The Wilmington morning star., 1941-01-02
WASHINGTON
DAYBOOK
BY JACK STINNETT

Jan. line department o
Commerce is slap-happy over plastics. In thu
vast foyer Of the departments building (some
times referred to locally as 'Hoover's Folly
because nobody up to that time had evel
thought Of Commerce as important enough tt
be housed in such an edifice) there now is or
display as big an exhibition Of plastics as
Washington ever has seen.
There is everything from false teeth tc
brassieres; from milady's dainty pumps to
football helmets that would stop the jar Of a
Kimbrough; from fragile-looking bits Of cos
urne jewelry to airplane windshields that toss
machine-gum bullets aside like pellets from a
bean-shooter.
What Plastics Are
The day I was over there, there was a fel.
low standing around. I asked him: "Whaddyu.
mean plastics?" And his answer was: Gen
orally speaking, plastics are substances ca
pable Of being nodded or otherwise fabricated
with coloring matter or a filler) into a de.
sired solid form; this condition being obtained
by a physical or chemical interaction between
the molecules of a wide range of materials
Well, no doubt he knew what he was talking
about, but that seems to me to be putting it
the hard way. Plastics are like radio-you
can't explain them, but there they are. You
take a little coal tar or hammered soybeans,
mix them with a little air or water, run them
through a press and you get everything from
synthetic silk to gear-shift knobs.
The Chinese started making papier-mache
about as far back as firecrackers, but since
|~papier-mache wasn't an instrument of slaughter
it took civilization about ten centuries longer
to figure out that it was a plastic and plastics
were pretty hot stuff.
Now, after some Is years of commercial
development and about ten years Of concen-
trated attention from both the men in the lab
oratories and those in the market places, plas-
tics are coming into their own. When you
comb your hair and brush your teeth and
switch off your lights at night, the chances are
ten to one you are using plastics.
When you shove the family jalopy into gear,
you are using p~lastics. They are in your kitchen
they are on your clothes, and the Department
Of Commerce is doing its best to make you
ures as this: Ten years ago the output Of
synthetic resins amounted to approximately
81, 000, 900 p~ounds-ten years later, to 213, 900.
600 pounds.
Out Tut-ing King Tut
And now we get down to what was to me
the most fascinating part Of the commerce
department exhibit the work that Charles
E.. Sando of the Department of Agriculture
has been doing with a synthetic resin that's
a dead ringer for clear glass. He has been
burying bugs and ears of corn and butterflies in
blocks of this stuff and turning out preserved
specimens that would out-live King Tut's num-
my.
Sando, a 45-year-old bio-chemist, after sew.
eral years of research has managed the feat
of Embedding these specimens in an unscratch-
able clear plastic and retaining not only per-
feet form, even to the minute hairs on the
legs of a tarantula, but perfect coloring. He
has preserved frogs, snakes with barred fangs)
peacock feathers, spikes of wheat and oats
and even moths, whose delicate coloring would
be upset by any breeze strong enough to blow
the dust off their wings.
Don't ask me how he does it. I only know
that it is too expensive for commercialization
and that not a jot Of air or moisture is left
in the embedded specimen. Scientists and med.
icos already are tipping their derbies to DR..
Sando and promising that it won't be long
until you can illustrate your lectures on the
absent appendix with slass-imbedded proof.