Industrial Research 



27 



Some of the leading steel producers took immediate 

 issue with Dudlej' on the grounds that his experiments 

 were inadequate, that his results were not consistent 

 with the experience of other users, and that his formula 

 would greatly increase the cost of producing steel rails. 

 Nevertheless, Dudley had started an inquiry which led 

 to many more lesearches, both in the United States and 

 abroad. 



An inkling of the significance of his work can be gained 

 from a statement made by Capt. W. R. Jones, of the 

 Carnegie Company, who had taken issue with some of 

 Dudley's findings: 



Before he proposed this formula how many of those who con- 

 den>ned it as being egregiously wrong had any idea whatever 

 of the relations of carbon, silicon, and manganese to phos- 

 phorus? Although Dr. Dudley may be wrong, and I believe he 

 is only partially correct, yet he was the first to endeavor to 

 establish a formula of this kind, and is therefore entitled to the 

 thanks of steel makers; for although it may not be correct, it 

 is much nearer the mark than what others have simply guessed 

 at; and the direct results of his investigations have been to 

 stimulate investigations by others and throw much light on a 

 dark subject." 



Rails, axles, springs, paints, varnishes, coals, disin- 

 fectants, dyes, were all subjected to Dr. Dudley's 

 analysis, and the results were practically expressed in 

 standard specifications. Today much of the type of 

 work which he did is no longer classified as research ; for, 

 because of his pioneer work and the work of the Amer- 

 ican Society for Testing Materials, organized largely 

 tlirough the efforts of Dr. Dudley, such tests and 

 analyses have been standardized and no longer involve 

 a search for the unknown. But in the seventies and 

 eighties, when business men had little faith in what the 

 chemist could do, and the chemist had little knowledge 

 of what he could do for the business men, Dudley's 

 work was true industrial research. When his career 

 with the Pennsylvania ended, the laboratory which he 

 had organized was staffed by 34 trained chemists and 

 many assistants. 



The rapid and spectacular developments in the 

 American iron and steel industry would have been 

 impossible but for the work of trained chemists, metal- 

 lurgists, and engineers. If the industry as a whole has 

 lagged in organized research, it is nevertheless true that 

 some companies began early to "make a rational attempt 

 to apply the findings of the chemist to their immediate 

 problems." 



In the spring of 1863 a chemical laboratory was 

 established at Wyandotte, near Detroit, where a fur- 

 nace had been built for experimenting on a large scale 

 with the process for producing steel invented by William 

 KeUy. Previously the experiments with the Bessemer 

 process had not met with success largely because of the 



" The lile and life work of Charles Benjamin Dudley, Ph.D., p. 23. See footnote 30. 



imperfect control of raw materials. Those in charge 

 of the furnace at Wyandotte, however, recognized the 

 necessity for using suitable pig iron and established 

 laboratory facilities for determining the quality of the 

 iron received from various furnaces.'^ 



W. F. Durfee, the man who was invited by Capt. E. 

 B. Ward to design and superintend the furnace at 

 Wyandotte, made an interesting comment about this 

 laboratory: 



It is quite certain that long after the establishment (of this 

 laboratory) the manufacturers of steel in Sheffield did not regard 

 the employment of chemical investigation of their materials or 

 products as desirable or practicable. I have in my possession a 

 pamphlet published in Sheffield, England, as late as 1870, for 

 the purpose of attracting attention and trade, in which the 

 following sentences occur: "The various articles on the manufac- 

 ture of cast steel in the encyclopaedias and other works are for 

 the most part out of date or are written by scientific men having 

 little or no practical acquaintance with the subject and conse- 

 quently are not of much value — The steel manufacturers of 

 Sheffield are not chemists. The application of chemistry to the 

 manufacture of steel has not yet met with any success. The 

 analysis of steel is a very difficult process. It has frequently 

 been attempted in Sheffield but never with any practical 

 success." 32 



At the insistence of a number of the members of the 

 American Iron and Steel Association, J. Blodgett 

 Britton established in Philadelphia in 1866 an "Iron- 

 masters' Laboratory" in order to "encourage the de- 

 velopment of workable bodies of iron ore and to inform 

 producers of the quantity and quality of the metal 

 they would yield."" 



Alloys also began to interest American iron-masters 

 about this time. 



In 1868 four of the largest rail mills in the U. S. were experi- 

 menting with chrome ore and manganese in the puddling furnace 

 for hardening rail heads, and the Government had ordered an 

 experimental lot of projectiles to be made of cliromc iron in 

 order to test their ability to penetrate hardened armor.'' 



The first chemist in the iron industry employed by a 

 company not making Bessemer stool is believed to have 

 been with the firm of Kloman, Carnegie & Company, 

 operators of the famous Lucy furnace.'" Two develop- 

 ments seem to have convinced Henry Phipps, then in 

 charge of the Lucy furnace, that the services of a chem- 

 ist were necessary. Companies producing steel were 

 beginning to state their requirements in chemical 

 terms, "the principal one being that tlu^ metal should 

 not contain more than ten-hundrodths of 1 percent of 

 phosphorus." For every increase of ono-huiulredth of 



" Clark, Victor S. History of manufactures in the United Slates (1860-1893). New- 

 York, McGraw-Hill Book Co.. Inc., 1929, vol. 2. pp 70-71. 



" Durfee, W. F. The first chemical laboratory. American Iron and Steel Associa- 

 tion, Bulletin SO, 249 (November 10, 1896). 



" History of manufactures in the I'nitcd States (1860-1893), p. 78. See footnote 32. 



" History of manufactures in the United States (1860-1893), p. 78. See footnote 32, 



>• Bridge, J. H. The inside history of the Carnegie Steel Company. New York, 

 The Aldinc Book Co., 1903, p. 65. 



