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National Geographic : 1936 Feb
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*A lad of twenty-two held in his hand a little pellet of shining metal . . . the beginning of a new industry. It was the morning of February 23, 1886, only fifty fleeting years ago. The scene, a woodshed in Oberlin, Ohio. The lad, CHARLES MARTIN HALL. Every other place in the world, Aluminum was a semiprecious metal, a laboratory curiosity costing $8.00 or $9.00 a pound. But at that instant, in that woodshed, Aluminum had at last joined the rank of useful metals. That hushed moment, with young Hall standing alone with success, was the climax of a feverish search. The inspiration had come from an off-hand observation by his Oberlin College professor, Frank Fanning Jewett, to the effect that the man who could invent a process for making Aluminum on a commercial scale would not only be a bene factor to the world, but would also lay up for himself a great fortune. Hall's search had been an obsession. Much of his spare time after school hours was spent in dogged effort. But all the chemical knowledge at Hall's command was applied to no avail. The flash of inspiration had come eight months after he had finished college:-Might not elec tricity hold the hidden answer? Borrowing battery jars and plates from the school laboratory, investing meagre savings in a small clay crucible, making other crude apparatus by hand, he fitted up a laboratory in the wood shed behind his father's house. Everything ready, he melted cryolite in his crucible, dissolved in it some refined Aluminum ore, switched on his batteries, and waited ... but still there was no Aluminum! He pondered the problem. Did impurities in the clay crucible affect the result? A carbon lining would eliminate that possibility. He made one. Again the experiment was repeated. Hall waited; he emptied the crucible... There were the shining pellets! Success! Success that had eluded the efforts of the world's greatestscientists. Success in a woodshed laboratory! But there were dark days to follow. Two differ ent groups of backers gave up his process as profit less and impractical. Not until the summer of 1888, when Hall made an arrangement with a group of men who formed The Pittsburgh Reduction Company (now Alumi num Company of America) was Aluminum given its chance to come into its own. These men foresaw the basis for a new industry in this new metal, which was only about one-third as heavy as older metals, would not rust or tarnish from exposure, and which would conduct heat and electricity rapidly. A FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY MESSAGE FROM OF AMERICA COMPANY ALUMINUM
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