INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1876. ccvii 



to six or seven of iron may be used. Tlie advantages claimed are : 

 (1) Increased cheapness of the steel ; (3) increased purity of the 

 steel ; (3) saving in time and fuel ; (4) the possibility of using an 

 iron poor in silica. The ore used should, however, not contain over 

 0.07 per cent, of phosphorus. 



A process for utilizing waste iron, such as stove and machinery 

 scrap, and the harder numbers of pig-iron, has been introduced in 

 practice by Mr. William Batty, and is sufficiently useful and novel to 

 warrant special mention. The essential feature of the process ap- 

 pears to be to recarbonize the iron, which always loses carbon when 

 being melted in the usual w^ay in the cupola. To neutralize the de- 

 carbonizing effects of the blast, the inventor feeds into the blast- 

 pipe, just before it enters the tuyeres, a stream of pulverized coal 

 (the gas-carbon which lines the retorts in the manufacture of illu- 

 minating gas being selected on account of its purity). The result 

 is claimed to be the production of a neutral flame, which, as it con- 

 tains rather an excess of carbon, the iron becomes carbonized, and 

 therefore softer after melting than before. When the iron to be 

 melted is very much decarbonized, Mr. Batty employs as an auxiliary 

 a bed of charcoal in the bottom of the furnace. The inventor claims 

 by this process to be able to melt iron-waste of every description 

 old castings, tin cliiDpings, tin roofs, etc, and produce therefrom 

 castings of any desired quality by modifying certain details of the 

 operation and varying its duration. He claims also to have doubled 

 the productive capacity of the cupola, while effecting at the same 

 time a decided economy of fuel. 



The International Committee appointed by the American Institute 

 of Mining Engineers have made a report proposing a new nomen- 

 clature for iron and steel, W' hich, if generally adopted, will do away 

 "with much of the ambiguity which now attaches to the use of the 

 term " steel," in consequence of its application to the products of 

 the Bessemer, the Siemens-Martin, and other processes, which prod- 

 ucts will not harden and temper. The committee remarks, in its 

 preamble, " Although homogeneity due to fusion is usually recog- 

 nized, and is by this committee recognized as the most definitive 

 characteristic of both hard and soft steel, this quality may be equally 

 well expressed in other terms, thus leaving the old term ' steel ' to 

 define the malleable compounds of iron which will harden and tem- 

 per." The report concludes with a resolution recommendiug the 

 adoption of the following nomenclature : 



I. That all malleable compounds of iron, with its ordinary ingre- 

 dients, which are aggregated from pasty masses, or from piles, or 

 from any forms of iron not in a fluid state, and which will not sen- 

 sibly harden and temper, and which generally resemble what is 

 called " wrought iron," shall be called Weld Iron (German, Scliweiss- 

 eisen; French, fer sonde). 



