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National Resources Planning Board 



tion he assisted in constructing machine shops and lamp 

 factories to operate the Edison patents in Europe, and 

 it was 1884 when he returned to New York only to leave 

 Edison and try some experimental work on a scheme for 

 "controlling electric currents, regulating dynamos, etc." 

 Finding two backers, he built a "new style of dynamo" 

 which proved to be a failure, for, although it would 

 produce a current of immense amperage, the voltage 

 was absurdly low. "Another failure added to a long 

 list," he said. His next experiment, on an anti-induc- 

 tion telephone wire, was made by taking "a rubber-cov- 

 ered wire, coating it with graphite, passing it through a 

 copper solution and plating on it a tube of copper; 

 next braiding cotton over the tube; then soaking the 

 cotton with asphaltum ; then covering the whole with a 

 lead pipe covering." He patented the process which a 

 short time later he sold to Mr. George Westinghousc 

 for $7,000 in cash and $50,000 in stock of the Standard 

 Underground Cable Company, which, however, because 

 of a reduction in the company's capital, was soon re- 

 duced to $16,666. 



After a 3-year term as electrician to the Cable Com- 

 pany at a regular salary, Acheson conceived the idea 

 that if he could estabhsh a small electric lighting plant 

 in some town, he could make the plant pay its way by 

 night-lighting and yet use the dynamo for experiments 

 during the day. Monongahela City was selected as the 

 location. He soon turned his attention to making 

 rubber synthetically and succeeded, in 1891, in pro- 

 ducing a small piece. Unfortunately, one of his part- 

 ners in the lighting enterprise arrived in Monongahela 

 City to see the plant just after investing considerable 

 money in a rubber tree grove in Alexico, where he in- 

 tended to produce more rubber than the world would 

 use, and advised Acheson to shut the plant up and 

 "throw it into the Monongahela River." Acheson 

 lost interest in rubber, not even making a record of how 

 he produced his sample; but ignoring the advice, he 

 turned his plant to new uses. 



The value of an artificial abrasive had been brought 

 to his attention by a chance remark made in 1880 by 

 Dr. George F. Kunz, of Tiffany & Company. He 

 decided to try to produce one. The recollection of an 

 experiment wliich he had once conducted for his brother 

 on the reduction of iron from its ores by the use of 

 natural gas suggested a starting point, for in this 

 experiment some clay articles placed in a highly heated 

 furnace into which natural gas was passed had, when 

 cold, been found to be thorougldy impregnated with 

 carbon. The procedure by which Acheson discovered 

 the material to which he gave the name Carborundum 

 is described in his owTi words: 



An iron bowl, such as plumbers use for holding their melted 

 solder, was attached to one lead from a dynamo and filled with 

 a mixture of clay and powdered coke, the end of an arc light 



carbon attached to the other lead was inserted into the mixture. 

 The percentage of coke was high enough to carry a current, and a 

 good strong one was passed througli the mixture between the 

 lamp carbon and bowl until the clay in the center was melted 

 and heated to a very high temperature. When cold, the mass 

 was examined. It did not fill my expectations, but I by sheer 

 chance, happened to notice a few bright specks on the end of the 

 arc carbon that had been in the mixture." 



One of these specks, when mounted on the end of a 

 lead pencil and drawn across a pane of glass, cut it like 

 a diamond. After patient work with a small furnace 

 made of bricks, Aclieson had enough of his material to 

 take to the lapidaries in New York City. It was during 

 the journey that the substance received its name, be- 

 cause of the discover's hunch that it was composed of 

 carbon and corundum, a hunch that later proved to be a 

 mistake, for carborundum is a compound of carbon and 

 silicon. In New York a diamond cutter bought the 

 tiny supply at 40 cents a carat or at the rate of about 

 $750 a pound. 



Upon his return from a trip to Europe, where he sold 

 the foreign patent rights, Acheson heard of the new 

 electrical development at Niagara Falls. After inspec- 

 tion of it, he placed before his directors a plan for build- 

 ing a new plant equipped for a thousand horsepower. 

 To do this, in the face of the fact that the Monongahela 

 plant, using only 134 horsepower, was producing twice 

 as much as was being sold, entailed too great a risk for 

 them, and they resigned. But Acheson went on with 

 his plans, and although eventually forced to appeal to 

 some Pittsburgh bankers for assistance, the Niagara 

 Falls works were started in the fall of 1895. By 1910, 

 although Mr. Acheson had lost control of it, the com- 

 pany was using 10,000 horsepower and producing car- 

 borundum at the rate of 10,000,000 pounds a year. A 

 new industry had been created, the value of the product 

 proved, and a market for it found even though the 

 couLntry had been passing through a financial depression. 

 But Acheson's contributions to industry were not over. 

 Under patents secured in 1895, 1896, 1899 he began the 

 manufacture of graphite. Other experiments followed 

 and in 1906, while trying to increase the value of carbo- 

 rundum as an abrasive, he found in the furnace a small 

 amount of "a very soft, unctuous, noncoalcscing graph- 

 ite" which he immediately recognized as an ideal lubri- 

 cating product. More experiments resulted in a method 

 of suspending graphite in water to form a lubricant 

 called Aquadag. The next step was the transference of 

 the graphite from the water medium to an oil medium, 

 to form an improved lubricant called Oildag. Acheson 

 felt that those two products would probably prove to 

 be of more value to the world than any of those he had 

 previously developed.'' 



"Acheson, E. O. A pathflnder: discovery, invention and Industry. New York, 

 The Press Scrap Book, 1910, pp. 98-99. 

 " A pathfinder: discovery, invention and industry, p. 129. See footnote K. 



