Science: Brick for Medal

A remarkable brick rewarded the country’s important chemical societies for giving the coveted Perkin Medal to Dr. Charles Frederick Burgess at a Manhattan ceremony last week. The medal is for “the American chemist who has most distinguished himself by his services to applied chemistry.” In Dr. Burgess’ case that refers to his showing factory managers that it pays to hire scholars. Twenty and more years ago he was professor of applied electro-chemistry and chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin. Manufacturers hesitated to use his novel ideas concerning the electrolytic purification of iron, dry batteries, corrosion. He organized his own companies, his own industrial laboratory, quit the university. He now heads five corporations capitalized for $3,000,000, hiring 1,000 .persons and producing goods worth $6,000,000 yearly.

In return for the Perkin Medal, Professor Burgess showed chemistry & industry his remarkable new brick. Fearing that its properties were incredible, he tossed one into a pot of water, cried: “Notice that it floats. If I should leave it here for a year it would still be floating. In other words we have a brick which is light, one-fifth the weight of an ordinary brick, of high heat-insulating quality, porous, yet resistant to the entrance of water, and of a crushing strength sufficient to support its weight if built into a tower five times the height [1,250 ft.] of the Empire State Building.”

Original idea for the brick belonged to Howard F. Weiss, Manhattan chemist who figured out that what with loading, hauling, hod-carrying and mortaring, it costs four times as much to lay a brick as to make it.