clxxviii GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



Of much interest in the same field is the statement made 

 before the late meeting of the British Iron and Steel Insti- 

 tute, that the process of Jacobi for dephosphorizing iron ores 

 previous to their being smelted in the furnace is in success- 

 ful operation at the Adalbert Iron Works, at Kladno, in Bo- 

 hemia. The process, incidentally remarked, consists in the 

 treatment of the ores, in suitable apparatus (after roasting to 

 drive oif sulphur), with a solution of sulphurous acid, gene- 

 rated from the roasting of iron pyrites in contact with air. 

 The residual liquid contains sufficient phosphate of lime, etc., 

 dissolved from the ore, to pay for the cost of the process ; and 

 the sulphurous acid contained therein is driven out by boil- 

 ing, and is led again into the towers and utilized repeatedly. 

 The precipitated phosphate is sold for manure. 



The new alloy, phosphor-bronze, referred to in our last 

 yearly Record, has since then become domesticated in the 

 United States. Smelting works have for some months been 

 in operation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, producing large 

 quantities of the alloy, and supplying the Pittsburgh mills 

 and some of our leading railroad companies. 



The increasing demand for the phosphor-bronze is soon to 

 be met, it is stated, by the establishment of additional works 

 in Philadelphia or New York. If we may rely upon the an- 

 nouncement of Dr. Kiinzel, one of the discoverers of the al- 

 loy, he has lately developed certain new features in connec- 

 tion with it that possess much mechanical interest. Dr. 

 Kiinzel states the discovery that when phosphor-bronze is 

 combined with a fixed proportion of lead, the phosphorized 

 triple alloy, when cast into a bar or bearing, segregates into 

 two distinct alloys one of which is a hard and tough phos- 

 phor-bronze, containing but little lead; and the other a 

 much softer alloy, consisting chiefly of lead, with a small 

 proportion of tin and traces of copper. The latter alloy is 

 almost white, and when the casting is fractured will be found 

 to be nearly equally diffused through it ; the phosphor-bronze 

 alloy forming, as it were, a species of metallic sponge, all of 

 whose cavities are occupied by the soft metallic alloy segre- 

 gated from it. The phenomenon of the segregation of com- 

 binations of copper with tin or zinc into two or more alloys 

 lias long been known, and from the fact that such separation 

 is generally massive, and not equable throughout the mass, 



