80 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



any convenient form, and filling them with the fine particles and placing them 

 in the furnace, where the whole melts together. The second is by Mr. Edward 

 Lyon, of New York, and consists hi merely piling the fine particles hi a com- 

 pact mass as near as possible to the centre of each charge, so that the draught 

 may rise freely through the coal around it. Both methods are successful hi 

 practice, and patents, we believe, are granted or pending for each. The 

 latter and obviously cheaper method is probably somewhat more wasteful of 

 the metal than the former, but the material is cheap, and the Lyon process 

 may be generally preferred. Turnings are valued, at many shops, at only 

 $4 or $5 per ton, while pig iron of the same kind is worth $30. 



In this connexion we would notice a well founded prejudice which is 

 beginning to prevail against the use of scrap iron for the construction of axles, 

 shafts, &c. Scrap iron has been generally well worked over, and is in that 

 respect superior to that just from the puddling furnace, but the unequal cha- 

 racter of the fragments, causing some to burn before others are soft enough 

 to weld, induces, in many cases, the most fatal accidents by failure, where it 

 could not by any care have been anticipated. Good American iron which, 

 by the way, is somewhat softer and considerably stronger and tougher than 

 English well worked over by repeated rolling and piling, is, without doubt, 

 the most reliable material. Scrap is liable to contain all manner of faults, and 

 is notoriously too unequal in texture to bear case hardening without warping. 



Steel Castings. The well known establishment ofNaylor&Co., at Sheffield, 

 England, is now producing " cast steel forgings" of large size by a new pro- 

 cess of casting the fluid metal in sand somewhat like cast iron. The product 

 is reported in Tfie Glasgow Practical Mechanics' 1 Journal as a new material 

 stronger and sounder than perfect wrought iron, and free from the imperfec- 

 tions to which heavy masses of the latter are often subject. It would seem 

 to be a great desideratum for steamship shafts and the like. 



IMPROVED CHAIN MAKING MACHINE. 



An ingenious machine for the manufacture of chains, has recently been 

 invented by Edw>ard Weisenborn, of New York City. The chain made by 

 this machine is not like that in common use, but is of a peculiar kind, which 

 may be called " double link chain;" it is made, not of pairs of links, but 

 strictly of double links, each consisting of only one piece of metal. The 

 links are faggoted and welded before being put into the chain, and to 

 make them inclose each other, only require to be bent. It is in a great 

 measure owing to the manner of making the links which gives the chain the 

 superiority which it is claimed to possess over the common kind of chain. 

 This machine performs the whole of the process of making this chain from the 

 forging of the links to putting them together. The first operation which 

 takes place at one end of the machine, is that of winding up a small piece of 

 small flat iron rod till it forms a coil of several thicknesses of metal. This 

 coil is taken to a proper fire and heated to a welding heat, and then put in 

 another part of the machine, by which it is welded into a ring which is 

 equally strong at all points. From the last named part of the machine the 

 ring is taken by automatic devices to another part, where it is elongated in 



