urally every effort is being made to find methods of test which will give reliable results in a much shorter time. Equally important at high temperatures with the physical properties are the chemical properties, i. e., resistance to oxidation, and to other forms of chemical attack. This brief outline of a few of the research problems which have a distinctly chemical bearing fails to give an idea of the scope of the Bureau's metallurgical work,= but will serve to indicate something of the close relationship between metallurgy and chemistry. The physicist and the chemist are prone to argue, respectively, that either physics or chemistry is the basic science and the other is merely an off-shoot. The metallurgist takes no sides in the controversy; he acknowledges his indebtedness to both sciences, for he knows that he must have a thorough grounding in both physics and chemistry to understand the principles of metallurgy and to solve the problems that confront him in his efforts to make the metallic elements and their alloys of still greater service to mankind. Letter Circular 118, "Publications from the Division of Metallurgy," obtainable on request to the Bureau, gives titles of publications and shows the scope of the work. A fuller account of the work is given in Iron Age, 116 (1925), p. 461, Aug. 20, p. 536, Aug. 27.
Seeks New Means of Softening Water. That hardness of water causes a great economic waste is shown by investigation of Dr. Arthur M. Buswell, chief of the State Water Survey of Illinois, and his staff of assistants who are trying to find a cheap. harmless, efficient means of softening water. According to their investigations, the average town of 40,000 inhabitants in Illinois wastes a ton of soap daily because of the hardness of the water. Besides this waste of soap, the loss of heat because of boiler scale is enormous. One-sixteenth of an inch of bailer s d e decreases fuel efficiency ten per cent. Tbis would be great enough, hut the boiler scale in Illinois is usually from four to eight times that amount, or from one-fourth to one-half an inch, thereby decreasing the fuel efficiency forty to eighty per cent. This efficiencyof fuel is comparable to the lowering of the boiling point of water by increasing the altitude. I n Mexico City, where the elevation is 7M)O feet, the boiling point is 93.3 degrees Centigrade. This means that water a t an elevation of 7000 feet boils a t a temperature that is 6.7 degrees below the normal boiling paint of water a t sea level, which is 100 degrees, or, in other words, that it is 93.3 per cent efficient. The per cent of loss of efficiency is therefore 6.7. Tbis is in noteworthy contrast with the forty to eighty per cent decrease in fuel efficiency caused by the hardness of the water in Illinois as noted above. Fortunately, there are few states confronted with the problem of extremely hard water. Comparing Illinois with Massachusetts, we find that 300 to 600 parts per million of mineral salts in Illinois waters, while in the latter there are few over 100 parts per million of mineral salts, and none of the waters used for municipal supplies have more than 200 parts per million.-Science Seryice
