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

410 WORLD WAR I! RESEARCH (1941-45)
In 1943 a quartz research laboratory was added to the complex,
where technicians under Francis P. Phelps undertook X-ray measurement
studies of the crystals, standardization of quartz plates, and fabrication of
experimental plates from mother crystal.12' Before the war, optical per-
fection of the crystal had been used as the criterion of electrical performance.
The quartz laboratory showed that this was not necessary, and as a result
new specifications established for the agencies using the crystal made possible
regrading of more than 2 million pounds previously rejected by the Bureau.
At the peak of production, 111 firms in this country were drawing
on the stockpile at the Bureau to manufacture almost 2 million oscillators each
month for the radio equipment of our Armed Forces, for commercial use,
and for shipment to our Allies. Shortly before the project closed at the end
of April 1946, the Bureau reported it had classified and graded over 6 million
pounds of crystalline quartz, or 60 times the original stockpile requirement.122
RESEARCH IN CRITICAL MATERIALS
Quartz crystal found a place on every list of critical and strategic ma-
terials drawn up on the eve of war. As in 1917, the course of the war in
Europe 'had made our entrance certain before 'this country began to take stock
of its raw material resources and requirements. When it did, it found dis-
quieting lacks not only in quartz crystal but in antimony, chromium, cocoanut
char, ferro-grade manganese, magnesium, manila fiber, mercury, mica, qui-
nine, silk, tin, and tungsten. Badly needed too were aluminum, asbestos,
cork, graphite, hides, iodine, kapok, optical glass, toluol, vanadium, and wool.
It was also evident that enormous quantities of steel and petroleum must be
produced, and almost unlimited amounts of copper. But leading all the lists,
and most frightening, was the rubber shortage, upon which the wheels of war
rolled.'23
As once 'before, the Bureau was to make important contributions to
research in many of these materials, to the search for substitutes, and to
better utilization of available supplies. At the outset, in the emergency, it
had an active part in many phases of t'he establishment of the new synthetic
121 NBS War Research, pp. 45—46.
122 NBS War Research, pp. 49—50; letter, EUC to Executive Director, Office of Metals Re-
serve, Jan. 18, 1946 (NBS Blue Folder Box 71).
NOTE.—A memorandum of Apr. 1, 1942, in the building data files of the NBS plant division
discloses that at that early stage of the program the value of the quartz stored at
tile Bureau was $5 million. Assuming a medial value of $10 per pound, the total value of
all tested and stockpiled quartz must have come close to $60 million.
Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy, pp. 9—10, 38.