Materials & Industrial Emulsions
The department that made the curtain, the gels, the substrate suspension and every emulsion in this building, and which has set fire to the third floor on nine recorded occasions and one that is disputed. The President regards this as evidence of activity.
Materials is the oldest department in the company because Materials is the department that made the curtain, and the curtain is the reason there is a company. Every product we sell came off the Materials bench, including two that were meant to be something else and one that was meant to be pudding.
They are on the third floor. They have been on the third floor since 1951. They have burned the third floor nine times in eight years and I have rebuilt it nine times and I will rebuild it a tenth, because a materials department that has never set fire to anything is a materials department that is stirring water.
The outfit in New Mexico has a materials division with forty men and a fire record of nothing. I have seen their publications. I would not put a curtain from that division in a Navy shower, and I say that as a man whom the Navy has never asked.
Active Lines Of Research
Materials bench, Spring 1959
| Line | Description | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| M-1 | Curtain vinyl, twelve-grommet weighted hem | In manufacture | Since 1943. Unchanged since 1948. |
| M-7 | Repulsion gel, industrial grade | In manufacture | Formerly a pudding |
| M-9 | Propulsion gel, industrial grade | In manufacture | Formerly a lubricant for the curtain line |
| M-14 | Substrate suspension, 200 mesh | In manufacture | Masks. See Form ASI-404. |
| M-19 | Self-extinguishing bench coating | Suspended | Ignited during trial |
| M-22 | Emulsion, adhesive, reversible | Active | Reversal not yet achieved |
| M-27 | Citrus-derived oxidiser | Not a programme | See the requisition below |
| M-31 | Emulsion, purpose unrecorded | Active | The bench note reads ‘why not’ |
Lines M-2 through M-6, M-8, M-10 through M-13 and M-15 through M-18 were abandoned, absorbed, or lost in one of the fires. Materials keeps no record of which.
The Incident Record
Third-floor incidents, 1951 – Spring 1959, as reported to Facilities
| Date | Incident | Cause, as stated by Materials | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1955 | Fire, bench four | Emulsion M-11 was lively | Replaced |
| Mar 1956 | Fire, bench four | Emulsion M-11 was still lively | Replaced |
| Aug 1956 | Fire, store | Sunlight | Replaced |
| Jan 1957 | Fire, bench one | The pudding | Replaced |
| Jun 1957 | Fire, corridor | Unknown. Corridor contains nothing. | Replaced |
| Nov 1957 | Fire, annexe | Fruit. | Replaced |
| Apr 1958 | Fire, bench four | Bench four | Replaced |
| Sep 1958 | Fire, bench four | Bench four | Replaced |
| Feb 1959 | Fire, bench four | Bench four | Replaced |
| Mar 1959 | Disputed | Materials maintains there was no fire | Replaced anyway |
Bench four has been replaced three times and has caught fire on each replacement. Facilities has proposed removing bench four. Materials has proposed removing Facilities.
“We’re throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks. Some of it is going to stick to the ceiling.”
A Statement From The Department
Materials Wishes To Record
Materials wishes to record that nine fires in eight years, across a department running thirty-one active emulsions and four production lines, is a rate of roughly one fire per three and a half emulsions, and that Materials does not know of a comparable department anywhere that runs thirty-one emulsions at all.
Materials further wishes to record that the March incident was not a fire. It was a rapid oxidation event confined to a single bench, extinguished by the man at the bench, and the ceiling was replaced by Facilities as a precaution which Materials did not request.
Materials has no comment on the requisition for lemons.
Interoffice Memorandum
Materials requests one gross of lemons, ordinary, for the purposes of a programme which Materials is not at liberty to describe and which does not, in the formal sense, exist.
The Commissary is asked not to forward this requisition to the Office of the President, to Legal, or to anybody in the annexe.
Commissary note, appended in pencil: Refused. Fourth time. The lemons are for the pie.
Nine ceilings. I have signed for nine ceilings. He signs the bench four requisition every time and every time he writes “again” on it, and every time I think that is the whole of his review. — C.
Form ASI-402. Products of this department are described at ASI-201, ASI-203, ASI-204 and ASI-205. The citrus line is not a product, is not a programme, and is not described anywhere.