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

NEW SOURCES, RESOURCES, AND SUBSTITUTES 173
Constructed on the basis of Bureau recommendations, 21 Government-
owned toluol plants were in operation extracting toluol and ammonia from
the light oils of coal and water gas jn city gas works at the time of the
armistice. The reduced efficiency of household gas that resulted from this
stripping became a memorable experience of the war as heating values fell
off and gas mantles roared as housewives turned them up full to get more
light. But along with new coke-oven recovery processes, the plants raised
toluol production from the prewar rate of approximately half a million gallons
annually to 40 times that amount.33
The Bureau also became involved in byproduct coke operations when
in the latter part of 1917 the Department of Commerce asked Bureau gas
engineers to study the recently developed Roberts coke oven, said to produce
a commercial grade of metallurgical coke from the low-grade coals of Illinois
and Indiana, as well as large yields of byproducts, including light oils,
ammonia, and tar. With Bureau of Mines and Geological Survey repre-
sentatives, more than 20 members of the Bureau took part in the work and
continued the investigations through 1918. The war ended before the
Roberts oven was proved, but the investigation indicated that the process
had considerable merit. Perhaps more important was the reassessment of
the value of some of the midcontinent coals as a new fuel and byproduct
resource. Although considered uneconomical to work in peacetime, it seemed
possible that new advances in mining technology might make them competi-
tive with established fields.34
The most extensive testing undertaken by the Bureau during the war
was almost certainly in the chemical, physical, and structural properties of
metals—of processed-irons for use in shells; of steels and steel alloys for guns,
munitions, armor plate, high-speed tools, gages, airplane instruments and
engines, helmets and gas masks, horseshoe nails and rivets; of aluminum for
metal airplanes and Army canteens; of brass for ammunition. Under the
stimulus of war, industry turned out scores of new alloy steels—nickel,
chromium, tungsten, zirconium, molybdenum, vanadium, manganese, and
cobalt—and sent them to the Bureau for precise determination of their com-
position and qualities. Ingots of light armor alloy steels (containing
zirconium, molybdenum, boron, cerium), made for the Navy at the Bureau
of Mines were rolled into plates in the Bureau of Standards mill and thorough
tests made of their mechanical, chemical, and thermal properties. And
"War Work," pp. 288—293; T117, "Toluol recovery" (McBride, Reinicker, Dunkley,
1918). For the less than cooperative attitude of the gas industry at the time, see letter,
SWS to editor, Am. Gas Eng. J., Nov. 17, 1917 (NBS Box 7, ICG).
"War Work," pp. 73—82.