294 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVEKY. 



pect that the man who could go farther than this, and supply Mr. Bessemer 

 with its local habitation and its name, would participate largely in a most 

 lucrative as well as scientifically honorable discovery. 



We could ourselves easily indicate certain metallic combinations which, 

 in dealing with phosphorus in its uncombined state, possess the power of 

 neutralizing its caustic properties ; but this may be far indeed from indicat- 

 ing a power in such preparations to deal with that wonderful substance as it 

 is found in nature, united with the crude oxide of iron. Indeed, we take 

 for granted that men of the highest mark in chemical science are just now 

 eagerly devoting their attention to this interesting problem ; and, as we have 

 said, we look forward rather hopefully than otherwise to the result. 



We are very far from participating in the triumph expressed by many at 

 the partial, and, in truth, temporary failure in the expectations raised in the 

 public mind by Mr. Bessemer and his discoveries ; but it is still true that, up 

 to the present time, the " revolution " has not come off. The new aspirants 

 for dominion in the realms of metallurgy we mean, of course, air-blast and 

 oxygen have not as yet been able to wrest the sceptre from the hand 

 of " Old King Coal." His carbonaceous majesty is still " master of the 

 situation ; " how long he may continue so, we by no means venture to take 

 on ourselves even to conjecture. 



In a recent discussion before the London Chemical Society on the various 

 new processes of Bessemer, Martin, and others, for the manufacture of kon, 

 Professor Abel remarked that of all foreign elements in the metal, the silicon 

 was most readily and completely abstracted, both in the ordinary and in the 

 newly proposed refinery processes. The primary effect of air when passed 

 into the fluid metal is to oxidize a portion of the iron, the temperature of 

 the mass being thereby raised and maintained ; the silicon is simultaneously 

 oxidated, and the graphite converted into carbide of iron ; which last, after 

 the attainment of a sufficiently high temperature, is decomposed by the air, 

 and the carbon almost completely burnt off. It had been demonstrated by 

 repeated experiments that treatment with air alone did not remove the sul- 

 phur or phosphorus to any important extent ; the abstraction of these ele- 

 ments requiring prolonged contact with such agents as oxide of iron, as in 

 the ordinary puddling process. This last process is consequently the only 

 effective plan of purifying iron, but the circumstance of its efficiency de- 

 pending chiefly on the skill and industry of the workman is alone sufficient 

 to stimulate manufacturing energy to the production of a less laborious, 

 more rapid, and equally efficacious method of freeing the metal from those 

 foreign elements, whose presence detracts largely from its most valuable 

 properties. 



ELECTRIC GILDING, SILVERING AND PLATINIZING. 



M. Laudois, of Paris, announces the preparation of a gold, silver and 

 platina bath, having no deleterious exhalation, and capable of depositing 

 solid coating upon the metals. M. L. dissolves a given weight of cyanide 

 of gold, silver or platina, in a saturated solution of common salt ; the solu- 



