264 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



be of vast importance. All persons familiar with the business know that little 

 dependence can, in this respect, be placed upon the usual methods. M. 

 Uchatius' manner of tempering is the same as that employed in making Eng- 

 lish cast steel. It is said that the expense of producing 1,000 kilogrammes 

 (about 2,187 Ibs.) will not exceed $92, whereas to make that quantity of ordi- 

 nary steel costs, in France, $200, and of the best quality $500. These prices 

 would be materially diminished by establishing the works in the vicinity of 

 coal mines, where a supply of fuel could be obtained cheaply. If the price of 

 steel could thus be reduced it would undoubtedly replace iron in many cases ; 

 a great economy would also result from its employment in making pieces of 

 artillery, where cast steel would have the immense advantage of being lighter, 

 less costly, and more solid than copper. Experiments are now being made at 

 the arsenal of Vienna to determine this point. A committee appointed by the 

 French Government to examine the discovery report that the cast steel pro- 

 duced by his method is calculated to replace iron with great advantage in the 

 manufacture of piston rods, axle trees, and connecting rods ; also that the pro- 

 cess is simple, and can be employed without great outlay ; and lastly, that 

 cast steel of various degrees of hardness can be obtained by modifying the 

 proportion of the materials first employed. These materials being cast iron, 

 and other substances of no great cost, it follows that the cast steel produced 

 by this method will cost less than any other. 



An exhibition of the process of Captain Uchatius was recently made in 

 London, before a company of manufacturers and scientific men. While the 

 preparations for the process were going on, Mr. Lenz, a partner of Captain Ucha- 

 tius, read a paper descriptive of the invention. He commenced by explain- 

 ing that he had labored under many disadvantages in being compelled to con- 

 trive substitutes for the regular furnaces, and other proper appliances peculiar 

 to steel works, but, nevertheless, an opinion could be there formed of the 

 merits of this important invention, for all the melting operations in cast steel 

 manufacture were necessarily a series of operations on a small scale, the size 

 of a steel crucible limiting the magnitude of the furnaces. The method here- 

 tofore adopted for making the best description of cast steel, was to convert 

 Swedish or Eussian bar iron, by a lengthy, uncertain, and costly process, first 

 into what is called blister steel, which product was then melted down in 

 crucibles and cast into ingots for the manufacture of the bar steel of commerce. 

 Mr. Lenz proceeded to say that the present invention would render England 

 quite independent of Sweden and Russia for steel iron making, as East India 

 pig iron, now very plentiful and cheap, could be converted into steel in as few 

 hours as Swedish and Russian bar iron would take weeks to manufacture ; 

 besides which, numerous descriptions of ordinary English pig iron would 

 answer equally well, judging from tl^e limited experiments in English iron he 

 had performed. He expected that nearly all the iron works would soon 

 make steel as regularly as they now make iron ; and did not hesitate to 

 assert that fully two-thirds of the cost of producing cast steel might be saved 

 by using the present instead of the old process. 



Mr. Lenz then proceeded to explain that the invention of Captain Uchatius 

 was founded on the well known fact, that cast iron surrounded by any 



