Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Ceramic Engineering Cornerstone [PAGE 2]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

HE new Ceramic Engineering Building is designed to accommodate that portion of the instructional and research work of the University which deals with the fabrication of clay products, cement and glass. The importance of activities in this field is increased by the fact that the raw materials involved, while of but little value in themselves, are through the expenditure of labor and the use of fuel converted into products both of utility and beauty. Moreover, the clays and rocks constitute so extensive a resource that their utilization occasions no appreciable loss in the natural resources of the state. Clays, limestone, sandstone and sands together with small amounts of other minerals may be made to yield many different products ranking in character from the common brick to the more ornate terra-cottas and the most"exquisite* porcelains; They are the sources of Portland cement which has become an indispensable material of construction, and they are also the sources of glass in its hundreds of forms from the simple windowpane to the brilliant ornamental glassware and the delicately polished lens of the telescope. From the standpoint of chemical technology all of these materials belong to one great family of compounds known as silicates. Their economic importance to the industries of the state and the nation, the complex character of the problems which are introduced by attempts to utilize them, and the imperfect knowledge possessed of the means which may be employed in solving these problems have been deemed by the Legislature as sufficient to justify the expenditure of the funds required for the erection of this building, in which the youth of the state may be trained scientifically in the utiillation of one of the states greatest resources.

T