292 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



thick. These arc said to have proved upon trial, to be harder than the 

 natural crystals, and therefore more fitted for mounting watches. 



OX THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL THROUGH THE AGEXCY OF 

 FERRO-CYAXIDE OF POTASSIUM. 



A company, under the name of the " Damascus Steel Company," has 

 recently been formed, and commenced practical operations in New Jersey, 

 for manufacturing steel through the agency, principally, of ferro-cyanide of 

 potassium. 



A recent writer in the New York Tribune gives the following account of 

 the process, and the cost of the manufacture : In small furnaces made of 

 fire-brick and arranged in rows, the top being level with the floor, the cruci- 

 bles arc placed, two in each furnace, upon anthracite for fuel. This is kept 

 in vivid combustion by a blower at the bottom. Each crucible holds sixty 

 pounds of wrought iron, and the flux scattcrrcd among the pieces. This 

 consists of ferro-cyanide of potassium, (prussiate of potash), sal ammoniac 

 and a little common salt, with which a few ounces of fine charcoal and 

 a little black oxide of manganese are mixed. Their whole value for a cru- 

 cible holding sixty pounds of metal is not more than eight cents. In the 

 operation we lately witnessed 2,515 pounds of anthracite Avere consumed in 

 melting twelve crucibles of iron, making the cost of fuel to the crucible fifty- 

 eight cents. Each crucible costs one dollar, and lasts four heats, making 

 the cost to sixty pounds twenty-five cents. Labor is estimated at sixteen 

 cents to each melting of a crucible. Allowing the iron to cost $85 per ton, 

 all the expense, beside superintendence, 'coal for the engine, which drives the 

 blast, and general expenses, is for each crucible about S3. 54. The steel pro- 

 duced weighs the same as the iron, the carbon taken up replacing the waste. 

 Adding to the other items the cost of re-heating and drawing out the ingots 

 into bars, the whole expense per ton of cast steel bars is about $142 for the 

 same quality of steel we import at a cost of $300. The time required to 

 'melt the wrought iron is from three to four hours. In regular working, three 

 heats have been run in nine hours. A curious fact has been observed in re- 

 lation to the difference of time required to melt wrought iron derived from 

 charcoal, pig, and that from anthracite pig iron, the latter requiring from 

 thirty to forty minutes more than the former. There is no perceptible dif- 

 ference yet noticed in the qualities of the steel made from these irons. 

 When lifted out from the furnaces the crucibles are taken to the ingot moulds, 

 and the liquid metal is poured into them, precisely as is done in the melting 

 and pouring of the blistered steel. This operation, therefore, involves no 

 more labor and no more time than the simple melting part of the English 

 method of making cast steel. The long cementation process is entirely done 

 away with. The ingots, when taken from the moulds, arc ready to be re- 

 heated for hammering or rolling, and these operations are conducted as in 

 other steel works. 



