Evening Star Newspaper, October 4, 1931, Page 81

PART * 7. he Sunday Stae Magasine WASHINGTON, D. C. "OCTOBER 4, 1931, Books ‘Features 20 PAGES, ==y — AMERICA’'S DEAN OF DYNAMITE Inventor of Smokeless Powder, 82 Years of Age, Is the Explosives Expert of the Bureau of Mines—Dr. Charles E. Monroe Has a Nature in Sharp Contrast With TNT and Nitroglycerin, to Which Most of His Years Have Been Devoted. MERICA'S last ounce of World War explosives was fired the other day to blow up a stumg on a Western farm. The flash of that wild nitrogen in the harness of useful work marked the completion of an unprece= dented salvage of war waste—the uti- lization of $25,000,000 worth of military explosives that lay in this country awaiting transport to Europe when the armistice was signed. 3ecause of the high explosive charac- ter of these tons of ammunition, the authorities at first proposed to destroy them as a measure of safety. But here in Washington, in the Bureau of Mines, is Dr. Charles E. Munroe, chief explo- sives chemist; whose New England con- science hated to see so much energy go to waste. His intimate knowledge of these high - tempered, quick - triggered chemicals told him, moreover, that they amight be put to work. He suggested that it would be both cheaper and safer to use this surplus material in experi- mental investigation, in engineering projects and in agriculture. “What! Turn over picric acid and TNT for farmers and road builders to tinker with? Too dangerous!” Some carloads of picric acid were - Joaded onto barges in New York, towed to sea and dumped into the Atlantic. Within a few days cases of the unexplod- ed stuff began to drift ashore here and there along the New Jersey and Long « Island beaches. It was a ticklish job for the men hurriedly sent out in boats to find the floating death and fish it out of the water—and, too, it was ef- fective demonstration of the danger of *“destroying™ the evplosives, AS soon as the audhorities decided to 3 release the surplus for industrial use, Dr. Munroe and members of his staflf began a series of tests at the Ex- plosives Experiment Sfation of the Bu- reau of Mines, at Bruceton, Pa. Their object was to determine the best meth- ods of handling TNT, picric acid and comminuted smokeless powder as blast- " ing agents. The results were published, certain experts were assigned to instruct industrial workers and agriculturists in the technique, and the deadly war stuff was put to work on peace-tire jobs. Thousands of tons were distributed. The disposal of these military left-overs at cost saved the Government many millions of dollars. I mention this modern realization of the ancient vision of swords beat into ploughshares by way of introducing, in characteristic action, the Government's chemist who initiated the project and who advised and safeguarded every step of it. For Charles E. Munroe, though he has been expounding the theories * of chemistry all his life and has been * teacher of the science most of his years, ‘ is a hard-headed utilitarian who is continually looking for practical uses and applications of it. The story of - explosives is a fascinating one, but far . more so is the story of its master ex- perimenter. He was 82 years old the other day— . Charles Edward Munroe, inventor of smokeless powder, formerly master of torpedo research for the United States Navy, head of explosives investigations . for the National Research Council and chief explosives chemist for the United States Bureau of Mines—82 years old and on the job ' every day! An eminent German scientist recently ad- dressed Munroe as “the Nestor of living inves- tigators of explosives.” On his 80th birthday a European scientific journal issued a special Munroe edition, which hailed him as “dean of explosives information.” Both titles ht—though, as I have suggested, this Nestor seems to have attained the foun- tain of youth, and though the dean is person- ally one of the least explosive and most urbane and delightfully companionable persons imag- inable, no man living has dore more to search the mysteris and advance the knowledge and safeguard the use of explosives than has this scholarly American. But Dr. Munroe is an encyclopedia on many subjects—the literature of chemistry, the facets of mineralogy, the vulnerability of bank vaults, the delights of horticulture, the great person- alities of American science. If he would write his memoirs, what a gal- lery they would make! Wolcott Gibbs, the . chemist; the Agassizes (both Louis and Alex- ander), Benjamin Pierce and Benjamin Silli- man, jr.; President Eliot as he entered upon his service at Harvard, Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and Drawing for The Star Magazine by & J. Wolf. Dr. Charles E. Monroe, master experimenter of high explosives. BY GEORGE W. GRAY every incumbent of the office since; the Lang- leys, Simon Newcomb, Asaph Hall, Alexander Graham Bell—Munroe has known them all. FOUNDER of the American Chemical So- clety, he has seen his group grow into the most numerous scientific organization in the world. He has seen the great ones as they have come up, many, like himself, from humble be- ginnings—to become masters of thought, of in- vention, of discovery. And he has been part of much that he has seen. Not long ago the president of a university approached Dr. Munroe with a questionnaire. He said he was asking 1,000 eminent Americans to outline briefly the secret of their success— to give a formula that he could pass on to his students. » “Well, in my own case,” answered Dr. Mun- roe, “the formula is very simple, and perhaps too easy. All that I did was to let life unfold.” ‘The unfolding began in Cambridge, Mass., where Munroé was born, in 1849, the son of a master wheelwright. The first Munroe settled there in 1657, when the village was called New- town, and by the time of the American Rev- olution that section of New England knew many Munroes. Dr, Munroe has counted the names of 30 of his kinsmen on the Lexington Monument, While he was yet a schoolboy the chance reading of an article in an agricultural paper attracted young Munroe’s attention to chemis- try. No instruction in the science was pro- vided in high school, so the boy determined to explore the subject on his own. He selected an attic room as laboratory and applied to the local pharmacy for 10 cents’ worth of prussic acid. “Prussic acid?” repeated the druggist, the eyes focusing terrifyingly on thé 12-year-old. “Do you know what that is?” “Yes, sir; three drops placed on the pulse will produce “instant death,” glibly recited the applicant. There were no pharmacy laws, but the con- scientious druggist had scruples against sup- plying the boy with the acid. Instead, he of- fered him an after-school job and allowed the use of a back room stocked with chemicals. After that Munroe never had any doubt €5 to his future. “Going to study chemistry, Charles?” said his grandmother as' he was entering Harvard. “Chemistry? But how are you going to make a living, lad?” - Charles didn't know how he was going to make a living. “But I must study chemistry, grandma, because I like it. And I know I'm going to be happy.” Perhaps that's the secret. There is & consecration in science, a dedication, a this - one - thing - I - do attitude which makes apostleship as natural to the laboratory as it is to the monastery, ~ Munroe never departed from his firs§ love. Chemistry has been the passion of his life, his hobby as well as his profession—and there has never been any trouble about making a living in the 61 years that have passed since Harvard handed him his degree summa cum laude. - Immediately upon graduation he was appointed assistant to Wolcott Gibbs, the eminent Harvard chemist, and suce ceeded Gibbs in the conduct of a chem- istry course. It was while he was ene gaged in this teaching that a publica< tion appeared in French reporting Sobrero’s discovery of nitroglycerin, At that time black powder was the only explosive in general use. A Boston gun- powder manufacturer, wishing to learn of this mysteriously powerful nitroe glycerin, engaged young Munroe to translate the paper into English. 'HUS, at the very beginning of the modern science of explosives, Mun-~ roe was introduced to the subject. He had no thought then of specializing. But the subject interested him; he kept his eye on the development of exploe sives from that day, and in time—when life unrolled the opportunity—he be- came student, experimenter, authority in this specialized field. The event that opcned the way to this phase of his career was the receipt of an unexpected letter from Annapolis, offering him the chair of chemistry at the Naval Academy. Here chemistry was more than a cultural subject; and, obviously so, the chemistry of explosives was important. Munroe, transferred from Harvard to Annapolis, begam to specialize. After a period of fruitful years at Annapolis another letter came like & bolt from the blue, offering the chemi- cal professorship at the Naval War Cole« lege and Torpedo Station. This institue tion, at Newport, R. I, was not only a post graduate school for naval officers, but also a research center. Here the Navy was experimenting with mnitro- glycerin and guncotton as substitutes for black powder. It was these re- searches, now intrusted to Munroe, that led him deep into his specialty. Word came that the French governe ment had adopted a smokeless powder, All the chancelleries of Europe were buzzing with the news, and some has- tened te’adopt a new powder before its qualitie§ were proven. The professor at Newport quietly went to work and produced a smokeless powder which of= ficial tests pronounced “considerably in advance of those attained in foreign countries.” It was immediately adopted by the United States Navy. One day at Newport Munroe chanced to see a curious phenomenon following an explosion. The smooth steel plate on which a block of guncotton had just been tested showed a surface no longer smooth. There were marks on it, and upon examination these proved to be a series of numerals. Precisely, they were the numerals of a date which the de- stroyed block of guncotton had borne as an identifying mark. But how were they trans- ferred to the steel? Prof. Munroe answered the question by try- ing some more blocks of guncotton. Between a slab of the explosive and a steel plate he put a coin. When the guncotton was detonated the coin was volatized and disappeared with the other gases of the explosion, but its image was found engraved in the steel as sharply as though cut by a die. TH!N he put a piece of lace in place of the coin, and the effect of the explosion was to etch the delicate tracery of lacework into the steel. Thus was discovered and demonstrated the “Munroe effect”—a process of nature which science has labeled with his name. A job assigned to Munroe soon after his are rival at Newport was to make detonators ine fallibly explosive. Too often.the spar torpedoes then in use failed to fire, and it was found that the fault lay with the detonators, or soe called firing caps. . : Early one morning Prof. Munroe appeared & Continued on Eigh'zenth Page . o