654 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. 'N'o. 984 



of Standards, the Paper and Leather Lab- 

 oratory of the Agricultural Department, 

 and the laboratory of Arthur D. Little, Inc., 

 at Boston. Our own special equipment for 

 this purpose includes, as does that of some 

 of the other laboratories named, a complete 

 model paper mill of semi-commercial size. 

 There is no school of paper-making in 

 the country, and one of our most urgent in- 

 dustrial needs is the establishment of spe- 

 cial schools in this and other industries for 

 the adequate training of foremen who shall 

 possess a sufficient knowledge of funda- 

 mental scientific principles and method to 

 appreciate the helpfulness of technical re- 

 search. The Pratt Institute at Brooklyn is 

 fully alive to this demand and has shaped 

 its courses admirably to meet it. 



The steel industry in its many ramifica- 

 tions promotes an immense amount of re- 

 search ranging from the most refined stud- 

 ies in metallography to experimentation 

 upon the gigantic scale required for the de- 

 velopment of the Gayley dry blast; the 

 Whiting process for slag-cement; or the 

 South Chicago electric furnace. This fur- 

 nace has probably operated upon a greater 

 variety of products than any other electric 

 furnace in the world. Regarding the steel 

 for rails produced therein, it is gratifying to 

 note that after two and a half years or more 

 no reports of breakage have been received 

 from the 5,600 tons of standard rails made 

 from its output. The significance of this 

 statement will be better appreciated when 

 we consider that in 1885 the average total 

 weight on drivers was 69,000 pounds. It 

 had risen to over 180,000 pounds in 1907, 

 and reached a maximum of 316,000 pounds 

 in that year. The weight of rails during 

 the same period had increased from 65-75 

 pounds to 85-100 pounds. In 1905, condi- 

 tions were so bad that out of a lot of 10,000 

 tons, 22 per cent, were removed the first 

 year because of depressions in the head. 



In 1900, the American Railway Engineer- 

 ing Association took the matter in hand 

 and studied the influence and extent of seg- 

 regation of specific impurities. The work 

 was at first confined to phosphorus but has 

 been extended to other constituents. Pay 

 called attention to the highly deleterious in- 

 fluence of sulphide of manganese. 



The great railway systems have been 

 quick to cooperate in these researches which 

 with others of fundamental importance 

 have been extended by the American So- 

 ciety for Testing Materials, the Master Car 

 Builders' Association, and other organiza- 

 tions. Materials of construction have con- 

 stituted a fertile subject of inquiry in the 

 Structural Materials Testing Laboratory of 

 the United States Geological Survey. 



There could well be a further great en- 

 largement of the field of industrial research 

 in special industries through the initiative 

 and support of national trade associations, to 

 the great benefit of their membership. The 

 American Paper and Pulp Association, for 

 example, should subsidize studies in the 

 utilization of waste sulphite liquors, the 

 paper-making qualities of unused woods 

 and fibers, the hydration of cellulose, new 

 methods of beating the yields from rags, 

 the proper use of alum and so on. The 

 American Brass Founders' Association could 

 not do better than initiate investigations 

 into zinc losses, the physical properties of 

 alloys, and the production of alloys to speci- 

 fications defining the properties desired, the 

 application of the electric furnace to the 

 industry and the preparation of new alloys 

 by electric or other methods. A similar op- 

 portunity knocks at the door of the Ameri- 

 can Foundrymen's Association. Some few 

 associations like those of the bakers and 

 the laundrymen are already active to good 

 purpose; others, like the Yellow Pine 

 Lumber Manufacturers' Association, are 

 aroused, but to the great majority of those 



