210 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



with ice is the same as that of steam with water, the pressure 

 of steam in contact with ice falls off 1.13 times as much as 

 does the pressure of steam in contact with water. It is, 

 indeed, very creditable to the accuracy of Regnault's experi- 

 ments that his results, whose slight discordances gave him 

 considerable anxiety, are now found to contain such clear 

 indications of this feature, which only comes to view through 

 comparison of differences of pressure represented by very 

 minute fractions of a millimeter of mercury; and which, un- 

 less a very high order of accuracy were obtained, might have 

 given no perceptible indication of its existence, or might even 

 readily have been made to disappear totally from the final 

 results through the application of the ordinary methods for 

 clearing off small errors of observation. 12 A, IX., 392. 



PHOSPHORUS STEEL. 



Among the results of extended experiments, conducted by 

 Euverte, to ascertain how much phosphorus may be added 

 to steel, the following seem important : By bringing suitable 

 quantities of substances containing phosphorus in contact 

 with iron of different kinds spiegeleisen, for example 

 treated in a Siemens-Martin furnace, he found the resulting 

 metal to be malleable, and generally of good quality, and he 

 also determined that cast steel may contain a certain amount 

 of phosphorus without losing in quality as respects its tenac- 

 ity, and that steel containing 0.003 of phosphorus and 0.0015 

 of carbon affords most excellent rails. 32 (7, 1874, 259. 



THE DENSITY OF MOLTEN IRON. 



Mr. Mallet, in pursuance of his researches in reference to 

 seismology and the early geological history of the globe, has 

 made some highly important experiments on the alleged ex- 

 pansion, in volume, of various substances, in cooling down 

 from the liquid to the solid state. Not being able, by ordi- 

 nary methods, to determine the specific gravity, in the liquid 

 state, of a body at so high a temperature as fused cast iron, 

 Mr. Mallet has operated by an indirect way. He used a con- 

 ical vessel, whose contents were very accurately known by 

 fillinsr it with water and weighing it. This vessel was filled 

 to the brim with molten gray cast iron, additions of molten 

 metal being made to keep the vessel full, until it had attain- 



