extent of $100,000,000 annually should receive some consideration from the weights and measures officials of the United States. Moreover, the Congressman was conservative. Many of the manufacturers in the city of New York are selling loaves of bread for 8 or 9 cents which do not weigh 14 ounces, but 12 and 122 ounces. While the bill does not enter into regulation within the individual States, nevertheless it shows to the respective States that Congress is vitally interested in this question. I hope after its passage that every State in the Union will follow the example set, and have enacted laws along the broad lines laid down by Congressman Brand. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Mr. Holwell, I feel it a great pleasure on my part to put such a motion. We gathered data in 67 cities on the weights of 3,000 loaves of bread and we found 105 different weights.

(The question was taken and the motion was agreed to.)

Mr. MOORE. I move we have a rising vote of thanks to Congressman Brand for his address this morning.

(The motion was seconded, the question was taken, and the motion was agreed to by a unanimous rising vote.)

Mr. BRAND. I appreciate this very much and I thank you for your vote of approval of the Federal bread bill, which I am sure will have an influence upon Congress. But do not forget that you have a duty in reference to your State laws, and also that your influence with Members of Congress will be of great value, in writing them on this subject, because they know that you know more about it than anyone else.

INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES AND GENERAL IMPRESSIONS OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ABROAD

By L. V. JUDSON, Bureau of Standards

Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, during the past year I had the pleasure of being at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which is located at Sevres, a suburb of Paris, and of visiting various standardizing laboratories in Europe. Although my trip was primarily for the purpose of gathering information on the methods used abroad in precise measurements, I also had opportunity of observing some of the general conditions prevailing in the administration of weights and measures in Europe. I was especially interested in the work of high precision, and particularly in the recomparison of the meter which Doctor Stratton delivered to the International Bureau three years ago, and which I had the opportunity of bringing back to the United States after the work of recomparison was completed. Incidentally I also wanted to know what was going on in the various cities along lines of routine testing of commercial apparatus.

First, I will speak of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. This bureau is small compared with the Bureau of Standards here in Washington. It has but seven or eight members on the scientific staff, and two principal buildings. The office building and residence of the director commands a view across the Seine, and of the entire city of Paris. It is one of the old houses formerly used by the royalty of France.

A special building has been built to house the laboratories conducting the precise measurements for which the bureau was founded. Special rooms are provided for (a) the comparison of geodetic standards; (b) the testing of commercial standards and gauges; (c) the comparisons incident to the determination of coefficients of thermal expansion; (d) the comparisons of the National prototype meters, one of the most important functions of the International Bureau; and (e) mass determinations. Several rooms are devoted

to the work in connection with air and precision glass thermometers. This brief outline will serve, perhaps, to enable you to understand, in general, the character of work performed at the International Bureau.

It will interest you to know that the comparator now used in the tests of meter bars is the same one as was used by L. A. Fischer when he took our meter over for recomparison in 1903. In this connection, I may say that the conclusions reached by Mr. Fischer as a result of this recomparison, which at first were thought to be in error, have since been substantiated in every detail. It has been determined without question that meter No. 27, the United States prototype, has not really changed, but that two laboratory standards of the International Bureau have, in fact, altered to some extent, and that the coefficients of expansion of various meters were not originally deternined with the accuracy now possible. I might also mention that it was in a room next to the balance room in which, in 1895, Doctor Michelson determined the value of the meter in terms of wave lengths or red cadmium light by the use of the interferometer, a notable achievement and a most valuable contribution to science.

Although geodetic work is not particularly related to the activities of this conference, you may be interested in seeing a picture of the 4-meter comparator used for comparing bars for geodetic base-line measurements of high-precision surveys. It shows the tendency to-· ward a considerable complexity in a great many European instruments, which often tend toward enormous sizes. The Russian Government has a comparator of this type which is probably the newest, largest, and most up to date in existence. So much for the International Bureau, the work of which is primarily the comparison of standards of weight and measure.

As to general weights and measures impressions received abroad, I may say that many things in Europe appear strange to an American. For instance, in Holland they have a law which prescribes very definitely the character of weights which may be used. I have here one of a series of charts from which you will see that even the smallest details, such as the diameter of the knob, are carefully specified. This same character of regulation is found in relation to other classes of apparatus, although in the matter of scales there appear to be no proper requirements concerning their test and use. I have seen in use balances which were badly rusted, and others which were 30 degrees out of level.

To us in the United States it seems strange that automatic scales are not permitted in a number of countries in Europe. For instance, in Belgium certain types of automatic scales are not allowed. In Switzerland the weights and measures officials are rather hoping that they can get a law whereby the use of the automatic scales will be

permitted, but at the present time in the meat markets, for instance, the scales used are almost all of the old type with equal arms. Throughout Europe sales are made on the weight basis, at least as much or more so than in the United States; they use measures very little. They seem to have adopted the practice of selling almost everything by weight. And so we find every where these even-arm balances of all sorts of types; and as long as they can put a weight on one side balanced against commodity on the other, they appear to be satisfied.

Gasoline pumps and measuring devices are now in rather common use abroad, most of them being American made. A number of oil and gasoline companies are either American companies or are American controlled, and they are seeking to have the European countries promulgate regulations similar to the American specifications on gasoline-measuring devices, but there is as yet little, if any, legislation affecting these devices.

Turning now to the national bureaus I may first mention the Swiss. This bureau goes to the individual city, as the system is that of a centrally controlled testing and checking organization. In the bureau at Berne, Switzerland, is a lecture room to which the field men go to receive detailed instructions and information. The local sealers of weights and measures also test the track scales in their jurisdictions, so in this room are models of track scales as well as of other weighing and measuring devices. These officials periodically go to Berne to learn the details and new developments in their field of work. There is a sort of a lecture course given on the theory of the balances and methods of testing.

In Italy there is a school of instruction in weights and measures inspection work. A course has been outlined which all inspectors must attend. In the laboratory work connected with the course these men calibrate a subdivided length standard by the method of least squares, they calibrate sets of weights, and they are grounded in the fundamentals of laboratory methods of measurement. This is not with the idea that they will use these methods in the field, but in order that they may have knowledge of the precise methods used in the laboratory and will understand what refinements are necessary if they should ever encounter that type of work, and the full meaning of certificates and reports from the laboratory. The Italian bureau in Rome has an atlas of weights and measures which is somewhat like the Dutch one but very much larger and even more detailed. In this atlas I recently noticed that some dimensions on balances were specified down to the thousandth of a millimeter. The manufacturer must make his balance not merely so that it will weigh correctly, but it must be constructed according to these specifications.

Just a word about the museums. I visited many of them to see what was on exhibit to illustrate the design of apparatus at various periods, and found it very instructive, especially concerning the weights and measures of the world. In one of the museums in Paris-one of the largest museums of mechanical and other scientific and technical devices-I found that the manufacturers of the United States back in the sixties and seventies had sent over copies of what were then our latest scales. The atmosphere is very good in 6379°-24

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Paris for the preservation of museum exhibits and they take good care of the instruments. Thus, these scales dating from 1860 to 1870 still appear bright and new. They are surrounded by later models of French, English, and German manufacture, and it appeared as if no particular effort had been made to secure or to send the latest American models of such things as balances or platform scales over there. Thus, to a casual observer, unless the dates were noticed, it would appear that the American scales were far behind those of European manufacture. This is one of the dangers of museums. I also examined some of the balances of 50 to 100 years ago, and they were very interesting. Although they were not precision balances, they did represent careful workmanship. Much time was spent, however, in putting scroll work and elaborate decorative designs on the balance. They took particular pride in making each individual scale, but that they did not usually make it a precision scale could be seen by a casual inspection.

[During the course of this address Mr. Judson exhibited lantern slides of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, and also showed charts and other exhibits of interest.]

DISCUSSION OF ABOVE PAPER

Mr. DALE. About a year or two ago there was a cable dispatch from Paris stating that the International Bureau had found out that the meter had changed and that they were in doubt whether it was really a change in the length of the bar or the result of the widening of the lines from the washing of the meter. During your stay at the International Bureau, did you get any information on that point?

Mr. JUDSON. I got a great deal of information on that point. The international prototype meter had remained absolutely unchanged and, in fact, the meters of the different countries were in every case, as far as could be determined, the same as when they were first compared. The unfortunate fact is that two meters, which were laboratory standards at the International Bureau-not fundamental standards, but two bars used for laboratory workdid change; but that did not invalidate the work of the bureau except in a few instances. It was with these laboratory standards that Mr. Fischer made his comparison in 1903, and not with the primary standard. That was what caused the discussion regarding our meter. The strange thing is that those two laboratory standards changed, and changed alike. The International Bureau was amazel, because they had compared these two standards with each other for a good many years and it was supposed that, inasmuch as they remained the same relative to each other, in all probability they were retaining the same length relative to the prototype meter and to the national standards. Why those two laboratory standards changed is really unknown. The change was of the order of three ten-thousandths of a millimeter, three-tenths of a micron, or to put it another way it is three ten-millionths of a meter.

Mr. DALE. At what temperature do they make these comparisons? Is it at zero centigrade or is it at the ordinary temperature of the room?

Mr. JUDSON. Ordinarily at the room temperature. However, measurements are also made for the coefficient of expansion, in which case comparisons are made at temperatures from zero to 40° and more centigrade.

Mr. DALE. Is the prototype meter-that is, the one marked with the large "M"-kept the year round at the same temperature, or does the temperature vary with the seasons?

Mr. JUDSON. In the vault where the meter is kept the temperature is very nearly constant. I am not sure of the actual temperature variation, but believe it is but a fraction of a degree. Below the basement of the laboratory building there is a vault where the laboratory standards are kept, and down below that vault is the vault where the prototype meter is kept, and it is sufficiently far below the ground surface so that the temperature is very nearly constant. It should be remembered that the outside temperature variation is much less in Paris than it is here in Washington.

Mr. DALE. Some time ago Doctor Guillaume wrote me that they had their doubts about the practicability of establishing standards and verifying them by light rays and that they were experimenting with new materials, trying to get something better than this platinum-irridium alloy, and he mentioned quartz. I would like to ask if you can give any information on that?

Mr. JUDSON. The only information I can give is this: There is a way of using the wave length of light as a unit of length. The wave length of light is very short, and secondary standards are needed. These must be end standards and not line standards, and it has been proposed that quartz be used. At this time a man named Perard is working on this investigation, but so far as I know there have been no final results on it.

Mr. SPOTZ. This question of accuracy is of importance to everybody, and it has often occurred to me that while it is possible to make accurate comparisons in the laboratory on your test bar, you are governed by the accuracy of measurement of the room tempera

ture.

Mr. JUDSON. The thermometers which are used for this highprecision work are French thermometers. We find that there is no one in Germany or France, or indeed in all Europe, who is able to make at the present time thermometers accurate enough for this high-precision work. There are, however, a considerable number of thermometers that were distributed along with the meters to the different countries-the Bureau of Standards has several of them-that have been standardized to a high precision. With them it is possible to estimate to a few thousandths of a degree, using proper precautions, but such thermometers are very valuable and at the present time they can not be replaced.

THE ELIMINATION OF SHORT WEIGHT AND MEASURE

By ARTHUR MCWILLIAMS, Chief, Division of Dairies and Foods, State of Ohio

The accuracy of a weighing or measuring device never has nor never will mean anything to the class of dealers in commodities who are willing to chance violation of the law for the purpose of obtaining added financial gain by defrauding their patrons. We