TECHNICAL COMMITTEE REPORTS OCT. 1 9 2 4 the background of the present schemes of standardi­ zation and rating of schools by professional bodies, the evidences of detrimental as well as beneficial results from such standardization, and the present state of relations between engineering schools and engineering societies abroad, particularly in Great Britain and Germany. 3. Minimum standards which m a y properly be established for the recognition of any institution as an engineering school or any course of study as an engi­ neering course. 4. Standards of educational attainment, in other than technological fields, which should underlie the professional training of engineering students. This would include languages, history, literature, economics and psychological and sociological sciences. 5. Standards of educational attainment in the common group of mathematical and physical sciences and of technological studies which should underlie the professional training of engineering students. 6. Sanctions concerning the normal length and the degree of specialization of engineering curricula to which the societies represented may be willing to give support. 7. Sanctions concerning the desirable qualifications of teachers who deal with professional engineering subjects, their professional and economic status and the appropriate scale of compensation for engineering teachers, to which the societies represented may be willing to give support. 8. The determination of aptitudes as a basis for admission to engineering colleges. 9. The extent to which the relations of the pro­ fessional engineering societies to affiliated student groups may advantageously be unified or coordinated. 10. The contributions which the profession-at-large and the business and industrial organizations closely allied to it may make to the fund of vocational in­ formation relating to engineering and the means which may be employed to bring such information to the attention of parents, teachers and students a t the time of selection of a college or university and of a course of general or professional college study. 11. The recognition to be given to graduation from an engineering college in the requirements for admission to professional engineering societies. 12. A survey of the occupational demand for engi­ neering graduates in the more distinctly professional fields, as a complement to the surveys of demand in industrial fields now being undertaken. W . E . WICKENDEN, E L E C T R O P H Y S I C S Chairman, C O M M I T T E E To the Board of Directors: ADVANCES IN ELECTROPHYSICS 1923-1924 No attempt will be made to point out outstanding advances for the past year. Progress, in general, is continuous and not in marked steps. For this reason, 979 it has been the policy of this committee to keep the membership informed by means of lectures by noted physicists and research workers rather than by an annual catalog of steps in progress. Such lectures have taken place during the year on general and special­ ized subjects. I t has also been our policy to arrange popular lectures or reviews on the latest status of electrophysics. These lectures have probably always been better attended than those on any other subject. In passing, it may not be out of place to mention that wonderful advance has been made in the past few years in the knowledge of the interior of the atom and the radiations or energy changes that occur from its very heart. I t is suggested t h a t the committee next year arrange a popular lecture covering the latest knowledge of the atom. LECTURES AND PAPERS During the past year the Electrophysics Committee has had technical sessions a t the Pacific Coast, the Midwinter, the Annual and the Regional Conventions. All of these sessions have been very well attended and the discussions have been a t least as extensive as those at any other technical sessions. The papers have been on a large variety of subjects such as insulation, transmission, ionization, magnetics, heat convection, transients and oscillations, vacuum tubes and detectors, radio and mathematics. The committee expects an especially interesting session a t the coming Pacific Coast Convention. I t is hoped t h a t our Institute will continue to en­ courage this work. F . W . PEEK, JR., Chairman. (To be continued) P E R F O R M A N C E O F E L E C T R I C F U R N A C E S B R A S S · The number of kilowatt-hours per ton required to melt a given alloy under given conditions is helpful in comparing the performance of different electric furnaces among themselves, state Interior Department investi­ gators in Serial 2597, "Present tendencies in electric brass-furnace practise," just issued by the Bureau of Mines. In comparing electric furnaces with fuel-fired furnaces, the price paid for electric energy must be considered. In the early days of electric brass melting it was unlikely to compete with fuel when power cost over 1 cent per kilowatt-hour. With the development of the more efficient furnaces and the change in cost of fuel, it is today rare t h a t an efficient electric furnace can not compete on 2-cent power. I t generally happens when the location of a foundry makes the price of electric energy high, or when the count of energy used by a small electric furnace is so little t h a t a low rate per kilowatt-hour is not obtainable, t h a t the factors of location and small-scale operation make the cost of melting by fuel correspondingly high.