Our Aluminum Cooking Utensils Shall We Discard Them?

It is just one hundred and two years since aluminum was first produced in powdered form by a German chemist. It was then as great a curiosity as radium is today. When exhibited at the Inter· national Exposition in Paris in 1885, as aluminum ingots, it was valued at $90 a pound and attracted much attention. At that time, one of the newspapers in Philadelphia, commenting about this new metal, described it as follows, ''The metal is white as silver, does not tarnish and is ductile in the highest degree. It is a good conductor and can be melted and cast in the air,-cold and hot water, nitric acid, heat, sulphuric acid do not act upon it. . . Should this new metal, which has all the good qualities of silver, is as malleable as gold be brought into general use, it is easy to predict that silver would have its day for the purpose of domestic life. Cooking utensils, plates and dishes, spoons and forks, drinking cups, will all be of aluminum.''