STANDARD OF COMPANY

a busine corporation which instituted a new system of industrial production in the United States. In 1858 John Rockefeller, then a clerk in a commi ion house in Cleveland, Ohio, went partnership with a young English man, M. B. Clark and together they established a wholesale commi ion busine of country produce. In 1862 the partners, who had meanwhile prospered, were persuaded by Samuel Andrews to back him with $4,000 in the oil busine , the production of which was just then|™res beginning in the Pennsylvania and Ohio oil fields. Andrews’ 2 inventions P and exceptional ability brought succe , and within three years the three were operating the biggest oil refinery in Cleveland. Other companies were also being formed, and with his remarkable foresight, Rockefeller purchased stock in all of them, some of them being formed at his initiative. Rockefeller was thus the bond between a large number of separate oil companies, and through him they began to combine, the combination of which he was the head becoming so powerful that it was able not only to procure rebates from the railroads in transportation, but later to bring prominent railroad magnates actively into the busine . By the economic advantage thus gained the outside companies were either forced out of busine , or made to enter the combine, under conditions dictated by Rockefeller. This proce of amalgamation was almost completed in 1879, when the Standard Oil Co. controlled nearly 95 per cent. of the oil busine in the country and had acquired large controlling interests in foreign sources of production. In 1882 the Standard Oil Co. was transformed into a trust, under the guidance of some of the most skilled lawyers in the country. Meanwhile, however, popular sentiment had been roused, especially over the granting of railroad rebates, and the courts were forced to take action, the Standard Oil Trust being di olved as an illegal restraint of trade, in 1892. Since then it has operated as 20 separate corporations, in various states. Proceedings were again instituted against the Standard Oil Co., of New Jersey in 1906. At the present time the monopoly has been broken, but this has been due rather to the remarkable expansion of the industry and the discovery of so many new sources of production, rather than to the legal action taken against the corporation. _STANDARD TIME. See Timm STANDARDS, U.S. BUREAU, a government organization which serves aS a source of authority and information regarding standards of measurements, length and ma , standards of constants, D.|C@#Pacity and electrical potencies. It | 18 @ffiliated with the Department of into|Commerce. Among its invaluable func- | ions it conducts continuous scientific |®74_ technical investigations involving | the use of rare and superfine instruments. | 1¢ tests and calibrates measuring app a- | '@tus, among them those of states, cities, | Scientific laboratories, educational institutions, government bureaus, manufacand of the general public, and |COMpares the measurements of such recognized devices with the standards adopted or by the United States government. It is a court of first and last resort where guidance and judgment can be obtained on measuring the properties of materials, or as to the fundamental physical and chemical principals involved, and as to how manufacturers can themselves initiate and carry out scientific measuring tests in their own fields of industry. The bureau’s work embraces weights and measures, heat and thermometry, electrical standards, optical and chemical measurements, the testing of specifications relating to metals and their alloys, and to stone, cement, concrete, lime, clay and its products, paints, oils, paper textiles, rubber and other materials. The Bureau’s intricate and elaborate laboratory, whose range of testing extends from determining the radiation of stars to the capacity of @ vacuum cleaner, is situated on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.