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National Resources Planning Board 



chemical laboratory and has hold tlmt position up to 

 the present time. 



The activities of this early chemical laboratory were 

 the special interest of Henry Baiisoli. As the company 

 gjew, the responsibilities of the laboratory naturally 

 increased. It was called on for aid in the early experi- 

 ments in the making of optical glass, inspired by William 

 Bausch; it undertook research m all kinds of metal 

 plating; and the latest step in its expansion was the 

 addition of the equipment and personnel necessary to 

 handle the companj^'s work in metallurgy. 



In 1905 the scientific bureau was established, pri- 

 marily to perfect optical designs, to carry out such 

 research as might be necessary or appropriate to es- 

 tablish standards of performance, and to devise testing 

 equipment for use in the factory in producing instru- 

 ments that measured up to the established standards of 

 performance. The man employed to head this depart- 

 ment was Dr. G. A. H. Kcllner, who had been educated 

 at the Universitites of Jena and Berlin and who had had 

 practical experience in the optical industries of Ger- 

 many. Attached to his staff were Adolph and Henry 

 Lomb, Jr., and Fred Saegmuller. In 1908 Dr. Kellner 

 engaged the services of W. B. Ray ton, and lost the 

 services of the other 3 men mentioned because of the 

 continued growth of the business and the necessity to 

 draft these men for other responsibilities. From this 

 small beginning the department grew until on January 

 1, 1940, its staff consisted of a total of 39 people, 

 including optical engineers, electrical engineers, and 

 mechanical engineers. 



Dr. Kellner's first undertaking was a revision of the 

 line of microscope objectives that were manufactured 

 by the company. iVt the same time he began a revision 

 of the optical systems employed in a group of engineer- 

 ing instruments which the company had begun to 

 manufacture after its absorption of the business of the 

 George N. Saegmuller Company of Washington in 

 1905. A new interest, introduced into the company's 

 activities by Saegmuller, was the development of lire- 

 control instruments for the United States Navy^ 

 instruments such as gun sights, periscopes, range 

 finders, and miscellaneous telescopes. Prior to this 

 time the Navy had very little equipment of this sort, 

 and the years between 1905 and 1914 were active ones 

 in both the Bureau of Ordnance of the Navy and the 

 scientific bureau of the Bausch & Ix)mb Optical Com- 

 pany in developing various equipment which was more 

 or less experimental in the study of the whole problem 

 of determining ranges and aiming guns. 



The scientific bureau has continued research upon 

 the company's original products — spectacle lenses and 

 frames. In 1912 it began studies in the performance 

 of curved forms of lenses. The general development 

 of the whole field of ophthalmology has perforce led 



the company into the design and manufacture of elab- 

 orate instruments for diagnosis of the pathology of the 

 eyes and for the determination of refractive errors. 



As a result of the First World War the company had 

 to supplement its lines of products by a group of labora- 

 tory instruments such as spectrometers, refractometers, 

 spectrographs, and colorimeters. Responsibility for 

 developments in this field rested on the scientific bureau. 

 A survey revealed the fact that too many of these 

 instruments were so designed that the operator, instead 

 of being able to concentrate on his main problem, had 

 to devote a large part of his time and ingenuity to 

 keeping the instruments in working order. Until his 

 death in 1926, Dr. Kcllner manifested a keen interest 

 in the design of such instruments. 



Following Dr. Tvelliicr's death, Dr. Rnj'ton was made 

 head of the bureau, where subsequent developments 

 have added to the original responsibility for optical 

 design, the responsibility for the mechanical design of all 

 optical instruments manufactured by the company. 

 By continuous research involving the properties of 

 materials and the suitabilitj' of designs, this depart- 

 ment has, through improved instruments, advanced 

 the work of both the research and routine laboratories 

 of the country. 



A third research grou]) niamtained hy the Bausch & 

 Lomb Optical Company is concerned with the problems 

 of manufacturing o[)tical glass. This group obtains 

 assistance from the chemical laboratory and from the 

 scientific bureau, the former doing analytical work and 

 the latter investigating the quality of glass as regards 

 its effect on the performance of lenses and instruments. 

 The glass research group proper is concerned with the 

 problems of melting, annealing, and inspecting optical 

 glass. Work in this field was begun shortly before the 

 outbreak of the First World War. The conditions that 

 resulted from the war made it absolutely necessary that 

 the company solve the problem of manufacturing opti- 

 cal glass. The emergency was so serious that the 

 Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington assigned several members of its staff to 

 duty at the glass plant of the Bausch & Lomb Optical 

 Company, and, as a consequence, the progress made in 

 the years 1917 and 1918 was manj- times greater than 

 it would otherwise have been. In spite of the fact, 

 however, that throughout these years very large quan- 

 tities of usable optical glass were manufactured, the 

 number of kinds made was small, and much remained 

 to be done to reduce the cost of production and to 

 improve the quality of the product. Formulas and 

 techniques required for the production of a wider range 

 of glasses also had to be developed after the war. 



As the interests of the company have expanded so, 

 too, have the activities of its research laboratories in 

 which 130 workers are now employed. 



