I 



ON THE CONVERSION OF IRON INTO STEEL, 



very much incorporated with it, have no falband, far lefs 

 an interpgied layer of clay, (belteg) and the vein mafs 

 differs very little from the vein rock. On the contrary, the 

 newer the veins, the fewer are the points of their agreement, 

 fo that at kill there is not the leaft refembiance. Thefe old 

 veins he fuppofes to have been immediately filled out of the 

 fame folution from which the rock had been precipitated : the 

 contents at leaft of this fluid had not undergone any confide^ 

 rable change. 



R. JAMESON. 



II. 



Obfervations on the Converfwn of Iron into Steel. In a Letter 

 from Joseph Priestley, L.L.D. F.R.S. fyc. SfC 



To Mr. NICHOLSON. 

 SIR, 



Northumberland, America, May 22, 1802. 



1 OUR giving the following article a place in your valuable 

 Journal, will oblige Your's, &.c. 



J. PRIESTLEY. 



ACCORDING to the antiphlogiftic theory iron becomes Antiphlogiftic 



fteel by imbibing carbon; to this is laid to be owing the addi- the .°y y of ftcei " 



i • • • iii making. 



tion to its weight in the procefs of cementation ; and the flakes 



of black matter which remain undiifolved after a folution of 



lieel in diluted acid of vitriol are laid to he plumbago, or carbon 



united to iron. 



I cannot, however, help concluding from fome late expe- Obje&ion from 



ments, that iron is converted into Heel by imbibing only phlo- lat( : ex P«'ments 



J & J * and phlogiitic 



gifton from the charcoal, and that the addition to its weight is theory. 



not from carbon, but hom finery cinder. 



Having made a quantity of iron filings perfectly pure, by 120 gr. of iron 



firfl expelling from them all the air that they could be made fi . ;in S s clea,ed of 



to yield by heat, then warning out of them any carbonaceous W afhed were 



matter they might contain, and expoling them again to heat, heated in in- 



I took 120 grains of them, and heating them with a burning 



lens in inflammable air, found that they imbibed IS ounce 



meafures 



