Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

84 FOUNDING THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS (1901-10)
it, adj acent and connected by tunnel to the North building.60 The first
cryogenic (low-temperature) investigations at the Bureau were begun by
Franklin Durston that same year. The new building was not completed
until the spring of 1906.
Although the Bureau, up to this time had been principally concerned
with establishing fundamental standards and planning basic research pro-
grams, an incident late in the. autumn of 1904 sharply reminded the staff of
its responsibilities in the field. of commercial standards. One evening a
fire started in the dead leaves near the' railed boardwalk that had been built
from the top of the hill' down through'. the woods to the avenue. Franklin
Durston, who as a. very junior member of the electrical division was also
acting night watchman, got out all the hose in the North and South buildings
to get a line to reach' the fire. He found that because of differences in the
threads the hoses. could not, be coupled. With some difficulty and damage
to his shoes, the fire was. finally stamped out. The next day was
quite a discussion as to how it. happened that hose from two the
National Bureau of Standards was not sufficiently standardized to,; admit of
mutual coupling." 61
The same lack of uniform threads had been largely responsible for'
the raging destruction of the great Baltimore fire back in February1 of that
year. Engine companies arriving by special train from within
3 hours after the fire began found themselves helpless when their hoses would
not fit Baltimore hydrants. As one by one "completely fire-proofed" build.
ings burned like torches all that day and the next, and the fire raced throught
block after block of the business district, additional fire units from the
nearby counties, from New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, Wilmingtom,
Chester, York, Altoona, and Harrisburg, arrived in the city oniy to discover
that few of their hoses matched any other or fitted the local hydrants.
"If there had been nozzles enough, we could have flooded the burning
district," the Baltimore Fire Chief said afterward, for at no time was there
any shortage of water. Instead, 1,526 buildings and all electric light, tele-
graph, telephone, and power facilities in an area of more than 70 city blocks
60 Stratton and Rosa, Proc. AIEE, 24, 1056 (1905). Stratton foresaw need of still another
building, attached by tunnel to the opposite or east end of North building, to house labo-
ratories for the testing of engineering instruments and structural materials, and two
additional buildings, each about the size of South building, at the east and west ends
of that structure, one exclusively for electrical work, the other for chemical and metal-
lurgical studies (ibid., pp. 1041—1042) - These four new structures, as detached wings
of North and South buildings, were to be enclosed by the east and west buildings pro-
posed earlier. Why the Bureau plant did not expand in this fashion has not been
learned.
MS, Dorsey, "Some memories of the early days."