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

HIGH POLYMERS AND BUiLDING RESEARCH 483
The story with its testimonials drew thousands of inquiries about
"Aquella" and hundreds of requests seeking licenses for "Aquella" agencies.
On the strength of the mail, the family obtained capital and began selling
manufacturing rights to distributors.
The Better Business Bureau of New York asked the Bureau to test
the waterproofing paint. The Bureau already had. At the request of the
military services it had obtained samples and reported its findings in Decem-
ber 1942. Six months later it had made a second report. The new tests
confirmed the earlier ones. Judged "excellent" immediately after applica.
tion, "Aquella" on the outer face of masonry after 10 months offered no more
than "good" protection against water seepage. The inner face rated "poor."
"Aquella," at $3 to $4 a quart was judged a fair waterproof paint but no
better than a Bureau recipe made with 10 cents' worth of material. The
Bureau also learned that "Aquella" had been used in the Maginot Line, but
only for decorative purposes, as a blue calcimine.
Newspaper accounts of the Bureau reports, following publication of
the magazine story, resulted in almost 20,000 inquiries about the Bureau
tests. They were answered with a mimeographed letter summarizing the
findings on "Aquella." The mail also brought numerous protests of Govçrn-
ment interference with private enterprise, notably the intercession of Gov.
Ellis Arnall of Georgia with Secretary Wallace on behalf of prospective
"Aquella" distributors in his State. Wallace "recalled and retracted" the
Bureau's mimeographed letter.153
No such simple détente marked the results of Bureau tests of a battery
additive called "Protecto-Charge," later known as AD—X2. Its history went
back to the years immediately after World War I when the resurgence of the
automobile industry brought on the market a freshet of battery additives,
substances whose makers claimed would restore vitality to dying batteries.
Through the next three decades the Bureau, at the request of the Federal
Trade Commission, the Post Office Department, and various Government
agencies with fleets of cars and trucks, tested these additives as they appeared
on the market. By the early thirties almost a hundred of the preparations
had come to the Bureau, but whether based on epsom salts or .other substances,
none showed any notable effect on either battery life or performance.154
'53"NBS Report of water permeability tests on coating of 'Aquella' paint applied to
masonry walls," Dec. 8, 1942; ibid., June 4, 1943; mimeo letter, "Summary of water-
permeability tests of 'Aquella' * * *, Aug. 9, 1946; report on "Aquefla," Consumers'
Res. Bull. 17, 20 (May 1946); letter, H. A. Wallace to President, Prima Products, Inc.,
New York City, June 3, 1946 ("General Correspondence Files of the Director, 1945—
1955"); interview with Dr. E. U. Condon, Oct. 29, 1963.
154 See ch. V, p. 281. The correspondence on battery additives in the early thirties
is in NBS Box 369, TE.