214 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
United States Navy has conducted experiments with paints. 
Prior to that time commercial brands of paints were adopted, 
and when a vessel was painted with a particular kind that kind 
was ever afterwards used for the same vessel. ‘This practice 
proved both inconvenient and expensive, and in 1906 the Navy 
Department began a series of experiments to determine what 
mixtures were most effective to prevent corrosion and fouling. 
The experiments resulted in the adoption of a paint, known in 
the service as the “ Norfolk paint,” for practically all vessels 
of the navy, two formulas being used, one for an anticorrosive 
paint and the other for an antifouling paint. Mr. Williams 
remarks: 
“ Estimates made in 1910 of the cost of paint for the bottoms of all vessels on 
the navy list, using the kinds of proprietary brands of paint that were purchased 
usually prior to 1908 and distributed among the ships in the proportions of each 
brand then customary and at the prices then current, show that the cost of paint 
for a single painting of the bottoms of all vessels of the navy, not including coal 
barges, etc., under the conditions noted, would have been somewhat more than 
$100,000. ‘The cost of an equal amount of the Norfolk ship’s bottom paint at the 
prevailing cost of manufacture would be less than $33,000. As a majority of the 
vessels of the navy are painted twice a year, it will be seen that the annual saving 
to the government by this means at the present time is probably not less than 
$100,000 annually. It should be noted, however, that largely as a result of the 
government entering the field with its own paint the prices asked for ship’s 
bottom paint by various firms previously supplying the navy has been so reduced 
that if, for expediency or for some other reason, the Navy Department decided in 
the future to purchase all or a portion of its ship’s bottom paint, there still would 
remain an appreciable saving to be credited to the Norfolk paint.” 1° 
He further remarks on this subject: 
“The question of protecting the underwater bodies of sea-going ships always 
has been vital, and since the use of steel for hulls has become general, a suitable 
paint for this purpose has been in demand. Various manufacturers offer com- 
merically, generally under proprietary names, so-called ship’s bottom paints or 
compositions, which are designed to effect the double purpose of protecting the 
bottom plating from the corrosive action of sea-water and, also, of preventing the 
attaching of the various marine growths, such as grass, barnacles, hydroids, etc. 
The necessity for the periodic docking of ships, often at intervals of less than 
* Engineering News, vol. 66, no. 5, August 3, 1911, p. 138. 
