Governmental Research 131 



a series of special steels with a view to their serviceability for light armour ; 

 in this research the Bureau of Mines, Standards and Navy Ordnance have 

 participated. Again, in consultation with the Advisory Committee for 

 Aeronautics a series of researches on light aluminum alloys has been 

 carried out. For the Army Ordnance, and sometimes in co-operation 

 with that establishment, a whole series of investigations has been executed 

 or are still under way. The list of interdepartmental co-operative 

 researches in metallurgy is of quite considerable length, but the 

 above illustration may suffice to show that to secure scientific 

 co-ordination among the government departments a central body is not 

 indispensible. 



Turning now to our co-operative relations with non -governmental 

 bodies, our relations with some of the scientific and technical societies 

 are very close. Thus the work of the American Society for Testing 

 Materials is largely participated in by the Bureau and particularly in 

 Metallurgy our work has often been oriented to meet the desires of the 

 various technical committees which are planning important lines of 

 research of interest to science and industry; for example, coated metals, 

 corrosion of iron and steel, the standardization of ladle test ingots in 

 steel making. 



For several years past, the investigations in non-ferrous metallurgy 

 have been largely carried out after consultation with an informal, ad- 

 visory committee made up of technical leaders in the industry who are 

 also representatives of the several interested scientific and technical 

 societies. This committee meets twice a year at the Bureau and its 

 advice has been most stimulating and gives us in addition a feeling of 

 security that what we are doing is along the lines appreciated by those 

 who will profit most immediately. 



With the National Research Council and its several committees on 

 metallurgical matters we are in most active co-operation ; I need but men- 

 tion the work of the Pyrometer Committee and the extraordinarily suc- 

 cessful symposium on pyrometry held at the meeting last fall of the 

 American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. 



There is still another type of co-operation that should be mentioned, 

 namely the solving in the government laboratory of some of the prob- 

 lems fundamental to manufacturing processes and standards which are 

 of interest to an industry as a whole. The development of this type of 

 co-operative industrial research is still in its infancy in the United States, 

 and evidently requires an experimental manufacturing plant for each 

 type of industry. We have made some provision for this field of develop- 

 ment in metallurgy by installing several operating or semi-manufacturing 

 units which, on a quarter ton basis, will allow us to make any metal or 



