D. CHEMISTRY AND METALLUKGY. 203 



triumph which promises the most substantial results for this 

 important branch of metalhirgical industry. It has been 

 demonstrated that the peculiar properties of steel are not 

 governed absolutely by the presence of a certain percentage 

 of one or two substances, like phosj^horus or carbon, but 

 that these properties may be secured and modified at pleas- 

 ure by judiciously controlling the relative proportions of a 

 number of foreign ingredients introduced into the metal. 

 The progress that has been made in this direction has been 

 intelligently summarized by The Engineering and Mining 

 Journal: "By securing the proper relative proportions of 

 carbon, phosphorus, silicon, and manganese, a steel of great 

 softness and strength can be obtained, while the same per- 

 centage of phosphorus in an ordinary steel would have indi- 

 cated very difierent properties (which means, in other words, 

 that it would have been quite worthless). There can no 

 longer be much doubt that manganese exerts upon steel a 

 body-giving, toughening influence, as well as a neutralizing 

 effect upon the hardening or cold-shortening due to phos- 

 phorus. Though these properties of manganese have been 

 suspected for some time, the mutual dependence, and to a 

 certain extent interchangeability, of carbon and phosphorus 

 were not fully appreciated until M. Tessie du Motay suc- 

 ceeded in producing with ferro-manganese a good steel rail, 

 containing about 0.12 per cent, of carbon, 0.25 of phosphorus, 

 and 0.75 of manganese." In the light of the recent investiga- 

 tions, therefore, phosphorus is no longer entitled to the evil dis- 

 tinction of being, as a well-known metallurgist has expressed 

 it, "the very scourge and pestilence of the steel-maker," and 

 the time is possibly not for away Avhen many rich deposits 

 of ore now esteemed to be worthless will find ready utiliza- 

 tion. 



GALLIUM. 



M. Boisbaudran states that in his first discovery of galli- 

 um he did not possess more than one hundredth of a milli- 

 gramme of the metal dissolved in a minute drop of liquid. 

 Lately, with a larger supply of material, he has determined 

 some of its characteristics. The spectrum is exceedingly 

 brilliant, giving with a gas flame the line 417; in a spark 

 spectrum line 403.1 also appears. The metal can be deposited 



