130 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute 



devise suitable substitutes. We did a great deal of research work along 

 these lines. Thus in the case of tin for example, which is all imported, 

 we developed a satisfactory solder containing only ten per cent, of tin 

 instead of the usual 40 or 50 per cent. This solder containing also 80 per 

 cent, lead and 10 per cent, cadmium was as cheap as ordinary solder. 

 The tin content of bearing metals for most uses, it was shown, could be 

 very greatly reduced, and for the tin bronzes satisfactory alloys, made of 

 available metals, were substituted. In fact, I believe America could have 

 carried on with some ten per cent, of the normal tin consumption. 



A great deal of attention is given constantly to questions connected 

 with the various types of failure of metals and metal products such as 

 flaky steel and internal fissures in railroad materials and stress corrosion 

 in structural bronzes, to mention but two types, and numerous papers 

 on these subjects have been published by the staflF. The various and 

 puzzling aspects of the corrosion of metals also has constant attention. 



There is now under way a series of investigations on special steels 

 including structural steels, high speed steels and their substitutes, high 

 chromium steels of various types, and of steels containing unusual 

 elements. 



Some of the other subjects of metallurgical research are copper 

 crusher gages for testing powder, improvement of machine gun barrels 

 to resist erosion, identification tags for the Army and Navy, spark plug 

 electrodes, characteristics of bearing metals, metals for aeronautical 

 instruments, centrifugal steel castings, comparison of ingot practice in 

 steel manufacture, temperature control of metallurgical manufacturing 

 operations, embrittling of thin steel parts by cleaning, pickling, and 

 plating, standard test bars for various alloys, and many other matters. 



I shall not tire you, however, with an enumeration, much less with a 

 description, of each of the seventy odd research problems in metallurgy 

 with which we are occupied. They may be found in summary form from 

 year to year in the annual reports of the Director and appear in detail 

 as they are completed in the publications of the Bureau and the scientific 

 press. I may mention however some of the broad lines along which we 

 are orienting our work and in doing so will endeavour to emphasize the 

 co-operative aspects of this research work, for much of it is undertaken 

 after consultation or in active participation with other groups having 

 also an interest or a part in its accomplishment. 



This co-operation in research takes several forms and is of various 

 types; thus there may be one or more of the other departments of the 

 government interested in the prosecution of a research in which we also 

 have an interest. For example, there has been carried out an investiga- 

 tion of considerable magnitude on the development and properties of 



