Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

THE BEGINNING OF 93
gates, poured concrete, or concrete ibuilding iblocks. And so with other
construction materials.
Search of the literature on :materials submitted for Government pur.
chase disclosed that no standard :methods or apparatus existed for the test-
ing of wood, paper, twine, 'fabrics, inks, mucilages, .and related mate-
rials, or for the testing lubricating oils, resins, varnishes, protective
coatings, and glues, all of qualities were as important to the buying
public as to the Government. In order to provide proper specifications to
industry for the manufacture of materials, the physical, chemical, and
other properties of their composition had to be investigated. The program
of structural, engineering, and miscellaneous materials research thus begun
was to consume much of the Bureau's for many years to come. By
1911 the program, originally scattered throughout the laboratories, had at-
tained divisional status. It had a special appropriation of its own, and was
well on the way to becoming the largest single activity at Bureau.
Allied to this research in commercial and industrial products, but
actually derived from the function calling for "the determination of 'physical
constants and the properties of materials," was the Bureau's standard samples
program. This began in 1905 when the American Foundrymen's Assodia-
tion turned over to the Bureau its work of preparing and distributing samples
of standardized irons to its member 'industries. To prepare these samples,
a quantity of iron was reduced to fine borings and then carefully analyzed,
divided into samples of known composition as certified by the Bureau, and
sold to manufacturers as a check on their own laboratory analyses.
Preparation of like samples of a number of alloys, iron ores, and
copper slags prompted Albert Ladd Colby, representingengineering interests
on the Visiting Committee to the Bureau and a leading authority on metal-
lurgy, to suggest 'that the Bureau produce samples of steels as well. The
work began the next year when the Association of American Steel Manu-
facturers requested preparation of aseries of 17 standard steel samples. The
Bureau's samples won high praise and requests for similar certification of
other basic materials. When the American Chemical Society assigned its
standard sample work to the Bureau, Dr. Stratton announced the Bureau's
intention of preparing an entire spectrum of sample materials, covering
hundreds of products, for American industry.82
The chemistry division, 'increasingly involved in its investigation of
properties of materials for the Government testing program, found itself
NBS Annual Report 1906, p. 16; Annual Report 1907, p. 13. The methods of analyses
and range of samples were described in NBS C14 (1909), NBS C25 (1910), NBS C26
(1910) and their successive editions.