132 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute 



alloy, submit it to various heat treatments, shape and work it by rolling, 

 forging, or drawing. 



A beginning has been made in manufacturing metal specialities, 

 which are difficult to get elsewhere, for the government. These include 

 instrument castings of various non-ferrous alloys, the nickel-steel of very 

 low expansion known as invar, and experimental light armour plate. 



I should like, before closing, to call your attention to a co-operative 

 research of the greatest economic importance, conceived on a somewhat 

 more comprehensive scale than anything else we have hitherto under- 

 taken; I refer to the investigation just gotten under way under the aus- 

 pices of a Joint Committee to study the effects of sulphur and phosphorus 

 in steel for the purpose of defining the permissable limits of these elements 

 in the specifications for the various grades of steel. This is a subject 

 about which there is a great deal of diverse opinion and the experimental 

 results published thus far have not been considered of sufficient weight 

 to justify changing the present and long accepted values of sulphur and 

 phosphorous contents in steel by responsible specification making bodies. 



The Joint Committee, the Chairmanship of which is held by the 

 Bureau of Standards is constituted with representatives of the govern- 

 ment including the Departments of Commerce, War and Navy, steel 

 makers, and specification making bodies including the American Society 

 for Testing Materials, the railroads, the automotive and shipping in- 

 dustries. It is hoped, in view of the fact that the programme of tests is 

 mapped out by unanimous agreement of all interested parties; the steel 

 manufacture witnessed by representatives of all interests; and the tests 

 carried out in government laboratories, that the results of this elaborate 

 research will be determinative as to revision of the specifications in 

 question. 



With this summary review of a few of the aspects of governmental 

 research, as I see them, and as illustrated specifically in the work in 

 Metallurgy at the Bureau of Standards, I trust you will carry away the 

 impression, which I have endeavoured to convey, that there is a human 

 side to research and that in the government service it is possible to be 

 very close to the public, in fact a part of the public and not a group set 

 apart to solve abstruse problems of little general interest. I believe it 

 not only desirable but absolutely essential that a government laboratory, 

 and by that term I mean the men who work in it, keep in closest possible 

 touch with the professional as well as the non-technical public it serves 

 and that a crucial test of the usefulness of such a laboratory is the 

 interest and above all the confidence it inspires. 

 April 22, 1920. 

 Washington, D.C. 



