Benjamin S. Melton Papers

Benjamin S. Melton was born in Dallas, Texas, on January 2, 1904. He received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Rice Institute in 1925. Following a student engineering course at the General Electric Company and a short time as engineer with the Gulf States Utilities Company, he was employed by the General Exploration Company of Houston, TX, to do research and development work in the electromagnetic prospecting for oil, during the years 1928 to 1930. Late in 1930, he entered the field of seismograph prospecting with Geophysical Service, Inc. of Dallas, TX, where he remained until April 1942. In 1942, Mr. Melton joined the staff of the Applied Physics Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University as a radio engineer on the proximity-fuse project. Following assignment to several associated projects, he entered the research program on supersonic aerodynamics initiated toward the close of the war, and was engaged in development of optical and other methods for examining super-sonic flow. In December 1948, he accepted an appointment as a geophysicist with the U. S. Air Force. He was with the Air Force Technical Applications Center in Alexandria, VA, as an electronic engineer, supervising the development of instrumentation.