73 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



beneficent changes in material positively bad, and to so purify 

 and purge it that it would inevitably produce steel phenomenally 

 good, that wearied the minds, vexed the souls, and too often im- 

 parted a lurid hue and sulphurous flavor to the language of the 

 early makers of cast steel. These nostrums represented every 

 school of " medicine " ; one prescribed heavy doses of certain 

 " salts," another was loud in the praises of minute pellets of his 

 most potential preparation ; one of the advocates of the botanical 

 treatment extolled the efficacy of a raw potato to "agitate the 

 metal " * and cause it to throw off all its superfluities, while the 

 " eclectics " roamed through all the fields of " physic " and claimed 

 to appropriate all the virtues and ignore the vices of the other 

 practitioners. 



The original method of melting cast steel consisted in placing 

 a single " pot " with its contents in a square vertical furnace, or 

 "hole," whose top was level with the floor of the " casting house " ; 

 the furnace was then filled with either coke or anthracite coal, 

 care being taken that the fuel was distributed equally on all sides 

 of the " pot," which was provided with a " lid " to protect its con- 

 tents from contamination by the entrance of coal or other matter. 



The fire was then urged by the powerful draught of a chimney, 

 or frequently by a " blower." Many of the later " melting holes," 

 in which solid fuel was used, were made large enough to contain 

 two, and some of them four " pots." 



All the cast steel made in America prior to the year 1868 was 

 melted by solid fuel in " holes " such as have been described ; but 

 in November, 1867, Messrs. Anderson and "Woods, of Pittsburg, 

 procured a license from the American owners of the Siemens 

 patents for " regenerative gas furnaces," and under this license a 

 " twenty-four pot " melting furnace was erected under the super- 

 vision of William Durfee,f in their works at Pittsburg, Pa., in the 

 spring of 1868, according to plans prepared by J. Thorpe Potts, 

 C. E., who represented Dr. Siemens in America. This was the 

 pioneer furnace in the United States using gaseous fuel for melt- 

 ing cast steel, and its success led to their rapid introduction in 

 other works, so that to-day there are not many of the old-fashioned 

 " holes " using solid fuel to be found. 



In Fig. 51 we have a vertical cross section of a " Siemens re- 

 generative gas furnace " for melting cast steel. Fig. 52 is a top 

 view of the furnace, showing two of the " melting holes " covered 

 and six " pots " in place in the open hole ; the top of the furnace 



* Another " crank " claimed to have discovered a liquid in which if "pigs " of iron 

 were " soaked " a certain time they would be cleansed of all their impurities, and could 

 then be converted into steel by simple fusion. This might have been with propriety 

 called the " hydropathic process." 



f Father of the writer. 



