December, 1924
INDUSTRIAL A N D EMXNEERING CHEMISTRY
1281
AMERICAN CONTELVPORARIES Clifford Richardson
was not unusual for us to have several youngsters from the organization of paving contractors and city engineering departFTER practicing his profession in Washington for nearly ments a t the laboratory for instructions for weeks a t a time, twenty years, Clifford Richardson left that city in 1896 This service was gratis and Mr. Richardson gave a great deal of his personal time and attention to all visitors and found much to establish his headquarters in New York just in time to dispose of his laboratory equipment to the newly organized pleasure in this sort of service. He was especially gifted with the Testing Department of the Southern talents of organized thought and clear Railway Company. As I was then expression and was apt in imparting with the Southern, I passed into Richknowledge to others on his chosen ardson’s old laboratory a few days after subjects, either by speaking or writing. he had vacated it and thus just missed His contributions to the literature ol starting an acquaintance with him industrial chemistry are both extensive which was not begun until a year or so and varied in character, and there has later, when I also moved to New York been scarcely a discussion of asphalt and located in Long Island City, within paving or allied subjects, either a t home a couple of blocks from the laboratory or abroad, in which he has not particiof The Barber Asphalt Paving Compated. pany, which he had organized and The methods of work of one successestablished there in the meantime. It ful man are doubtless not very different was, therefore, in 1897 that I first met from those of another, except as to deMr. Richardson and thus began an actails. Richardson was always an adquaintance which has run for twentyvocate of the idea of “get your hapseven years, and for eighteen of which piness out of your work.” His business I was directly associated with him in made it necessary for him to travel a the same business enterprise. great deal and he always regarded such Mr. Richardson was graduated from travels as a vacation, especially if Harvard University in 1877, and after abroad, as he was a good sailor and very a year at Bonn, Germany, was in turn fond of an ocean voyage. An annual with the IT. S. GeoIogical Survey and vacation a t a stated time and the daily as principal assistant chemist in the or weekly round of golf are fairly SubDepartment of Agriculture. modern institutions and were not taken sequently he became chemist of the into the calculations of many of the Engineering Department of the District pioneers in industrial chemistry. Alof Columbia and there began his life’s though Richardson was not robust, CLIPFORD RICHARDSON real work in the study of asphalt pavehis general health was sufficiently . good, _ ments, becoming a national authority on this subject. until a few years before his retirement, to enable him to set a With a mind and disposition well fitted for research work, he pretty brisk pace and to give but scant thought to the number was nevertheless distinctly an industrial chemist and thereof hours in a day’s work or the desirability of fixing any definite fore directed his attention to research in the asphalt paving and vacation periods for himself. allied arts from a practical point of view. He was the father of Richardson was a gentleman as well as a constructive chemist chemical engineering as applied t o the asphalt paving industry and the prototype of thousands of American chemists of today and should feel considerable satisfaction now, in his retirement who are spread thickly among the industries of this country and from active business, in viewing the important place chemistry many of whom have risen to executive positions in some of our *‘ and the chemist still hold in this field and the good work he did largest and most important business institutions. in his day to elevate the chemist in an industry which had thereCHARLES N. FORREST tofore been largely one of engineering. Richardson was among the pioneers in the AMERICAN CHEMICAI, SOCIETY and always took an active interest in both the parent society and its New York local section. He worked shoulder to Sea7 Latex Derivative shoulder with the “first half-dozen’’ fellow chemists in New York A new substance for use in connection with the manufacture of c~E~rc.41. in organizing the local sections of both the AMERICAN rubberized fabrics, and having for its base rubber latex, has SOCIETY and the Society of Chemical Industry, as well as the recently been placed upon the market and is attracting conChemists’ Club. siderable interest. It is obtained from latex by a special process, The publication of Richardson’s book, “The Modern Asphalt and is intended to replace rubber cement, which is now used in the rubberizing of fabrics. The new latex derivative is noninPavement,’’ in 1904 unveiled the secrets of asphalt paving. T t flammable because it contains water instead of volatile solvents. was the first treatise of any importance on this subject and is still It contains from two to three times as much rubber as is found in regarded as the bible of this industry. the average rubber cement. The claim is made that it gives as Richardson’s laboratory (New York Testing Laboratory) in heavy a coating with a single spread as can be obtained with two Long Island City, especially before the appearance of his book, or three coats of ordinary cement. One outstanding characteristic of this new product is that it was a sort of Mecca to which many of those seeking practical retains its original rubber qualities because it has never been information on asphalt paving journeyed. The winter months milled, worked, or dissolved in solvents. It is stainless and afforded time for study to those engaged in paving work, and it may be purchased in a number of different shades.
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