ANALYSIS IN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH 485 



that the sample was far too small to analyze. So Pregl faced a clean- 

 cut dilemma: either he must start all over again on his research, work 

 for years more on a larger scale, in order to prepare a larger sample, 

 or some way must be discovered to analyze the small sample in hand. 

 Pregl chose the latter alternati\e, and in so doing initiated an era of 

 development in chemical anaUsis that has not even yet reached its 

 zenith, namely microchemistr\'. 



Pregl worked in organic chemistry. Simultaneously another 

 Austrian, Emich, approached inorganic analysis from the new point 

 of view. In this country Chamot, at Cornell, concentrated on chemical 

 microscopy. These three, Pregl, Emich, and Chamot, are properly 

 credited with the invention of what has come to be called micro- 

 analysis; but their many students and co-workers, as well as scores of 

 independent investigators, did and are doing much brilliant work in 

 the shaping of the science to the practical needs of industry and 

 research. 



The basic idea of microanalysis is the reduction in size of analytical 

 apparatus to suit small samples. This has shown the necessity of 

 devising many entirely new methods for carrying out common labora- 

 tory operations. Many new chemical reactions have been discovered, 

 on specific search, that have special usefulness in analysis. 



The Microanalytical Laboratory at Bell Telephone Laboratories 

 has been established for about seven years. The peculiar nature of 

 many problems arising in communication research and engineering 

 has made necessary the development of many new techniques and 

 types of apparatus. It can be said, in fact, that this laboratory 

 employs a special kind of microanalysis, constituting, for the most 

 part, an original contribution to the science of analysis. 



Analysis consists in transforming an unknown material into one or 

 more recognizable substances. These products may then be suitably 

 separated and purified and their quantities measured. Thus weighing, 

 measurement of volume, solution, filtration, washing, evaporation, 

 drying, ignition, distillation, etc., are familiar operations in analysis. 



The techniques and apparatus formerly used for these operations, 

 while suitable for the other chemical purposes for which they w^ere 

 designed, were in general ill-adapted to analysis. Apparatus was 

 designed for general utility and manual convenience; that is, to fit 

 the worker's hand rather than the sample. A chemist of the last 

 century would not have thought of using a 1000 cc. beaker to contain 

 50 cc. of liquid; he would have selected a 100 cc. vessel. But if an 

 analyst had only 0.1 cc. of sample he could find on the shelf no vessel 

 of commensurate size. 



