AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 735 



successes, or to draw intelligent inferences from their much more 

 common failures. One somewhat prominent firm was so persist- 

 ent in their ignorant faith that a certain iron was the best in 

 America that, when they discovered that good steel could not be 

 made therefrom, they abandoned an enterprise in which many 

 thousands of dollars had been expended, because they firmly be- 

 lieved that they had demonstrated that it was impossible to make 

 cast steel from American iron. 



Swank tells us that in 1850 there were thirteen steel works in 

 Pennsylvania which produced in that year 6,078 tons, of which 

 but 44 tons were " cast steel." According to the same authority, 

 the "Adirondack Iron and Steel Company, whose works were 

 at Jersey City, N. J.," succeeded in February, 1849, in making 

 "cast steel" in black-lead crucibles by melting "blister steel," 

 made from iron that had been puddled with wood as the fuel. 

 " Of the excellent quality of the " cast steel " manufactured at 

 this time at these works there is abundant evidence in the 

 testimony of Government experts and of many consumers. . . . 

 It was used for chisels, turning and engravers' tools, drills, 

 hammers, shears, razors, carpenters' tools, etc. Its manufact- 

 ure was continued with encouraging results until 1853, when 

 the business was abandoned by the company. It had not 

 proved to be profitable, partly because of the prejudice existing 

 against American ' cast steel,' and in some degree to the irregu- 

 larity of the temper of the steel produced." The firm of Hussey, 

 Wells & Co., of Pittsburg, began the erection of works in 1859, 

 and in the following year they entered upon a successful business 

 in the making of crucible cast steel of the best quality from 

 American iron. In 1862 the firm of Park Brothers & Co., also of 

 Pittsburg, achieved success with the same material. These were 

 the first firms in America who were commercially as well as me- 

 chanically successful in the manufacture of " cast steel." Their 

 works are still in operation and their products are well and 

 favorably known. 



There are various methods of making "crucible cast steel" 

 besides that already mentioned as the discovery of Huntsman; 

 one of these, which is in very common use, consists of melting in 

 a plumbago crucible a certain weight of wrought iron cut into 

 small pieces together with a sufficient amount of charcoal powder 

 to properly carburize it during the process of fusion. Another 

 method is to melt together proper proportions of "pig" and 

 " wrought " iron. In all of the modern processes of making " cast 

 steel" manganese enters in some form, its chief use being to effect 

 the removal of any oxygen that may be present in the metal used. 



We shall not attempt a description of the multitudes of " mixt- 

 ures," " fluxes," and " physics," each intended to work wondrous 



