is annually expended on fire protection. Inquiries looking to the
reduction of fire losses are being conducted in order to ascertain the
most suitable fire-resisting materials for building construction.

Early in 1904, during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Congress made
provision for tests, demonstrations, and investigations concerning the
fuels and structural materials of the United States. These
investigations were organized subsequently as the Technologic Branch of
the United States Geological Survey, under Mr. Joseph A. Holmes, Expert
in Charge, and the President of the United States invited a group of
civilian engineers and Chiefs of Engineering Bureaus of the Government
to act as a National Advisory Board concerning the method of conducting
this work, with a view to making it of more immediate benefit to the
Government and to the people of the United States. This Society is
formally represented on this Board by C. C. Schneider, Past-President,
Am. Soc. C. E., and George S. Webster, M. Am. Soc. C. E. Among
representatives of other engineering societies, or of Government
Bureaus, the membership of the National Advisory Board includes other
members of this Society, as follows: General William Crozier, Frank T.
Chambers, Professor W. K. Hatt, Richard L. Humphrey, Robert W. Hunt, H.
G. Kelley, Robert W. Lesley, John B. Lober, Hunter McDonald, and
Frederick H. Newell.

In view, therefore, of the important part taken both officially and
unofficially by members of this Society in the planning and organization
of this work, it seems proper to present a statement of the scope,
methods, and progress of these investigations. Whereas the Act governing
this work limits the testing and investigation of fuels and of
structural materials to those belonging to the United States, the
activities of the Federal Government in the use of these materials so