Leather & Weather

Scientists still laugh at people who locate water with a witch-hazel branch and foretell a man's way of life by the stars present at his birth. But last week in Manhattan, U. S. chemists apologized for having laughed at people who predict the weather by feelings in their feet. They awarded the William H. Nichols Medal of the American Chemical Society to Dr. John Arthur Wilson, 40, consulting chemist of Milwaukee. Wis. Dr. Wilson was judged worthy of the medal (given for outstanding achievement in colloid chemistry) for his seven years' study of leather. He had found that the dimensions of leather are affected by changes in relative humidity, that shoes swell, pinching tender feet, when wet weather approaches. By using special tanning materials, he proved to shoe manufacturers that this foot-squeeze can be reduced two-thirds. He also demonstrated to shoemen that by proper tanning they could make a shoe waterproof from the outside, at the same time allow perspiration to evaporate from the inside 80% as fast as from a bare foot. After devising methods for measuring resilience, porosity, density of leather, he organized Properties & Uses of Leather, a national committee to study the foot comfort of U. S. citizens.

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