H. S. BRISTOL 

 Assistant Director of Forest Products Laboratory, United States Forest Service, Madison, Wisconsin 



selected as having made an entirely 

 satisfactory proposition and as pre- 

 senting on the whole the most favor- 

 able conditions for work such as the 

 Forest Service intended to do. 



By the terms of the agreement which 

 was entered into, the University has 

 erected a building at a cost of about 

 $50,000, and will supply free of charge 

 the heat, light, water, and power re- 

 quired in the work. The Forest Serv- 

 ice has supplied the testing machines 

 and other apparatus and will furnish 

 the force of forty experts and assistants 

 to carry on the work. By this plan of 

 cooperation the United States secures 

 the largest and most completely equip- 

 ped wood-testing laboratory in the 

 world. 



ORGANIZATION BY SECTIONS 



As to organization and working space, 

 the laboratory is divided into three 

 groups of three sections each. The first 

 326 



group employs processes that are largely 

 chemical and may be designated the 

 chemical group. In it are the sections 

 of chemistry, pulp, and distillation. The 

 section of chemistry devotes itself to 

 the study of the chemical constituents 

 of wood and the composition of wood 

 preservatives. The section of pulp in- 

 vestigations studies the fiber charac- 

 teristics of woods to determine their 

 value for various classes of pulp. The 

 immediate work of his section, for which 

 Congress has made a special appropri- 

 ation, is to determine whether it is pos- 

 sible to find a substitute for spruce in 

 the manufacture of ground wood pulp. 

 The section of distillation has the in- 

 teresting and important field of develop- 

 ing chemical by-products of wood by 

 distillation processes. Undoubtedly, 

 this section is to have great direct im- 

 portance in reducing wood waste be- 

 cause many of our commercial woods 

 are rich in such materials as alcohol, 

 turpentine, oils, and gums. 



