Interview with Carl S. Marvel - Journal of Chemical Education (ACS

Interview with Carl S. Marvel. J. E. Mulvaney. J. Chem. Educ. , 1976, 53 (10), p 609. DOI: 10.1021/ed053p609. Publication Date: October 1976. Cite thi...
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1 CARL S. MARVEL University of Arizona Tucson.85721

Interview with

Carl S. Marvel J. E. MULVANEY University of Arizona Tucson, 85721

Mulvaney: Or Marvel, may I begin by asking whenand whereyou were born? MaweP I was born on a farm near Waynesvllle, Illinois on the morning of September 11, 1894. Mulvaney: What was the background of your mother and father? Marvel: My father was from that generalarea; he was raisedabout three or four miles from the farm he owned when I was born. My mother was also raised on a farm. She lived near by, maybe five or six miles from the farm on which I was born. My father's family were all farmers and my mother's family were farmers and small town shopkeepers. One of my mother's brothers was a high schwl teacher, and my mofher herself had been a grade school teacher before she was marred. Mulvaney: What were your early school days like in that time and place? Mawel: I went to a country schoolabout three quatiers o f a mile from our farmhouse and went there through tfmeighth grade.I was sent to a private hlgh school called Waynesville Academy. It was a school run by a retired Presbyterian minister who specialized in languages. It is understandablethaf my hlgh school training included four years of Latin, two years of Greek, and two years of German. I also had mathematics through plain and solid geometry and trigonometry, a little history, and some English. I studied physics, zoology, and botany on my own to get the necessarycredifs to go to college. Mulvaney: And what about the influence of teachers In those early days? Mawel: I had two very gwd teachers in my sevenfh and eighth ~rades, andunder their influence Iratedin the first ten or sostudents In Oewltt County. Mulvaney: What or possibly who Influenced your decision to enter science or chemistry more specifically? Marvet When 1knew I was golng to college, my uncle who had been a high school teacher, said, "Ifyou're going to be a farmer, (and that was always the thing that was in my mind), in the next generation you should be a scientific farmer so If you 90 lo college, . you ought to study a little chemistry."And that's how I happened to sign up for chemistry, although I never hadany science in high school. As I said, my mathematics was more than adequate. When I went to llllnols Wesleyan University at Bloomingion, the professw of chemistry. A I M Homberger, did play a strong role. He hadgotten his PhO at ~

by J. E. Mulvaney the University of Illinois. Or. Homberger was not only a very good teacher but a very pleasant person. I expect that had a lot to do wifh my continuing to like chemistry. ltreally wasn't until I started organic chemistry in my third year of college fhat I knew l'd found my life's work. 1 had so much fun making new compounds fhat there was never a doubt in my mind what I wouldlike to do. At that time in 19 13 there was practically no chemistry anywhere in this country except university chemistry, and no way to get a job except as a teacher As well. in those days, you couldn't get a job teaching without a background of study In Europe. It was a very closed fraternity. There were very few teachers of chemlstry in the colleges because it was not consideredan especially Important subject. As you can see, the future of a synthetic organic chemist in those years was anything but bright. Mulvaney: At some point the ldea of farming must have gone out of your mind. Organic chemistry displaced it even though I didn't know how I was going to make a living at it. In the middle of my senior year in college, Professor Homberger said, "How would you like to go to the Universlly of INinois next year?" He pointed out my high ranking overaNshouldquallfyme for a scholarship. I was the only one who apparently was Interested In attending graduate school. As a matter of fact, I myself didn't really know whether I was either at f k t point but I said I'd talk to my father. His reply was, "If somebody's going to pay you to go to school, you'd better go: you might ~get a qocdjob -. out . of it. '' That's how I got to school. Mulvaney: Did you have an ldea of what you were going to do wifh a graduate degree? MamI: Well. no not then because at thaf time, remember fhat this was in the fall of 19 15, chemistw was iust beoinnino to become " important because World War i was starting. Our Industrial chemical supplies from Germany were cut off. The effect onallindustry was serious. Still there was no realnotion that chemistry would ever amount to anything In this country. When I started in, I went to work for William Albert Noyes mainly because Homberp had been one of his students and he recommended me to him. Synthetic organic chemistry was still what I wanted. I liked to make com~oundsand, as a junior, i think lmade fiffy or sixty different preparations In my organic course. I even synthesized camphor from furpentine.

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Mulvaney: li's interestingyour talkingabout organic chemistrybeing the thing that really drove you on, but it seems to me that in those days chemists weren't really as compartmentalized as they are now. Marvet Yes, thai's right. Noyes had earlier been almost as much an inorganic chemist as an organic chemist. He was a chemist andl was an organic chemist. l t w k a lotofbiologyincollege and Iminored in biochemistryin my graduate w M because that fined in with my biology background. Even with this biologicalbackgrwnd, my reallove was still organic chemishy. That's what Ialways wanted to do. Whsn lgot my degree, Ihad planned to go into industry. Inever thought about teaching. Iwas a teaching assistant one year while Iwas a graduate student. The Firstyear Iwas a scholar, the second year Iwas an assistant, ihen Iwent on as an assistant in organic chemicalmanufacturing, and for two years Ispent my time making chemicals that were ordered from any place in the United States for research. Thatprogram was under Adam's direction. It was through it that Ibecameacquainted with and initiated my work with Roger Adams and Oliver Kamm. h my lastyear Iwas a duPont Fellow. it took me five years to get my degree because my research during war years was interrupted with a full time job with "Illinois Preparations", It may be of interest to know ihat t h i s r n m continuedon at lilinois on a summer basis for many, many years. Mulvaney: Was income From the program used to support research at lllinois? Marvel: Well, yes and no. They were soldand. ofcourse, we'dmade chemicals'for our own use and we got thema little cheaper by the fact that somebody else was payingpart of the overhead. Any profit that came in to the University was used to buy equipment for organic chemistry. We didn't have too much to spendbut we got a linle bit of money out of it. We would buy some very basic equipment. We were in those days makingaboui$20.000 worth ofchemicaba year in ihe laboratory. Afier Igot my degree, Icontinued thb work for a good many years with the assistance of graduate studenb as a service to the counby. A portionof Nte program was taken over by Eastman Kodak Co. i t represented a start of their manufacturing. Hans Clark of Eastman came out to lllinois and spent two weeks with us to study our methods. Mulvaney: When you got close to graduating, what didyou thinkabout doing then? Marvei: ilooked for a job in industry but nobody offeredme one. The onlyofferlevwtwd was a teachhgjab wim iiiinois fw $1,600 or $7,800 a year and, since Ilike to eat preny well, Ito& fhat job. Before the first fall, Dr. Oliver Kamm, my immediate superior on the staff, took a job with Parke Davis. This ieFi an openingat lllinois. In fact Igot a raise even before Istarted work, starting at $2,000a year. This was preiiygoodpayin those days. Originally Inever had any idea of staying in teaching. Ifelt it was more fun than industriallife. As is evident Istayed with it. Mulvaney: Couldyou tell us about some of ihe youngpeople t starting out at that time?Roger Adams hadbeen there just a relatively short time. Marvei: Roger Adams came to lllinois in 1916just one year after I started In that first year C.G. Derick and Oliver Kamm were the organic chemists. Derick lefi for an indusirialjob. Roger Adams came out in the fall of 1916. As /mention&, in 19 17 he took over thb prep work. That's when Istarted working with him. Even before lstarted teaching, one of my earliest acquaintances was Professor Jack Johnson who in 1916 was a junior. He later went to Corneli, becoming a professor of organic chemistry. Wallace Carothers was a student in the first class Itaught in the fall of 1920. AFierJack Johnson and Carothers got their PhD degrees the three of us were on the staff for two or three years before Jack's departure to Cornell Carothers took a post at Harvard. Those two, at that time, were probabiy ihe outstandngstudenis. Afier ihat ihere 610 1 Journal of Chemical Education

were so many Iwould hardly know where to start. May I mentiona few? There was BuichHanfordwho becams very important in indusirial chemistry, as vice president andDir e c m ofResearch for Olin44athison. MeriinBrubaker with the du Pont Company, and one of my first PhD's Paul Salzberg who later became the research director for the experimentalstation at do Pont. Mulvaney: At the time when youand Caroihers were both on the staff at Illinois, did you begin any polymer work? h ! a m I : We did not bwin a n y p o i w work then. My first polymer W was m e or less accidental as a part of usingbromoamines. Ihoped to make an intermediate for a drug synthesis. They reacted with themselves to form polymers which istudied and characterized. During one of my first consuiting visits at du Pont, a question put up to me by Elmer Boltonhad to do with whether olefins such as ethylene and propylene would react with sulfur dioxide to give polymers. Itold him Ithought it unlikely but if he was interested, I'dgo home and find out. That was the start of my interest in sulfur dioxideolefin polymers in the periodof 1928-29. About that same time, Carothers went to duPont From Harvard. He began his work on organometallics among other problem. A short time later, mostly on the basis of interest generated through independent reading, he decided to go into polymer work. At that time, you see, polymers were just barely beginning to be respectable. They really didn't know what they were before that. Mulvaney: People were beginning to accept the ideas of polymers being high molecular weight substances held together by ordinary covalent bonds. W e t That's right. Staudinger hadjust begun to report his conceph of macromolecules. There was still very Bnle known about ihem. Carothers starledhis poiymerresearchand Ididmine more or less as part of the olefin-sulfur dioxide problem. From then on IW e d more and mwe on polymer problems. Primarilyit was fun. it was a wide open Field with few others working in it. Mulvaney: Did you encounter any feeling among other organic chemists that polymers were really s e d class substances comparedto small molecules? Marvel: Oh, a lot of people seemed to feel that way. but they never held it against me apparently. 1don't know why. Nobody ever accusedme of working on "gunks ". Many chemistssimply thought that polymers were the "sloppy stuff" lefi over in many reactions. Mulvaney: Why do you think ihere was that feeling?It even persists a iinle bit today in some areas. Marvel: Mainly, it's just a lack of understanding. There are stillmany who have no idea of what a polymer is, why they form, nor do they seem to care. Thai's a surprising thing when the biggest part of chemicalindushy today is polymer chemishy. There are so many organic chemists who have really no understanding of practical problems nor do they have the desire to understand. They'd rather make drugs or work on theoreticalproblems. h many ways Ithink I've always been (at least what Iwouldcall) more ofan industrialchemistthan a University chemist because I ' m m interestedinthe utility of chemistry than all the theoreticalimplications. Actually, Idon Y care much about the W r y . Youput up with if because you have to, but Ilike to work on problems that are fun, and in which Ican see somethinguseful. My choice of a problem has never been based upon the populariiy of the field-only on personalinterest. I've never taken up a problem because it was more popular. Mulvaney: You were among the first to recognize the potential of stereoregular vinyl polymers. You synthesized opticaliy active monomersand initiators in the hope of inducingsteric order. What ledyou to this and what were the results? Marvei: isuppose the reason that /got into this was because Iused to teach stereochemistry among other courses at lllinois. R Seemed that there are so many asymmetric carbons in POlYmer chains that there ought to be something different

about a polymer if all carbons had identical symmetry synthetically We never really achieved that goal. We used o p tically active initiators and monomers but there were never any special properties. What we did achieve was a way of measuring the polymerization rate better than people had before usingoptical rotationas a probe. We got some nice kinetic results. Charlie Price, now of Penn, was interested in this problem and was a tremendous help. Muivaney: When World War Iibegan, the United States was cut off from its supply of naturalrubber. A law program was begun to develop synthetic rubber here. What role did you play in this essential program? Marvet When the War started, iwas in Me NationaiDefensB Research Committee (NORC) working with Roger Adam on the synthesis of various potential wargases but project diedout. h 194 1 the Rubber Reserve Corporation was set up with Bradley Deweyas the ResearchDirector. He asked whether Iwouldbe wiliing to work on the rubberprogram. isaia Iwas more hterestedin getting out of government work than into it. He was sure they needed a polymer chemist, and Iwas the Universityman who had the most experience. My reply was that if they wouldgive me a contract for$100,000 to get a realprogramgoing, Iwouldjoin up. The next day Ihad the contract. Iworked on that prograrn for another fourteen years, from 194 1 to about 1955. Mulvaney: How didyou initiate the pmgmm in the early days of the war years? They were trying desperately to get things into production as quickly as possible were they not? Marvel: Yes. Our job at Urbana was to try to see if there was any monomer you could use with butadiene that was better than styrene. Another problem was to try to find out why dodecyl mercaptan was needed in the emulsion poiymerization recipe. Nobody knew. They knew if it wasn't there it didn't work right. Some people thought it regulatedthe amount of 1.2 comparedto 1.4 addition. We found out its main function was a regulator of moiecolarsize. We also foundouf a certain amount of mcaptan had to be mixed withpersuifate so that you got an oil soluble initiator. Mulvaney: When did the first GRS go into industrialproduction? Marvei: About the fail of 194 1or 1942sometime.I'm not sure of the exact date. We started research in 194 1 and by 1942 we were making a pretty goodgrade of this so called Govern-. ment Rubber Styrene. Actually, we built plants before we knew how we were going to make rubber. Even more remrkable, the plants when completed produced at about 150% of the ratedcapacity. lt nnst have beena combination of luck, good chemistry, and engineering. Trouble did develop, however. ANof a sudden these plants quit workingon schedule. The were supposed to give 70% conversion in fourteen hours. Unexpectedly sometimes it would be twenty-me hours. sometimes thirty, then again it wouidrun properly; everyihing might go on schedule. it was very confusing. There was a tremendous crashprogram-everybody was hunting for inhibitors. Ow evaloation of the problem was that the inhibitor was the highly unsaturated fatty acids in the soap. We hydrogenated the soap and sure enough, polymerizationproceededproper~. Afler that, new specifications for soap were set up which eiiminatedallthe polyunsafurates with the result that ail plants ran smoothiy. Our group accomplishedthat job. idon't think we ever got any credit for it The importantpoint is that we didget fhe plantsgoingagain and fast. Toward the end of the program, we realized we were almost out of the naturalrubber which we needed as a tackifier for the synthetic. A very smallamount of natural rubber hadto be put in between the layers of synthetic rubber to get good adhesion. Finaliy we synthesized a suitable tackifier, however, by that time, the war ended. We were able to again get naturairubberquickly enough so that we never needed to manufacture our tackifier Also we worked on chain transfer agents other than mercaptans as weiias new initiators in addition to persulfate. h 1945 we went to Europe and learnedabout the redox recipe which the Germans had

developed, moving towarda continuous process. Asa result of these observations, we developed a low temperature process which gave us goodpoiymerizationrates at P C . Muivaney: This process then went into production after the war. Marvel: Yes, this was in 1945. Our plants were converted to the low temperature operation. We could use this fast recipe andget the same amount of production out of our plants at P that we'd beengetting at 70'. 7% low temperature rubber made at 9 hada much narrower anddesirabie molecular weight dstribution. it was much tougher and a more usable rubber. A very interesting observation came out of this prograrn. When we made the first batches of low temperature rubber, the four major rubber companies built four tires each andput them on the fleet to run. The strange thing was that one of the skieen tires ran much farther than the original GRS for no obvious reason. On his own, a chemist, Oliver Burke, kept diggingaround umiihe found out that the company who made the sixteenth tire hadrun out of the usualcarbon black that they used to reinforce the rubber. m t differenicarbon black usedby one company is what was neededtoget the optimum effects with low temperature rubber. Ifhe hadn't beencurious and dug the data out, the opportunity would have been missed. Muivaney: That entire rubberprogram had to be remarkably efficient getting into productionin such a short period of time; modifying things, scaling up. andso forth. Of course, the war was an extraordinary catalyst. Were there other factors which made the operation so efficient? Marvet One factor was some inside information or a lead. The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey hadbeen dealing with the Germans on rubber production even before the war. The chemists at Standardhad. through these early associations, some background information. But, of course, they were catchino the devil for trading with the "enemy': As it turned out, it was a good thing they hadbeen doing it because this informationgave us the start in producing rubber. We found out our needs were a little different than the Germans. They made a high moiecular weight rubber and broke it down on the mill whereas we wanted rubber which we could use directiv. The first vear of the pro.mm was devotedextensively . . to working on this difference. If you got more than 70 % conversion, the productalways was extensivelycross-linked. We had to devisea way to get close to 70 56, but then recover the monomers while producingthe rubber f o r m in the plant. We didhave some g d i u c k solving thatproblem. Another important factor was that the people who worked on the rubberprogram cooperatedbeautifully passinginformation back and forth very freely. Nobody tried to hog the credit. Everybody threw their ideas into the pot. You might work on them, or imight work on them, orsomebody else. idon't think ihave ever seen as conoeniai a orouo " ? . of Deooie . . work tog e m . Here were four companies that hadbeen in cut-thmst competition before and they aN pitched in and worked together beautifully. We had the four major rubber companies. and in addition there was Professor Kharasch of Chicaoo. Professor Kolthoff and his group at Minnesota. Professor Momn at MIT. Professor Peter Debve at CorneN and, of course, our group at lliinois. We aNgot along together fine. We'd have meetings about once a month to talk overprob/ems andafter we got on the low temperature rubberprobiem, iliinois was chosen as the place for the meetings. We used to meet about every two or three weeks andsee what we'd done and what ought to be done next. The deciding factor for the meeting at the University of iliinois might have been the excellent quality of my "Old-Fashioneds" or "Martinis". Muivaney: Perfecfiysoundreasons.Do you think that anythinglike what the Rubber Reserve Program accomplished could be accomplished with regard to energy in the absence of a tremendous crisis such as the war? Marvel: Yes, ithink it could butthere is one thing that is different. Now oil is available even though you pay for it but then rubber

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wasn't availableat any prlce. We had to have it. That's one thing. Now we know we could make oil out of coal, and we couldprobably compete with ourpresent prlce of oil, very easily. Although the basic cost of obtainingoil is really very small, ifyougo through a synthetic mute andtry to compete with natural oil, the OPECpeople can cut the price right out from undw youand break vou In a week. You'dhave to have a government subsidy set up that wouldsupport the price of oil made from coal until the thing was well on its feet because If never could compete with oil at the price they can sell it to you if they wanted to run you out of business. I believe that people would cooperate in an energy crisis just as they did in our World War I/emergency as long as the firm or company didn't go completely broke. If the private sector has to pay aN the bills, they just can't take the risk; it's too big. An interesting thing that came out of our rubber prograni not at all well understood, was that while the government pald for all the raw mterials, all the research, a?lthe production, and then sold the rubber, and the plants, the government wound up In the black from the program. Mulvaney: Would you be in favor of a government subsidy, or price support to companies working on coal to oil develop ments? Marvel: I would, yes. I wouldbecauseeventually we're golng to have to have it. An important aspect is that we'd b; keiplng the money in this country Instead of sending it abr& We would be paying a hlgh price, but we're paying a hlgh price anyway. We wouldn't have to pay any more for research anddevelopment than we are now but we'dhave to have the subsidy as a pmtection In order to make it work. The government has to build the plants and then it has to support the price. It couldn't be done otherwise; It's just too risky. Mulvanev: Do vou think the coal t o w s and wsoline route is the most promising? Marvet Well. the ofhem are all flne: a few In ~ n ' m i ~andallin le meOw. But there's a majordlfterence. We know 'how to mnveri c&l to gas. After all, the whole German economy ran on that process during World War 11. The technology is available. wouldn't be hard to improve on it and put it into practice. Solar energy, geothermal energy, those processes now in one stage of development or another are golng to be used. But they're farther off. We don't know, yet, how to use them effectively. I would estimate that we couldset up and start production of the coal to gas operation In I thlnk, six months or a year. I think there would be problems but they are not Insurmountable. Mulvaney: Do you have comments on nuclear energy? Wheredo you see it in the big picture? Marvel: I thought it was going to be prenygocd but now ldon't know. The nuclear energy people themselves don't seem to be as optlmistlc about It as I was originally. Some of my friends and associates In the fieid telime ifs vears awav . .vet. ldon't wife see why such should be the case but apparently that's what they think. There is still an important risk factor apparently that's tied to that energy source which scares people. My feeling has always been that It should be relatively simple to convert nuclear energy into a g o d source of power. It seems to be a sooddeal more difficult than I had Imagined. Maybe an organic chemist Is prejudiced in favor of using carbon energy. i don't think there's any question that we couldget energy from coal that would carry us for two hundred or more yeas. Andget It very easily and quickly. , Mulvaney: Since you've been In Arizona, most of your efforts have been in the area of thermally stable polymers. What do you consider the state of that part of science at the moment? Have we run out of useful things to do? Marvel: We always have a lot of thlngs to do but I believe that hlgh temperature stable polymers have been overrated and there's been more energy put into them than they deserve. Actually there are not that many major uses for them. Of course. the uses thev have are critical and thev are badlv neided but they're not big uses. The amount of time that's been spent on research Is probably out of proportion to the

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achlal needs. There's still need forspeclaltyhigh temperature pol^ but they're go& to be v w spec&/. CLYlainW they wlll not be prodoced by the millions of pounds or tons as is the case with so? of our other plastics. A criticalproblem is in the fabrication. For my own part, I doubt that we are going to produce polymws of an organic nature that wlll stand up muchabove 30LP C inairat least forprolongeduse. They have talked about needing higher temperature materials, but, in my opinion, it's doubtful they're going to find them. Maybe I'm just getting pessimistic in my old age but 300' seems to me to be about the top, If's been an interesting field because much newpolymer chemistry has developed from it. 1 thlnk that's one rason for people entering the fleid because gocd chemistry Is necessary lo synthesize these products. But, as lsaidearlier, the fabrication has been andstlil is one of the biggestproblems. Wvaney: What are the qualitfes that you i w k for when s m n e comes to work for you? What Impresses you most? Marvel: I like to see someo!le who works hard and likes what he's doing. This I think is most critical. If you don't really like chemistry more than anything else, you shouldn't be a chemist. n's nota wellenoughpayingjob tojustl(ygoing into it unless you're having fun doing it, unless you really enjoy it. Of course, you look for a positive personality. Such a person always seems to go a little farther than one who doesn't react well wim others. Ifyou have to continuallypush someone to gef work wl ofhim, lhen he hadbetter finda new job. I've advised quite a few In my time to do just that and I think most of them have been happier after they did it. Mulvaney: The young people coming along now for graduate work. could you compare them with students of say twenty years ago or longer? Marvel: I don't thlnk thestudems today are qulte as hungry as they were. Back In the .early days of chemistry, when we started, most of our students, and they were almost always young men, were middle west farmers who wanted to get off the farm andinto a Mile beffer life. They hada driving force and they liked what we were teaching. I thlnk It b interest in chemistry and fun doing chemistry that makes a chemist. Mulvaney: Are we producing as much useful scientific information as we should be with all the tools and equipment that we have? Marvel: If you can judge from the flood of publications, we are. We indeedhavea publication explosion. I'm sure that we publish a lot more than we need to. h some respects, chemistry, as we teach It, has became a little bit t m much of an exercise in theoryand facts which are not immediately related to use. I think that In the beglnnings of chemistv in thb country, we neededproductsand materials so badly that the emphasis was on production of chemicals. There wasn't any question what the academic people were going to do. They worked on a problem and were Interested in practical results because somebody wanted to use them. It's my opinion that a periodarose when Some of the people in our universities felt the synthetic or practicalapproach was beneath them. To prove themselves. they really ought to do high powered theoryand forget about the immediate use of it. Of course, we need to understand basic concepts developed by theorists but I have a feeling that the number of people who are smart enough to be good theorists are a lot fewer than the number of people who are trying to be thwrists. Mulvaney: In the course of your career did you ever find a conflict between teaching and research? Marvel: No! The two are not separate, they are one thing. I think that we make a mistake when we try to emphasize one against the other. I think research In the university where we are training graduate students is one of the highest forms of teachingyou can do. it is teaching and teaching at a very high level. When people say someone spends too much time on research and not enough on teaching, they're not thinking about the realpmblems. I'd like to write a goodpaper on that

subject and go out and give lectures. Research is really teaching and this notion that there's conflict between research and teaching is completely off. Of course, some people do push their research completely For their own advancement and thosepeople do us damage. IFeeli t s From this source that the socalledargument seems to arise. The people who are really trying to vain students, willalways do research. Ithink they are teachingjust as much as they can possibly be. Ihope the people Ihave trained who have gone into university work have been the kind who use theC research as a training for sfudents rather than to try to make themselves great men. M they do, they'll make great men out of themselves without trying. The goal of the teacher, whether in the classroom or laboratory, should be to train students to be beffer than we are in ourprofession. Mulvaney: Fwa closingnote, what. wfs& oFywrpoFesiona1career, were things that have given you the most pleasure? Marvet Oh, the life outdoors. In the early days Iwas a hunter anda Fisherman when Istill had enough energy to do it. I'dlike to get oot and be with nature, be on a good stream or lake fishing, w vamping HKO& the fields l d n g forgame. When these activities became a bit too much, Itook a pair of binoculars and a birdbook and dMbird watching instead. 1have enjoyed this activify more than hunting but I'dsay that anything that had to do with outdoors was the kindof thing /en-

joyed. 1Ilke sports. Ilike to watch Footballand baseballand anflhing that takes you outdoors. Mulvaney: Don't you have listedamong your publications an article in an ornithologyjournal? Marvel: As a manw oFFact, there are a couple of them. One on a Cape May Warbler feeding on sapsucker holes. Another one was an occurrence of a southern bird in northern Ontario. Iwas up there fishlng one summer end IFound a Blue Grosbeak in southern Ontario fhat should have been no Fadher north than southern lilinois. That episode is in print. Isubmiffed another article on a northern woodpecker which IFound far south of its usual habifaf buf the editor said if couldn't be there. They never wouldpublish the observation but it was there just the same. I've seen two or three things in the southern part of Arizona that were not supposed to be up here from Mexico. .Although Iwasn't the first one to see them, /at least helped. If's always fun to findsomething new. Bird watching is then no different h this regardthan chemistry. Wherever /go on chemistry trips, Itry to finda day to put in bird watching in a new area where Ihaven't been. Mulvaneyr Iknow many who have benefitfedFrom these hikx with you; at least those wililng to leave their warm hotelbeds at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning to join you. M n y thanks Fw &king the time to s h e ywr experieixes and insights.

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