My favourite technological American Hero is a name which I cannot remember
at present and I seldom have much success with Google.

It was in the age of early chemical engineering and the manufacture of
sulphuric acid. Sulphuric acid was, in the Victorian age, and still is, the
foundation of chemical engineering. From the age of steam the progress of an
industrial country could not advance without great quantities of sulphuric
acid which was usable in the production of a vast range of other chemicals
from fertilisers, explosives, medicines, battery acids, dyes and eventually
micro-processor chips.

The person concerned was the usual ragged-trousers European who arrived
penniless at the shores of America before they took fingerprints. He had
some rudimentary chemical engineering experience obtained probably in France
or Germany where sulphuric acid was already being manufactured in small
quantities.

Manufacture was in small vats made with very pure thick lead. Lead is a
metal relatively impervious to attack from sulphuric acid. But pure lead was
a very expensive metal in those days. It probably still is.

To reduce the exorbitant manufacturing costs of sulphuric acid the person
had the brilliant idea of using ridiculously cheap timber vats painted with
ridiculously cheap coal tar. The whole USA chemical industry immediately
boomed, eventually overtaking Germany, and expanded into all fields making
the USA what it is at present - far and away the World's greatest and
richest industrial nation.

All based on dirt-cheap timber and coal tar. What a pity USA presidents
still have their brains lined with heavy lead, unable to walk and chew gum
at the same time.

Praps someone will remind me of the person's name.
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Reg.