Show FUTURE OF ALUMINUM hoffa for and for to B made of it aluminum which itself possesses a high degree of specific heat does not really absorb heat itself and thus is not liable to the chief objection to iron buildings in hot countries but apart from light decorative purposes says the st louis post dispatch such as balconies cupolas cu finiels finials and verandas it is as a roofing material that aluminum should be most welcome to the builder in plates or scales two thirds lighter than copper by air and undimmed even by the bul chur of london smoke it should make a roof fit for a palace of romance the humbler elements of health and comfort in the ahonso hardly less important than its external defenses against the weather pipes cisterns taps and gutters now made of iron which rusts or lead which poisons would be more enduring and far more healthy if made of this light and clean ly metal which might also take the place of all awatar holding vessels now made of heavy brittle earthenware or painted tin an aluminum bath is among the probable next century but it is not as a mere accessory to comfort and convenience that real development of the new metal should lie it is for use at sea that its most marked quality of light ness obviously fits it the marine engineer and the naval architect who are already looking in this direction for a reduction of the weight which is inseparable from loss of efficacy whether in speed or cargo cannot neglect the possibilities of a metal which when mixed in the proportion of one to fifty gives to alum anum bronze a hardness and toughness which makes it almost as reliably reli ablo as steel and which if the proportions could be reversed and the strength preserved would reduce the weight of and machinery alike by two thirds that is a problem which awaits the metallurgist for solution the reduction in cost judging by analogy can only be a question of time and research the best steel now costa little more than one half penny per pound while aluminum is fifty times that price but aluminum exists in far greater quantities than iron is more widely distributed and neither the limits of time nor the history of metallurgy forbid us to conjecture that aa tha world has seen its age of atone its age of bronze and its age of iron BO it may before long have embarked on a new and even mora prosperous age of alum anum 1 t |