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Letters (Contznued from pa~e 6.) the expense of extracting them from nature generates a true scrap value that provides the economic basis for recycling. G r e g o r y L. C r a w f o r d Apd11998 1997 Review of Extraction and Processing (including precious metals, lead, and zinc) The Economic Viability of Materials and ManufactudngTechnology

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The origins of ASTM date back to the end of the 19 th century. At this time two of the largest industries in America were the railroads and the steel industry. While the railroads linked the nation, the steel purchased from one mill for a particular application could have greatly different properties than a similar alloy purchased from another mill. Establishing voluntary, consensus, conformance standards in the steel industry was one of the driving forces for the creation of ASTM. With this in mind, it seems obvious that the first ASTM committee to be formed was A01, Steel. As standards for steel alloys were being developed, the next logical progression was the development of standard methodologies to test materials; hence, committee E01 on test methods was formed. In 1916 committee E04 was spun off from committee E01. While the first focus of E04 was to develop a set of standard magnifications to use for evaluating steel microstructures, with time the scope became much broader. The current name "On Metallography" was adopted in 1921. Today ASTM International has over 30,000 members from more than 100 countries, and is responsible for over 11,000 standards.Committee E04 is currently responsible for 36 standards concerning metallography and similarly related topics.Standard E384, Standard Test Method for Microindentation Hardness of Materials is one of the standards in Committee E04's charge [1].