government ice lee alone are more than selen lists attached to more than half a nun hun dred bureaus and commissions whose research has uncovered many a new fact and created many a new inspru ment would you believe that the mere eight of your finger could bend a 5 inch steel bar mo no well wizards of the bureau of standards built an in strument ment so delicate that with it you can see the big bar bend when you lay your finger on it near by Is a pre liston balance with an accuracy of one fifty millionth of a pound this scale Is so delicate that it if you stand too near the mere heat of your body affects its balance practical tests giving results useful in many trades go on all the time xou you and other motorcar owners in america have dived millions of dollars through experiments made here with fuel brake linings tires road material etc in simulating road tests for tires for example an automobile wheel with a nice new tire Is put on a motor and speeded up it runs against another wheel a device which literally runs the road past the wheel this not only shows how fast the tire wears out but it shows too how power Is lost with different type z of tires a wind tunnel that long queer looking structure out in the yard with that big motor driven fan roaring in one end Is a wind tunnel in it aerial models bombs etc are used to learn the effect of wind streams on them in such tunnels tests are also made to show pressure on sl during wind storms with the fan revolving in one end an artificial wind Is blown through these tunnels at a speed of from 75 to ISO miles an hour when a house with a shingle root roof gets afire during a high wind neigh borin boring houses are in danger from fly ing sparks s parks to study this hazard in winds of different speed the bureau built a shingle roof used an airplane propeller to make the wind and set fire to the roof thus it could study the fl 11 of the embers A device by which airships recover ballast was made at the bureau an airship ordinarily loses weight equal to that of its fuel burned but by this device the moisture from the exhaust Is condensed thus recovering more than a pound of water for each pound of gasoline consumed lils saves the waste of much lifting gas hydrogen or helium which formerly had to be released to maintain static equilibrium and there are standards of perform an ance C e the bureau burea U aids aid S I 1 industry nd list r y I 1 in n work with ships watches sextants scales airplane instruments radio sets lamps milk testing machines and so on loss from waste in industry abou amou amounting to many millions a year Is avoided now by the bureau bureaus s work in simplified practice in the case of hotel chinaware alone for example sizes and varieties were reduced to ba by agreement among factories dealers and consumers the bureau aids industry ro to achieve trade standards too makers of many things from locks and hinges to dress patterns and wall paper come to it and agree that their products ab shall a 11 conform to certain standards but the bureau does not impose its tests or conclusions on the people they voluntarily bring their lems to it for aid in their solution other scientific groups in washington too are located the national academy of sciences the national research council the car negle institution of washington with its department of terrestrial magnet ism and geophysical laboratory and the national geographic society certain of the national societies in addition to the national geographic such as the national education asso elation the american association tor for the advancement of science the american chemical society the amer lean forestry ko restry association and the american council main tain their headquarters in the nation s capital the most extensive scientific grout under one administrative head corn com the 16 bureaus of the depart ment of agriculture A the olde oldest st of the governmental eclen tine organizations Is the coast an I 1 geodetic survey I 1 lor or more than a century many a shiland shi crew hav have e owed salvation to the tireless pains taking efforts of this bureau to which Is entrusted the survey of all coasts under the jurisdiction of the united states including rivers to the head of tidewater deep sea soundings and cur rents oft off our shores as well as mag betle observations and researches the results of such important studies appear in a off official lelal sailing charts tide tables notices to mariners of float ing wrecks newly discovered rocks and other menaces to navigation A technical library founded a cen tury ago has been assembled by this survey its maps photographic neg addes and prints pamphlets and field reports from surveying parties dealing with alaska and with our various boundary surveys aggregate tens of thousands when congress in 1879 set up the geological survey under the depart ment of the interior there was im posed on it the task of classifying all public lands and the study of their geologic structure and mineral deposits through the years to quote its for mer director george utis otis smith this has meant helping a pioneering people to settle a vacant land an indus trial people to harness har iless the forces ot of nature in the great work of develop ment all this with the well defined denned purpose of safeguarding the future of america As our nation grew this surveys functions multiplied As the west wag was settled the problems of conser conserving vin water for use on arid lands became one of its tasks in time too there fell to it the work of surveying forests and studies in a mining technology when these aties became too intense they led to the formation of separate bureaus sometimes under other departments such as the forest service and bureau of mines in the same way the con st ruction program based on the study of reservoir sites first made by the survey became the work of the reclamation cla mation service when it was formed being among the older scientific groups in the government this survey has thus mothered many infant bu beaus and today among its major activities are things geologic and topographic as well ell as water resources conservation and many alaskan ex pl orations tife publications the official and private scientific pub issued annually from wash ington make a most impressive exhibit difficult to visualize it if typhus breaks out in teheran plague in helping or cholera comes down the yangtze Yang 0 tze the united states public health service soon knows it our consuls in every corner of the world cable the news when certain diseases appear in foreign ports this Is so quarantine may be arranged where needed rats by the myriad have been gassed out of incoming ships tildes hides furs rags many kinds of cargo must be fumigated abroad before shipment here immigrants are examined too in various foreign ports where medical officers of the united states public health service are stationed the pan ama canal tor for example works like a strainer on all ships coming through it bound for american ports this finger of government known then as the marine hospital service 0 was first established in 1798 through generations it grew till now with its the rational national institute of health at washington it lt Is one of the worlds world s foremost medical research agencies though at first it merely did relief work for seamen today its manifold functions include the protection of the united sartes from the introduction of disease from without the med ica cal examination and inspection of all arriving aliens allens and prospective lin migrants the lre i retention entson of interstate spread of disease and the sup suppression on of epidemics with state and local health authorities in public health matters investigation of the diseases of man the supervision and control of biologic products public health education and dissemination of health information the maintenance of marine hospitals and relief sta eions for the care and treatment 0 ol 01 certain beneficiaries pr prescribed escrib ed by law the confinement and treatment of per sons ad licked to the use of habit form ing narcotic dru drugs who have corn com bitted offenses R the united states and of addicts wh vol in int arlly t then belv 1 fr tr nt and the providing of n I 1 il alce la in federal prisons |