22-i ANXUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



peculiar reactions, in order to produce, ad libitum, either steel or malleable 

 iron ; in other words, how best, after steel is produced, to effect its recon- 

 version into iron. 



It is impossible, within the limits of this paper, fully to discuss these 

 reactions, or even such, for example, as those between that admirable con- 

 verting agent, the ferrocyanide of manganese and iron, or those between 

 iron containing a large quantity of carbon, when such iron is converted into 

 steel, on the application to it of muriate of ammonia. 



The value of combinations of carbon and nitrogen in steel-making being 

 acknowledged, then, of all such combinations or of elements containing 

 these, it is undoubtedly to the use of the cyanogen compounds that we 

 should resort for all manufacturing purposes ; and the time seems not very 

 far distant when these compounds will become some of the most readily 

 obtained and cheapest of chemically-manufactured products. 



The operations of the blast-furnace suggest methods for the production of 

 those compounds that are of the highest practical value. There are at play 

 here all the elements for the production of cyanogen of certain cyanides, 

 and thence of other compounds, and the requisite conditions can be super- 

 added for securing these for commercial purposes. That cyanogen was 

 formed in certain zones of the furnace, was proved bj r Bunsen and Playfair. 

 Dr. Clark, of Aberdeen, many years ago, examined a saline product that 

 was found to ooze out of the tuyere-holes of a blast-furnace in Scotland, 

 and discovered it to be cyanide of potassium. In several places on the Con- 

 tinent, as at Maria/oil, in Styria, for example, we are told by Gmelin, that 

 this product is so abundant as to be sold, commercially, for galvanic gilding 

 purposes. It is, of course, the product of cyanogen, when combined with 

 the accumulated proportion of potash contained in the flux lime-stone. But 

 why not specially add the alkaline element, and combine in the furnace 

 simultaneously the peculiar reducing and converting actions of these com- 

 pounds with their special manufacture for other and equally valuable indus- 

 trial applications of them that are springing up? And this is undoubtedly 

 one of the most important of the directions that the iron manufacture of 

 this country will in future be found to take. 



PREPARATION OF FERRUM REDUCTUM. 



Ilr. Zangerle recommends igniting a mixture of five parts protoxalate of 

 iron with six parts anhydrous ferrocyanide of potassium and one and three- 

 quarter parts anhydrous carbonate of potash. The ignition is maintained 

 until the evolution of gas from the melted mass ceases. This, when cold, is 

 thoroughly washed with pure water, and the residue dried. The product 

 appears as a dark-gray powder, consisting of metallic iron, so finely divided 

 that, when touched with a lighted match, the whole mass burns gradually. 



NEW LIGHT ON THE BESSEMER PROCESS. 



Since the public experiments, with the so-called Bessemer's process, on 

 refining iron and producing steel, most practical iron manufacturers have 

 believed that nothing of any value could come of it. All agreed that the 

 product was not malleable iron that it was red-short, and had no weld. 

 The discovery, therefore, has taken the character of an interesting phenome- 

 non, having little or no commercial value. It might have been regarded, 



