490 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June 1, 1914. 



A Distinguished Rubber Chemist. 



IX the manipulation of rubber, and in tin.' nuinufacture of rubber 

 goods, chemistry plays an important part. Prominent in this 

 work is Stephen P. Sharpies, of Boston, whose researches 

 and investigations have been of great value in the reclaimed 

 rubber industry. 



This well-known chemist was born in 1842 in West Chester. 

 Pennsylvania, where his Quaker paternal ancestor liouRht land 

 of William Penn in 1682. His mother's ancestors were Welsh, 

 who settled in Philadelphia previ- 

 ous to 1700. 



Stephen Paschall, his great- 

 grandfather, was one of the first 

 chemists in America and built one 

 of the earliest steel furnaces in 

 Philadelphia. He was the first to 

 make a platform scale in that city. 



Stephen Paschall Sharpies in- 

 lierited from this ancestor that 

 love of study, experiment and in- 

 vestigation which has determined 

 his career and made him so suc- 

 cessful in his profession. Mr. 

 Sharpies' education included the 

 common school of the winter 

 months and later a course in the 

 West Chester Normal School. .\ 

 term as teacher was followed by 

 tw^) years in a machine shop and 

 a year in the Agricultural College 

 of Pennsylvania. Every summer 

 he worked in the fields, runnin.i; 

 mowing or reaping machines, witli 

 which he had become familiar dur- 

 ing his machine shop experience. 



He then entered the Lawrence 

 Scientific School of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, specializing in chemistry. 

 graduating in 1866 with the high- 

 est degree granted by that school. 

 He continued his studies in 



Cambridge as a resident graduate until the winter of 1867. then 

 going as teacher in a private school in West Chester, thence to 

 Lehigh University, where he spent a year teaching chemistry, 

 and in his leisure time watching the manufacture of zinc and 

 iron at the works at Bethlehem. Then for three years he occu- 

 pied the position of assistant to Dr. Gibbs, his professor at the 

 Lawrence Scientific School, from which position he was called 

 to become assistant editor of the "Journal of Chemistry," adding 

 to this editorial work considerable practical chemical investiga- 

 tion. He continued in this editorial position until the great fire 

 in Boston in 1872, after which he embarked in business on his 

 own account as an analytical and consulting chemist. 



While with the "Journal of Chemistry" he was called as an 

 expert in two important suits in patent litigation, one on nickel 

 plating and the other on canning green corn, with the result that 

 both these processes became public property. 



For eighteen years he w-as a professor of chemistry in the 

 Boston Dental College, and during most of this time was State 

 .\ssayer of Ore and Metals, and Assayer and Inspector of Liquors 

 for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While in the latter 

 capacity he was instrumental in placin.g upon the statute books 

 two laws, one defining as an intoxicating liquor any beverage 

 containing over one per cent, of alcohol, and the other limiting 

 the number of licenses to one to each 1.000 inhabitants in 



any town, and one to each 500 in the city of Boston. This law- 

 cut the number of licensed liquor sellers in that city from 2.500 

 to about 800. 



In 1880. in co-operation with the late N. C. Mitchell, Mr. 

 Sliarples devoted much time and study to the reclaiming of waste 

 rubber. Today there is not a factory in the country using the 

 acid reclaiming process which does not use some of the processes 

 devised or put in operation at the Mitchell establishment in 



Philadelphia. 



He was the first to propose 

 the separation of iron from the 

 scrap by a magnetic machine. 

 He assisted in devising a process 

 for separating sand and brass 

 from the rubber. .At one time 

 he made an investigation, extend- 

 ing over many months, on the best 

 methods of coagulating Castilloa 

 latex, the results of which, as well 

 as of much other work, have never 

 been published, as they were made 

 for his many clients as a chemist. 



This work in the rubber field 

 gave him a practical knowledge of 

 the processes, so that when, in 

 1890. suits were brought against 

 infringers of the patents he be- 

 came the principal expert witness. 

 The suits w-ere not successful, the 

 judge deciding that altho there 

 was no doubt of the invention, 

 the patents, however, were too 

 loosely described to hold the de- 

 fendants as infringers. 



.\nother important legal case 

 was that in which Professor 

 Sharpies was the first to employ 

 jihotography to prove changes in 

 a legal document, a method of 

 detection which has since played 

 an important part in many cases, both civil and criminal. 



The Professor iias traveled extensively, investigating mining 

 property, and has visited nearly every State in the Union. When 

 the phosphate industry was established in Florida, he spent much 

 time there investigating the deposits of phosphate rock, and later 

 did similar work in South Carolina. 



But if chemistry is his vocation, he certainly has his avocation. 

 He is deeply interested in genealogy, and was at one time 

 editor of the "Genealogical Magazine." He was joint editor of 

 "The History of the Kimball Family" and editor of "The Records 

 of the Church of Christ in New England." His chemical and 

 scientific books and articles comprise a long list, as do also the 

 societies of which lie is a member. 



Enough has been said to show the breadth of his studies and 

 the scope of his abilities. Altho beyond the biblical limit of 

 three-score years and ten, he is still active, present at his labor- 

 atory on Broad street, Boston, every working day, analyzing, 

 studying and experimenting with all the ardor of men of half his 

 age and one-tenth his experience. He is a member of the Rubber 

 Club of America and rarely misses a meeting or an outing of 

 that body, among whose members are many who, besides having 

 benefited by his researches, deeply appreciate him as a personal 

 friend, and hold him in the profoundest respect for his notable 

 scientific achievements. 



SlErHEX P. SH.\RrLES. 



