The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-03-23
GRAINS OF DUST
SHOW VOCATION
Scientist Shows How
Clues Come From Par
ticles In Clothing

If you came ito my laboratory and
asked me to guess what your business
is, the chances are that / could do 1t. 4
would simply take the dust out Of your
clothes and look at it under powerful
microscope, writes DR.. %. e. Free, Fell
low of American Association for the
Advancement Of Science, in the Mil
waukee Journal
If you are a careful person you may
deny that your clothes are dutsy at all,
but I assure you that they are. 1t is
inside the body Of the cloth itself,
tucked away dis tiny microscopic par
ticles in between the threads of the
fabric. Scientists have a special APP
paratus for getting this, dust out, an
apparatus that acts like small but
powerful vacuum cleaner. -.
From the clothes Of bookkeeper, for
example, you will obtain almost in
variably a kind of dust that is 30 COM
mon that it has q name. We call it
'office dust" It contains three quite
Characteristic things, all of them easily
identifiable under the microscope. First
are numerous tiny grains of pencil lead.
Second are lot of little fibers Of pa
per. Most characteristic of all are some
tiny shreds and rolls Of india rubber,
the debris Of crasures made with an
ordinary pencil eraser. Not one office
worker of of fifty will fail to show
some of this kind of dust inside the
fabric of his working clothes.
Talcum Powder Particles
Other businesses have their special
dusts, too. A job in a. hardware store
will mean that the fiber of your clothes
fills up gradually with the tiny bits
of iron that get rubbed off the nails
and bolts and tools that you; handle.
The carpenter or the worker I'm any
kind of wood factory carries hundreds
of tiny shreds of sawdust; the trousers
Of the mason yield their little bits Of
stone.
One of the most curious dusts of all
is that which characterizes department
stores, and which is found, almost
every time in the clothes of people who
work in them. 1t is talcum powderl It
powder puffs of feminine. visitors. II
most certain that there is q lot of face
powder in the fibers of his professional
coat, and quite innocently, too.
The dust in clothes is often of the
greatest Importance, also, in tracing
guessing at their businesses. I remem-
her, for example, one puzsling criminal
case that was solved by the help of
single grain of brick dust. .
Betrayed By Dust
A wealthy man was found dead in
bed with a bullet hole through his
head. The police suspected murder.
They believed the crime to have been
committed elsewhere, the body having
been brought home afterwards. and an
effort made to surround the death with
a false appearance of suicide. Suspi-
cion fell upon distant relative whom
we will call Mr.. Smith. He was ar
rested and searched. Nothing whatso-
ever was found to connect him with
the crime and he was released.
But one of the detectives, scientifica1-
~ inclined or possibly merely playing
a "hunch, kept pair of Mr.. smiths
trousers. In the cloth Of one of the
knees he found one small reddish grain
which turned out, under the microscope,
to be aparticle of brick dust.
This detective happened to remember
that the only place in the neighborhood
where brick dust was really plentiful
was an abandoned brick yard d mile