Trade in the Ancient World

The seaborne con�merce of Rome was unsurpassed until relatively recent times. Evidence for this marine traffic comes from many

sources, including the newly stimulated underwater archaeology

by Lionel Casson

built five ships, loaded them with wide arc. The arteries were the shipping have of ancient vessels come from the wine-worth its weight in gold at the lanes, the largest leading from points on graves of merchants who had a sketch I time-and sent them to Rome .. . . the perimeter to the huge capital at of the craft to which they owed their Every one of my ships went down .... Rome, and later at Constantinople. Over fortunes inscribed on their tombs. Find Neptune swallowed up 30 million ses them passed the great ships, leaving on ings of Egyptian pottery in Crete, of terces in one day... . I built others, big regular schedules to carry the thousands Syrian glass in Italy, of Italian dishes in ger, better and luckiel·, loaded them with of bushels of wheat, the jars of oil and southern France and so on enable us to wine again, plus bacon, beans, perfume, wine and salt fish. Both large and small trace many lines of commerce. We can .slaves ....When the gods are behind vessels transported luxury goods ranging reconstruct the wine and oil trade from something it happens qUickly: I netted from Chinese silks to Athenian statuary. clay shipping jars, stamped with the 10 million sesterces on that one voyage. To piece together the details of this place of origin, whicq excavators have The time is the first century and the ancient commerce the investigator must unearthed at dozens of sites. A new and speaker is Trimalchio, the famous char do without the wealth of detail avail fruitful source of information is under acter of Petronius' Satyricon. Petronius able to the modern economic historian. water archaeology. Divers, working un is, of course, exaggerating-but not He has no sets of national statistics, no der the direction of archaeologists, have much. In Roman times there was a for� annual records of boards of trade and carried out the delicate and in some tune to be made in the export and ship the like. His bible is a voluminous geog cases dangerous task of investigating ping business. M. Porcius, a wealthy raphy written by an observant Greek ancient wrecks and of identifying their wine shipper who worked out of Pom named Strabo who lived around the cargoes. Although the first of the marine peii, made enough money to contribute turn of the first century. Strabo traveled excavations was begun in 1907, virtually half the cost of building a public theater widely in fhe Mediterranean, described n()thing more was done along these lines for his town, capable of seating 1,500 the industry of each area and frequently for the next 40 years. Since 1950 a dozen people. Sextius Fadius Musa, who added a brief sketch of its commercial new wrecks have been located, and two shipped wine out of what is now Bur history. A good deal of miscellaneous in have been seriously excavated. Present gundy, set up a large trust fund whose formation comes from Pliny the Elder, a indications are that this will soon become annual proceeds were to go for a huge high official of the Roman Empire in the an important phase of archaeology. feast to be celebrated on his birthday middle of the firstcentury who spent Obviously marine commerce began forever. Archaeologists have found hun his leisure time compiling a sort of en long before Roman times. On the tomb dreds of wine jars stamped with his cyclopedia which is a storehouse of all of Hatshepsut of Egypt is inscribed the name in France and Italy, testifying to sorts of facts and a good many fancies. story of a trading venture directed in his far-flung activities. On Delos, a tiny Once these two sources and minor ones 1500 B.C. by this first great queen island in the middle of the Aegean Sea, like them have been exhausted, the re known to history. Hatshepsut sent a fleet shippers so fattened on the lucrative searcher must seek the help of archae of merchantmen from Thebes on the perfume, spice and slave trade that they ology. Greek and Latin inscriptions that upper Nile via the Red Sea to the Somali were able to establish orphanages and have survived on stone add nuggets of coast to bring back a huge cargo of in other charitable institutions, erect tem detail: a dedication to one of the Roman cense. Though this story has long been ples, put up statues and carry out all emperors found in the port of Rome re known, another bit of evidence came sorts of public improvements. Not only cords that it was erected by "the shippers to light 50 years ago. A group of Egyp the shippers but also the bankers who of Africa"; a tombstone of a merchant tian peasants looking for firewood stum financed them grew rich. Even Cato the unearthed in Asia Minor proclaims that bled upon a papyrus which turned out Elder, that dour Roman farmer, was not the deceased rounded Cape Malea 72 to contain a diary ·dating from about averse to investing in the oriental trade .• times in his trading voyages to Rome; a ll20 B.C. kept by an individual named decree of the Senate and Assembly of Wenamon. Wenamon was a special en he Mediterranean in a very real Athens announces the grateftrl thanks of voy whom Pharaoh Ramses XI sent to Tsense made one world of the Roman the city to a shipper who had brought buy lumber from Byblos in Syria, and Empire. The sea was the heart and in a boatload of grain during a serious the diary records the events of his trip. around it the provinces stretched in a shortage. The best representations we Moreover, his story indicates clearly that

© 1954 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC it was not the first time that lumber had enware. Greek islands off the coast of ries. An immensely varied and genuinely been shipped along this route; the traffic Asia Minor, such as Rhodes and Chios, international trade was the result. had been going on for centuries. annually produced thousands of gallons In the west Rome had broken the Not long before Wenamon's time the of both obeap and choice wines that power of Carthage and started her mas Trojan War had taken place. Some his were sold all over the eastern Mediter sive movement toward the east. By the torians and archaeologists see in it a ranean; the distinctively shaped jars in middle of the firstcentury B.C., when struggle between Greeks and Trojans which they were carried have turned up Caesar was conquering Gaul, the whole for possession of the Dardanelles, which in practically every archaeological ex of the sea came under Roman domina controlled the water route between the cavation in the area. Where today the tion. It was then that the Mediterranean Aegean and the Black Sea. In Homer's cash crop of Egypt is cotton, in ancient became one world, and the city of Rome poems describing the conflictwe see, times it was grain, and she joined Sicily emerged as its biggest customer. If the too, something that was always to plague and the Crimea in feeding Greece and Roman populace wanted bread and cir the shippers of the Mediterranean: pi the Greek islands. cuses, they had to be supplied from racy. The Greek raid that ended in An economic iron curtain closed off abroad. Thus one of history's greatest Achilles' famous retirement to his tent the western Mediterranean, which was merchant marines came into being, for was nothing more than a piece of pirati under the sway of the great commercial everything from the grain to the gladia cal brigandage. empire of Carthage. All North African tors and lions was brought to Rome by grain, Sicilian wine, Spanish silver and ship. y the fifth century B.C., when Athe- Italian iron carried there traveled in B nian civilization reached its height Carthaginian bottoms. The Carthaginian he international maritime trade now under the rule of Pericles, a pattern of navy maintained a hawklike police sys Ttook on the form it was to have for trade on the sea began to emerge. The tem, and any trespassing ship was sunk. the first400 years of the Christian era. average Greek town was virtually self The great changes that followed in The gre�t shipping lanes were marked sufficient. Large cities such as Athens the wake of Alexander the Great about out from all parts of the Mediterranean and Corinth, on the other hand, were 300 B.C. transformed this picture. In to Rome. The bulk of the trade was still getting too big to be fed by the produce the eastern Mediterranean the focus grain, oil and wine. Ironically we have of the surrounding countryside and had shifted from Greece. There arose, relatively little information about this to start importing. Three staples formed stretching from the Balkans around the thriving period. The historians Thucyd the basis of trade: grain, wine and olive sea to Egypt, a series of powerful ides, Polybius and Livy noted military oil. Then as now the Crimea and Sicily monarchies which maintained lavish 'and political events but not economic produced a large grain crop and ships courts and huge armies. The shippers statistics. But every now and then, unloaded thousands of bushels each year now had more to do than merely supply through some accident, a revealing fig at Piraeus, the port of Athens, taking in a handful of large Greek centers. Here ure is preserved. We happen to know, exchange Athenian olive oil or gaily were armies needing supplies in bulk for example, that each year Rome im painted pottery dishes and other kitch- and a nobility which could afford luxu- ported at least 15 million busheJs of

ARRIVAL of a great cargo .vessel in the pOTt of Rome is recorded stern as the lighthouse is passed. The protecting gods and goddesses, on a second·century A.D. relief. The owners offer sacrifice on the including Neptune and Bacchus, and the Emperor are represented.

© 1954 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC TRADE ROUTES at the height of the Roman Empire are indicated other oriental products, and received wine from Rhodes. Athens on this map. There were other routes, hut these were the most im· was scoured for works of art. Smyrna, Ephesus and Miletus shipped portaut. From France and Spain to Rome went wine, oil and min· wine to Delos and Athens. Rhodes sent wine to Athens and all the erals. From Carthage and Leptis went grain and oil; from Syracuse eastern Mediterranean. From India went spices and jewels and and Cyrene, grain. Alexandria sent grain, papyrus, incense and Chinese silks overland to Seleucia, thence via Antioch or Damascus. grain from North Africa and Egypt. For for to<;lay there is a good-sized hill on The trade was brisk: it is common to find more details, however, we must turn to the outskirts of the city called Monte Roman coins in excavations in southern the -evidence brought to light by excava Testaccio-"Mount Potsherd"-which ex India. Even a manual was available for tions. Thus it is known that, before cavation has shown is composed entirely the use of merchants who operated in Caesar overran Gaul, the Gauls imported of broken oil and wine jars from these these areas. Like the Coast Pilots issued wine from southern Italy. Recently, with countries. This mound stands beside the by our Hydrographic Office, it gave de the help of divers, French archaeologists site of wharves where for 400 years tailed information on harbors, markets, examined the wreck of a Roman ship out stevedores unloaded these commodities. wind and weather conditions and so on. side the harbor of Marseilles; they found Shipping bulky and cheap cargoes The manual has fortunately been pre that it was loaded with several thousand like grain, oil and wine was, as we have served and, as a consequence, this phase jars of wine, which probably came, seen, an essential trade; many, like of ancient commercial activity is one of sometime around 200 B.C. , from vine Trimalchio, made fortunes at it. But the the best documentei! of all. yards that once flourished on the slopes really big profits lay in a more risky Each year camel caravans made their of Mount Vesuvius. More Italian archae form of commerce. By 250 B.C. a market way overland from India to Seleucia ologists enlisted the aid of one of Italy's for luxury goods had come into being. (now Baghdad), then west to Antioch best-known salvage experts to investi Wealthy men in great Mediterranean or, through Damascus, to Tyre where gate a wreck that came to light a num centers like Rome, Alexandria, Antioch the goods were loaded aboard ship. Al ber of years ago near Genoa. This ship or Marseilles wanted exotic woods, ternate and somewhat safer routes lay was carrying more than 3,000 jars of ivory, oriental rugs and tapestries for by sea. Ships worked from the west wine-over 20,000 gallons-and was very their homes, and perfumes, silks and rare coast of India up to the head of the likely making its way from southern table delicacies for themselves and their Persian Gulf, where their cargoes were Italy to Gaul when it went down. But by wives. To meet the demand fixed trade transferred to camels that joined the 100 A.D. or so the pendulum had swung connections were opened with the Far caravans at Baghdad. Another route, the other way, and Roman shops were East. Indian merchants entered the pic favored because it was practically all by selling French, Spanish and Gree� vin ture as middlemen for Chinese silks and water, was in the hands of Alexandrian tages. We can tell that thousands of gal Far Eastern spices and as prime suppliers merchants. Each year a fleet of ships lons of wine and oil now came to Rome for India's own products: ebony, beryl, left from the Red Sea for the west coast from North Africa, France and Spain, pearls, cinnamon and, above all, pepper. of India and brought their cargoes back

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© 1954 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC to a tiny Red Sea transshipment point called M yos Hormos (Mussel Harbor). Here the goods were transferred to camels and carried the relatively short distance overland to Coptos on the Nile, from which point they were barged down river to Alexandria for transship ment. Profits were tremendous, but so were the risks. There were mountains, deserts and bandits along the caravan routes, and squalls, shoals and pirates in the Red Sea. The trip�eight months at the least-was depressingly long. Spedati4t4 tie "ENGINEERING" The shipper who was willing to give up a portion of his profit in exchange offered splendid opportunities in Boston Engineering Laboratory! for a somewhat safer and quicker return Men qualifiedto handle high level assignments in electronics are offered a challenging opportunity in Boston, under ideal working conditions divorced from production. The went into the perfume and incense laboratory provides stimulating projects, an atmosphere of scientific progress and trade. Frankincense was burned daily p'rovides .assistan.ce towards your personal advancement or professional recognition. on hundreds of thousands of altars all You will work with a top level technical staffpossessing the finest facilities. Admin· istrative positions are open to men qualified to guide the effortsof others. around the Mediterranean. Most of it MICROWAVE ENGINEERS RADAR SYSTEMS AND came from the southern coast of Arabia, Senior engineers to handle design and CIRCUIT ENGINEER namely Yemen and the Hadhramaut. development projects and provide tech To assume responsibility for electroni c:: Hundreds of vessels loaded up Arabian nical direction of other top-level engineers circuit design for major elements of com incense, added perfumes and ivory and working on microwave circuits and micro plex airborne electronic equipment. Should wave plumbing in the development of other products from nearby Somaliland have a BS degree and about 5 years' military airborne elec expedence. and carried their cargo to Myos Hormos, tronic equipment. h Sylvania provides financial support for from which point they followed the same advanced education as well as a liberal �:�;��;. .. /: :. '::;'; route as the shipments from India. work and at least a insurance, pension and medical program. BS degree. Investigate a career with Sylvania. particularly profitableform of an INTERVIEW S BY APP OINTMENT Don l l A , cient commerce was the slave trade. Brad ey, Pe rsonne Manager, Boston Engineering Lab. 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(P.S. scend on coastal towns and carry off We also offer12 mor& publications, and 26 courses by mail. We hav& students in 48 states and territories, 20 foreign whole populations. Most of the victims Name countries. Ask us for information.) ,----- MAIL THIS COUpON·----- were brought to the island of Delos for ' 1 Address ....••...... •....••. .••..• · k sale. Strabo estimated that the slave I :�rw: s�n�:� �f� Rldo:.S�:��Syille 60, Mass. I market there could handle over 10,000 I 1. Please send me publications circled: I City ...... Zone, ... State...... I PI P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 PI0 P14 PI6 I slaves a day. e a ll u n t i to I r :::�ro s�I�'S��.:. .�.�� .• � fS?l p a r!fe�� {�� S 'b� ��r t c �� { �d li r I The pirate nuisance came to a head CHESTERFIELD music shops, inc, �Pl��se O::�d ��e O��I��1fte'ri� or � iication8 I k C s � 6 I Dept. SA.-12 Warren St .. New York 7, N. Y. and O when particularly daring gangs raided I 0 u�:; �nme nnd address arc attachcd. I

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© 1954 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC the coast of Italy and kidnaped for ran moles which once. embraced the city's som wealthy ladies and Roman officials harbor. traveling along the highways. The au The ships were slow and clumsy, but thorities decided that this was enough. they were safe. The emperors of Rome, A special command was proposed, Cice with the vast facilities of the Roman ro delivered a speech urging its adop navy at their disposal, often preferred to tion, and Pompey the Great was put in travel by private merchant sailing ship. charge. Within a year (67 B.C.) the seas "When you go to Palestine," Emperor were free of pirates. Caligula once said in effect to the young prince Herod Agrippa, "don't travel by he scope of sea-borne commerce in galleys and the coasfal routes, but take Tthe ancient world was so vast that one of our direct Italy-Alexandria mer it is hard to realize the handicaps under chant ships." The average merchant which the Greek and Roman sailors man ran about the size of a large worked. They had no compass, but in harbor tugboat of the present day and the clear air of the Mediterranean, carried between 150 and 250 tons of �here by day islands may be seen from cargo. But on the major runs, such as miles away and at night the stars are the grain trade between Egypt and rarely obscured, this was not as serious a Rome, ships almost 200 feet long and lack as it might appear. They used capable of transporting 1,200 tons were Kennametal putty g.un tip handling abrasive clumsy steering oars instead of the stern employed. These ships were about the material under heavy air pressure outlasts rudder that was to be invented in the size of a 19th-century U. S. frigate hardest steel 14 ta 1. Write far Perfarmance Report No. 469. Middle Ages. The bulk of their cargo only slightly smaller than a large modern had to be moved in the summer months, ferryboat. They could take tremendous when the Mediterranean was calmer loads. Thus in 1585, when Pope Sixtus to designers and than in winter. They even had to build V's architect Domenico Fontana mpved most of their own harbors. Although the an Egyptian obelisk from one point in Mediterranean has many coves suitable Rome to another, he was hailed as a bril inventors who need for small vessels (and also for pirates), it liant engineer. Actually he was much has few large-scale natural ports. Alex less impressive than the engineers of andria, Piraeus, Syracuse and Marseilles Caligula. In 40 B.C. they took the obelisk metals harder than steel were excellent natural ports, but the list and its base from its original site in He stops about there. Rome's harbor near liopolis near Cairo, loaded its 500 tons Is the development of your design Ostia, which from A.D. 50 handled more aboard the biggest ship available, added idea hampered by the need for metals 800 tons of ballast to steady her, sailed harder than steel . . . metals to resist goods than any other in the empire, was deformation under high pressures, to completely artiRcial. So was the harbor it successfully across the sea, transferred maintain tolerances under abrasion? built for Antioch, in Syria, a great trans it to a river barge to bring it up the Tiber If so, consider Kennametal, * a series shipment point. Archaeologists have and erected it at the point where Fontana of hard carbide alloys of tungsten, found protective jetties at almost every found it. This was only one of several titanium, tantalum and columbium with cobalt. Kennametal has a known ancient seaport. Around the site obelisks that were successfully transport Young's Modulus of Elasticity of of the great port of Tyre divers have ed across the Mediterranean to Rome. 60 million to 90 million psi. This ex succeeded in tracing massive underwater The cargoes of a Roman ship were ceptional resistance to deformation willenable you to design parts which willdeflect only % as much as those made of steel. Hard Kennametal alloys often withstand abrasion 10 to 100 times longer than steel for the same loss of tolerance. Rigidity and high temperature strength are other favorable charac teristics of Kennametal. And, where corrosion or oxidation resistance is a factor, our titanium carbide, Ken tanium, * may serve your purpose. The success of your project or in vention may be made possible by the application of Kennametal to critical points. For more information, write Ken nametal Incorporated, Dept. SA, Latrobe, Pennsylvania for Bulletin C-53 or tell us about your problem.

* Registered Trademark INDUSTRY AND KENNAMETAL WINE JARS were removed from the hulk of a Roman ship which sank off the harbor of .. p�me:p� Marseilles about 200 B.C. They are of Italian origin, and each holds over seven gallons.

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! I or conventional ... .-r"4_

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103

Research and Development

TEMPLE COLUMNS, prefabricated in sections, were raised off SL Tropez by archaeolo gists. They were on a ship probably bound from Rome to Gaul in the second century A.D. PHYSICISTS stored not only in the hold but also on each) ; two half-jars. Dessert wine: 10 AND ENGI NEER S deck. Grain was carried in sacks, but jars. Olive oil: two jars; one half-jar. most other commodities-oil, wine, salt Vinegar: two jars. Honey: seven half fish-were packed in heavy pottery jars. jars. Dried figs:10 jars. Nuts: one jar; A typical jar had a capacity of seven to three baskets (2J� bushels). Seeds: one Inquiries areinvited from : eight gallons and weighed, when empty, basket. Cheese: one jar. Wild boar meat: 1 upwards of 50 pounds. Passengers lived 10 jars. Venison: two jars. Goat meat: can those who make significant , and slept on deck-as many still do today two jars. Rough sponges: one basket. 1 in the mild Mediterranean climate. The Soft sponges: one basket. contributions to, as well as largest ships carried more than 600 pas The economic story this list tells is sengers on a long journey. The vessel in clear. Here was a shipment of imported benefit from, a new group which St. Paul was wrecked in A.D. 62 table delicacies. From the wharves of had only 270 aboard, but he was travel Alexandria they would make their way effort of utmost importance. ing late in the year toward the end of to the markets, and from there to the I the sailing season. kitchens of the court or of the local ship At Rome and other cities where harbor pers and industrialists. Foreign food facilities were poor, large ships unloaded stuffs were not the only luxuries that the onto small harbor craft, which carried wealthy of Alexandria and elsewhere the cargo either to docks or upriver to brought in to enhance their mode of YocMd l the city itself. The organization of a busy living. They imported works of art on a harbor was just as complicated then as large scale as well. Forty-odd years ago M' '' '� E ",'TEMS D' U S.oN it is today. Ships were given permission a shipwrecked vessel was discovered off I to enter, were assigned berths, had their the coast of Tunisia loaded with marble cargoes checked against the manifests, statuary and prefabricated temple col took on a return load under equally care umns from Athens. Some of the finest research ful supervision and left only after receiv Greek bronzes we have today were fished and ing clearance from the harbor master. By up from a wreck discovered by sponge a quirk of fate, an actual cargo manifest divers off the east coast of Greece. , eng;tneenng over 2,200 years old has been preserved. Apollonius, an official of Ptolemy II he intensity of all this traffic and the staff around 250 B.C., had as secretary a cer T number of ships involved in it were tain Zenon, who apparently was the kind unsurpassed until comparatively recent of man who never threw away a piece of times. The sea-borne commerce of Ro L O CKHEED A IRCR AFT papyrus. By great good luck his volu man times never died out entirely. The minous fileswere discovered, preserved massive trade in staples came to an end CORPORATION for two millennia in the dry soil of Egypt. when there was no longer an empire One of the documents is the cargo list which needed them, but there was still VAN" NUYS ,. CALU'ORNIA of a small coastal vessel which had a demand for silks and spices and per loaded up at a Syrian port to discharge fumes. Commerce in these precious com at Alexandria. The vessel arrived carry modities lived on to furnish the vast ing the following goods. Table wine: 63 wealth of the Genoese and Venetian re jars (probably holding seven g,allons publics of later days.

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QUIET TUBE "signature" of a metal directly onto example, are made readily measurable The U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships is a scaled chart in a matter of minutes. in minute amounts by the incorpora interested in anything which would It is able to do this with the use of tion of Carbon-14, and they are ex extend the range of its early-warning two fluxmeters, which integrate the pected to offer a clearer.insight' into radar stations. Since a target is flux voltage continuously. the behavior of silicones in the identified by distinguishing a pip on The new instrument is expected human body than ceuld previously a radar screen from smaller, noise to be a valuable quality-control de be obtained. generated irregularities, any reduc vice for manufacturers of special The new fluids have been designed tion in noise would make the pip steel. Laboratories can also make for laboratory and clinical test work. more discernible. use of it in obtaining accurate data They will not be a part of finished Our Research Laboratory has been on commercially-available materials medicinals sold to the consumer. In of working under Navy sponsorship for and in the development new conformity with Atomic Energy the past few years to design a alloys. Commission practice, such initial strong, low-noise tube for microwave studies must be conducted on animals applications. Such a tube has now LIFE PREDICTER only. been developed, in collaboration The conventional way of finding with our Tube Department. In this out how long a fluorescent lamp will FILM FIXER tube noise is reduced by keeping the burn before it fails is to let it burn electrodes extremely close together, What camera fan hasn't spent hours until it fails. But-now the engineers in a darkroom trying to minimize thus reducing the transit time the of our Lamp Division at Nela Park, electrons require to travel from the harmful effectsof scratches, dust, Cleveland, can make a pretty good cathode to grid. The shorter the or fingerprints on his favorite 35-mm prediction beforehand. transit time, the smaller the noise negative? Thanks to Dr. C. Guy Other things being equal, they factor. Suits, vice president and director of find, the life of a fluorescent lamp is our Research Laboratory, all three of The new tube, designated GL- proportional to the amount of emis 6299, these defects can now be corrected. is not a single-frequency device, sion coating on the cathode. By Dr. Suits, one of whose hobbies is although it was designed for use at weighing this emission coating, the photography, found that most of the microwave frequencies. In fact, it life of the lamp can be estimated. troublesome damage from scratches exhi bi ts improved performance Our engineers at Nela Park have occurred in the film base or in the throughout the radio and audio developed a rapid method of testing gelatine overcoat, rather than in the frequency ranges. For usefulness over such lamps for the quantity of silver image between. He reasoned a large frequency range, it has been chemical on their cathodes without that a liquid with the right proper made, adaptable for use in circ-!Jits of breaking open or lighting the tubes. ties might fill the .. vall,eys" formed the cavity, parallel-line, or lumped The lamp is compared in an elec by scratches and eliminate the valley constant type. Despite its small size, tronic circuit with 'One having an side surfaces that scatter light. it operates at currents and voltages uncoated cathode. When current is Although glycerine has been used for comparable to those of conventional applied, the coated cathode is slower this purpose, it is very viscous and receiving tubes. It is being marketed to increase in temperature. The forms bubbles, by our Tube Department in Schen difference is roughly proportional to ectady. the weight of the emission coating, He finally found the solution in a silicone oil, which has been named and it can be read on a meter. MAGNETIC SIGNATURES Refractasil. Not only did it solve the Determining the magnetic charac scratch problem, it also turned out to teristics of a metal can be a long and RADIOACTIVE SILICONES be a highly satisfactory cleaner, re tedious business. The usual method Our Silicone Products Department moving fingerprints like magic, And requires long calculation, using data in Waterford, New York, recently with a special circulating container gathered from sensitive ballistic gal made joint announcement with Ab designed by Dr. Suits, it served to vanometers. But that's been changed. bott Laboratories of North Chicago, remove dust particles, as well. Our General Engineering Labora Illinois, of an Abbott Laboratories Equipment using the Suits tech tory in Schenectady has developed a project making radioactive silicones nique may soon be marketed by device called a D-c Recording Hys available for medicine and industry. another manufacturer. Refractasil, teresigraph, which eliminates the Such silicones may prove to be a the silicone oil, is already in produc hours of laborious measurement and valuable research tool in certain tion in our Silicone Products Depart calculation. It traces the magnetic areas. Radioactive silicone fluids, for ment at Waterford, New York.

, ProgressIs Our Most ImporfilntProl/ucf GENERAL fJ ELECTRIC

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