Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-07-03
The Mellon Mysteries
BY Frederic ]. Haskin

is confined entirely to detective stories and
the movies, you should visit the Mellon
| Institute Of Pittsburg, and sec how IL II
done in rcal life.
That is the institutes business -solv-
|, ing the various mysteries which battle
and obstruct the path Of American INDUS
| try. That Is what the MELONS, Andrew
| w. and Richard b., the well-known Pitts
| burg bankers, founded and endowed it
| for. While the institute is operated as n
| part Of the University Of Pittsburg, and is
| often mistaken for one Of the university's
buildings, il really leads an independent
J life, with its own separate bank account,
i it's own board Of directors, and it's own
fellowship system. ;,
| Working IN its many splcndidly equipped
laboratories ore experts, sent 70 1T from all
| parts of the country by manufacturers and
| corporations who are anxious 20 improve
| the quality of Their products, or 10 dis
cover newer and cheaper processes for
making them. Every kind Of commercial
product, from soap and cement 10 oleomar-
| gerine and glue, is exhaustively studied
| here often with millon-dollar results.
| Each manufacturer pays for his
own particular line of experimentation
| by cndowing q fellowship (sometimes two
or three) in the institute upon the under
standing that he shall receive exclusive
| title To any results obtained. That -,
any new processes invented by the
| scientist selected for the fellowship are
| the property Of the manufacturer. IL is
also agreed that the nature Of the research
| shall be kept absolutely quiet, unless the
manufacturer or corporation interested
permits IL 10 be made public Hence,
| many of the most interesting problems
| being worked out 81 The institute are
| clothed in darkest secrecy, and the visit
| ing public is merely permitted TO smell
the experiments that are going on. To
most Of the laboratories, however, one is
given free access and graciously allowed
to nsk as many. questions az one likes.
Wandering thus inquisitively about
the various laboratories Of the institute
the other day, the reporter came upon a
young man bending tenderly over box
containing numerous glass jars OF peanut
butter. Upon questioning him, we found
that the box and not the peanut butter
was the cause OF his solicitude. The box
was made of fibre board, and the young
man was fibre board fellow
10 seems that some years ago the fibre
board industry was losing money because
il could not prove that its fiber board prod
uet made just rs strong a container as
wood. The railroads held that all CORFU
gated fiber board boxes used as containers
for freight shipments must meet certmo
specihcations-tha is, the fiber board
used in their construction had to have a
certain minimum thickness, and it had to
pass specified bursting test. This
bursting test was made with a machine
called the mellon Paper Tester" which
was not particularly designed for testing
corrugated board, but which was used for
lack OF anything better. The results were
unsatisfac tory, and consequently the rail-
roads refused TO permit anything weighing
more than 90 pounds to be shipped In
fiber board containers.
So the fiber board industry founded a
fellowship at the Mellon Institute, with
directions to prove, il possible, that fibre
board would stand up under much heavier
loads.
HE FOUND THE ANSWER
And we have, said the young man,
running a finger over the heavy corrugated
lining OF the fibre board box, although we
had to invent a new machine to do it,
He pointed TO a queer looking apparatus
on a nearby table THAT 5 our new Webb
paper tester, endorsed by the United
States Bureau Of Standards, he explained
1T shows that fiber board can easily
stand up under 100 pound shipments, and
even heavier ones.
Besides contributing this important
invention, the fibre board research men at
the institute have discovered several
substitute materials to be used in the
manufacture Of fiber board, which are
much cheaper and just as good as the
ones originally used. For instance, in
place OF the former expensive cambria tape
used In sealing the joint OF a corrugated
fiber box, new tape, half paper and half
cloth, has been devised which costs just
about fraction IS much and answers the
purpose equally as well.
Sometimes the results obtained from
the research at the institute are not so
satisfactory to manufacturers, but at
least they are gratihed To know the truth.
For example, not long ago, the manuiac-
turers Of butter substitutes endowed q
fellowship at the institute, in the hope of
proving false the charge of physicians
concerning oleomargerine and other vege-
table butters-namely, that they did not
possess the important yltamrres contained
In butter. The scientists engaged on this
work have not been able TO Tefute this
charge, but they have proved that butter
substitutes are as good as butter if thelost
vitamines are replaced by some other item
In the diet, such as milk and green vege-
tables 1t is also possible that before they
finish their work they may succeed in
capturing an elusive vitamine or two
and injecting il into the recipe for butter
substitutes.
The quest for important industrial Sc
crets is long and tedious business, often
requiring years of research work to demon
strate what, In the end, appears as a
simple, common sense fact. Months Of
preliminary investigation must often go
by before the research man even starts
his work on new process. Thus. as one
of the directors ofthe institute points out.
patience is cardinal virtue in the manu-
facturer who wants TO profit as much as
possible from research work The world
was not made in a day. although TO look
at ii anyone might think so, and indus
trial mysteries are not solved In a week
or two. This statement is rather humor-
ously corroborated by a manufacturer
endowing fellowship at the institute for
some dental research work. What was
wanted was new dental cement which
would fulfill the requirements laid down bv
a prominent dentist, dean of one Of the
large medical colleges
WORKERS CANNOT HURRY.
"After signing the contract for the
research, this manufactures says, II
expected in two or three weeks that the
chemist assigned to our undertaking
would begin TO show signs OF life. But
when | went out TO the laboratory about
month later to find out what progress
he was making whara do Won supno-a