560 Edward V. Lewis and John P. Breslin 
through at my Institute. I hope that by my discussion, which is going to be very brief, you 
will not get the impression that our institute is concerned only with such very unusual types 
of vessels. 
What I want to get to is the following consideration: The common yellow mineral known 
as sulphur exists in great abundance throughout the world, particularly along the gulf coast 
of the United States and Mexico, and in France and Italy. Sulphur is mined by the so-called 
Frasch process in which hot water is pumped down into the ground and the sulphur is forced 
out in molten form. This sulphur is then usually piled up in very large heaps in which it 
solidifies. Then one places a dynamite charge in the sulphur and blows off big chunks which 
are then loaded either on barges or on railroad cars and transported to other parts of the world. 
We began to think of a different means of transporting sulphur and for this we needed to know 
something about its structural properties, but we found out that even the largest sulphur 
producers in the world had little or no knowledge concerning the mechanical properties of 
sulphur. To make a long story short, sulphur is as strong as fairly high-grade Portland 
cement concrete: it has a very high compressive strength and a moderately good tensile 
strength. Our idea was, and we have investigated only certain of the economics involved 
here, to bring the sulphur up in molten form and to cast it in the form of a ship or boat and 
“sail” it to some other port. or destination. 
Because of its high compressive strength sulphur has some desirability for a semisub- 
merged boat. Unfortunately, its low tensile strength would require some reinforcing material, 
but since we had concrete barges during the war, why not a sulphur barge? To reduce wave 
impact forces and to improve operation in rough seas, why not a semisubmerged boat made 
of sulphur? It might be found rather than self-propelled, perhaps in train, and thus result i in 
very large savings in transportation costs. 
So, while I am not talking about particularly high performance ships of the semisub- 
merged type, and while [ am talking about commercial aspects rather than military, I thought 
you might be amused by these speculations and considerations, bearing somewhat on the 
subject of semisubmerged ships, that we have been talking about. The stability studies and 
other considerations of the authors will certainly be of extreme interest to us if we pursue 
this subject further. 
