THE National Bureau of Standards has just issued a circular entitled " State and Municipal Regulations for the Quality, Distribution, and Testing of Illuminating Gas." This circular (133 pages, uniform in style with other Bureau circulars) has been prepared after conference and correspondence with a large number of gas engineers and inspectors; and it represents, as nearly as possible, the average opinion of many men active in the field of gas manufacture and gas testing.
Part I of the circular gives a summary of the municipal gas ordinances now operative, and proposes an ordinance largely compiled from the best ordinance requirements now in force.
Part II treats similarly o.f State control of gas companies, and proposes technical rules for State regulations.
Part III quotes a few ordinances typical of those recently enacted, and gives the main portions of State gas laws now in force affecting gas quality, pressure, and meter accuracy.
The circular does not concern itself with financial regulations of gas companies, nor does it include any discussion of the comparative value of various methods of works management It deals mainly with the candlepower, heating value, purity, and pressure of the gas and gas-meter testing.
The present publication has grown out of the investigation of the methods and standards employed in gas photometry and gas calorimetry, undertaken by the Bureau three years ago. A second circular on the methods of testing employed for official inspection work is now being prepared. Although it cannot be expected that the regulations for or methods of gas testing will ever be entirely uniform throughout the country, it is believed that if the results of a comprehensive investigation of the subject are published, a greater uniformity of method, and in some eases more accurate measurements, will result
The attitude of the Bureau of Standards is entirely advisory, and its intention is to place-in the hands of the technical and general punic an impartial and, as nearly as may be, an accurate VOL. CLXXIII,