4 HENRY MARION HOWE— BURGESS ^^voiTxxg 



No attempt will be made here to give a summary of the monumental series of contributions 

 to science and technology from Howe 's pen. We may mention one or two items in which he 

 maintained an active interest and to which he was constantly reverting in his writings; such as 

 the nomenclature of steel and the soundness of steel. Howe's logical mind rebelled at a com- 

 mercial classification of steel and lie sought persistently to have adopted generally a rational 

 classification, beginning with an early paper published in 1876 and ending with his last book 

 in 1916. He was keenly disappointed that the International Association for Testing Materials 

 would not adopt his views. To the question of the "soundness" of steel he returns again and 

 again in his experimental work and writings, and this subject may be said to be the underlying 

 theme of all his work. His numerous papers on metallography as related to iron and steel, 

 of which science he was one of the creators and most able expounders, constitute a masterly 

 series of monographs. 



This brief mention of Howe's principal works brings us up to the publication, in 1916, of 

 the results of his best creative genius, The Metallography of Steel and Cast Iron. While it 

 was not possible, or practicable, in his first book, The Metallurgy of Steel, to more than make 

 a start upon the interpretation of the facts contained therein, he was able, through his own 

 experience and research, and the results of that of others, to include in his last book his personal 

 observations and conclusions, the object being not to state already soundly established princi- 

 ples of a new science, but to open before the workers in that science new fields for thought- 

 He believed the true task of a teacher is to excite thought, and this, I believe, he could not have 

 better accomplished than he did in this masterly book. 



This volume, consisting of two distinct parts, an introduction to the new science of micro- 

 scopic metallography as applied to steel and cast iron and an extended study of the very new 

 branch of that science, the mechanism of plastic deformation, was the first of a series of mono- 

 graphs the completion of which was undoubtedly interrupted by Doctor Howe, then at the age 

 of 70, in order to serve during the World War as an active member and later chairman of the 

 engineering division of the National Research Council, devoting his entire time and thought 

 to the problems under way at such a crisis in the history of the country. For this purpose he 

 spent the winter of 1917-18 in Washington, where his counsel in matters metallurgical was 

 much sought after and valued. 



Doctor Howe was made a member of the National Research Council February 26, 191S; 

 made member of the division of engineering March 11, 1919, and chairman April 1, 1919. He 

 was appointed scientific attache in the American Embassy in Paris April 15, 1919, and dele- 

 gate to Brussels meeting June 17, 1919. Resigning as chairman August 12, 1919, he was ap- 

 pointed honorary chairman of the division of engineering October 14, 1919, to serve for the year 

 1919 to 1920, and again appointed honorary chairman on April 25, 1920, for the year 1920 to 1921. 



This chronology, however, gives no glimpse of the great work he was really doing in ori- 

 enting and stimulating effective research looking to the improvement in metallurgical practice 

 and products of military importance and in bringing together groups of men most skillfully 

 chosen who could aid in carrying out much-needed investigations. Thus, under his direction, 

 there was formed a general committee of the research council on metallurgical research with 

 several offshoots, in the work of several of which he took an active part, including com- 

 mittees on pyrometry, alloy steels, body armor, steel ingots, improvement of metals in the 

 "blue heat" range, and heat treatment of carbon steels, which last committee he consulted 

 freely in the work of his own laboratory at Bedford Hills. For he also found time to engage 

 in experimental work himself during 1917 and 1918, especially in relation to helmets, special 

 steels for various purposes, the explanation of serious and puzzling imperfections such as "flaky" 

 steel, and the improvement of open-hearth furnace practice on which technique the quality 

 of our steel output depends. Among the objects of his visit to Europe in 1919 was to see what 

 could be done in reviving and maintaining the international relationships among scientific 

 men, and naturally he was concerned with the fate of the International Association for Testing 

 Materials, of which he had been one of the bulwarks in this country; but he found the time 

 not come, nor has it yet, when this important international body could be revived. 



The period immediately following the war was a very fruitful one for Doctor Howe and 

 is reflected in the several important contributions from his pen, usually in association with 



