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

APPENDIX C 543
Act of 4 March 1909 (35 Stat. 904)—An Act making appropriations
for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, and for other purposes. [Beginning
of special appropriations to the Bureau.]
Bureau of Standards:
For the investigation of the Pentane, Hefner, and other flame standards used in the
measurement of the illuminating power of gas, and determining the accuracy practically
obtainable in such measurements; also for the determination of the heat of combustion
of certain gases which occur in illuminating gas, which are used as a basis for
puting the heat value of the gas, and for the determination of the heat combustion of
materials employed by engineers in the standardization of industrial calorimeters.
To enable the bureau to collect information relative to the weights and measures
used in trade and to aid State sealers and other officers in adopting standard practice
as to the establishment of tolerances, methods of inspection and sealing, and other
technical details necessary to insure correct weights and measures in commerce and
trade.
Sundry Civil Appropriations Act of 25 June 1910 (36 Stat. 743)—
[Repealed Act of 16 May 1910 (36 Stat. 369), which transferred the work
of investigating structural materials for the use of the United States from
the Geological Survey to the Bureau of Mines. The work was transferred,
instead, in the regular appropriations act, to the Bureau of Standards, with
the sutm of $50,000 to continue the investigation.]
Act of 4 March 1911 (36 Stat. 1354)—An Act To amend sections thirty.
five hundred and forty-eight and thirty-five hundred and forty.nine of the
Revised Statutes of the United States, relative to the standards for coinage.
Be it enacted . . ., That section thirty.five hundred and forty.eight of the Revised
Statutes of the United States be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as
follows:
"SEC. 3548. For the purpose of securing a due conformity in weight of the coins
of the United States to the provisions of the laws relating to coinage, the standard troy
pound of the Bureau of Standards of the United States shall be the standard troy pound
of the Mint of the United States conformably to which the coinage therof shall be
regulated."
SEC. 2. That section thirty-five hundred and forty-nine of the Revised Statutes of
the United States be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows:
"SEC. 3549. It shall be the duty of the Director of the Mint to procure for each
mint and assay office, to be kept safely thereat, a series of standard weights corresponding
to the standard troy pound of the Bureau of Standards of the United States,
of a one-pound weight and the requisite subdivisions and multiples thereof, from the
hundredths part of a grain to twenty-five pounds. The troy weight ordinarily employed
in the transactions of such mints and assay offices shall be regulated according to the
above standards at least once in every year, under the inspection of the superintendent