Testers' 25th

A thousand members of the American Society for Testing Materials (A.S.T.M.) went to French Lick, Ind., last week for their 25th annual convention. There, in haunts usually filled by politicians clandestinely trading their influences, testers frankly presented 80 reports and papers on various metals, cements, ceramics, paints, oils, petroleum products, timber, coal, coke, rubber, textiles, etc.

Barnacles, woe of ship masters who know how seriously the clinging crustacea retard ship speed, dislike a paint containing a combination of copper and mercury, explained Dr. Anthony Moultrie Muckenfuss, research chemist of Perth Amboy, N. J. All hulls could be painted with the material.

X-rays. Metals prevent passage of x-rays ordinarily used. A ring, on an x-ray photograph, is opaque, although the flesh of the finger is transparent. However, Professor George L. Clark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who established the first laboratory for applying x-rays to industry, showed the testers how he detected flaws in steel four-inches thick.

World Quart. Although the A.S.T.M. is engaged in standardizing specifications for materials used industrially and has set up 497 distinct standards, at the French Lick meeting they did nothing about establishing a world quart, about applying the metric system of weights & measures to all U. S. uses.

President. Newly elected A.S.T.M. president is Dr. Herbert Fisher Moore, for 20 years professor of engineering materials at the University of Illinois.