24 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



recently patented by Mr, John Gjers, of Middlesborough, when 

 crude iron or refined iron is caused through the action of iron cin- 

 der or other additional matter to boil and to come to nature, the 

 material is transferred under treatment from the puddling even 

 before the process of balling. By remelting or keeping fluid the 

 material, it is caused to separate from the cinder and to attain a 

 uniform quality ready to run into ingots. Thus Mr. Gjers melts 

 crude pig iron, or refined iron, or recarbonized puddled iron, and 

 works it in the usual way in a puddling furnace, and causes it, 

 through the action of rich pure iron cinder or other additional 

 matter commonly used when making puddled steel, — such for in- 

 stance as manganese and salt, — to boil and to come to nature in. 

 the manner adopted for making puddled steel or puddled iron. 

 At or before the stage called top-boil, just before the metal begins 

 to thicken and to come to nature, but before the stage when it is 

 fit or ready for balling np, the material under treatment is tapped 

 with as much of the cinder as cannot at this period of the process 

 be separated. It is transferred into a receptacle, in a reverbera- 

 tory furnace on Siemens' regenerative principle. It may also be 

 run on to the open hearth of a reverberatory gas furnace, which 

 may be either on Siemens' regenerative plan, or on the blow-pipe 

 plan in which gas is used in conjunction with a hot blast. The 

 essential feature of the furnace to be employed is that it should be 

 capable of producing a temperature sufficiently high to melt steel 

 or homogeneous iron, and it is also important that the flame should 

 be capable of regulation to either an oxidizing or a carbonizing 

 flame. 



Here, in the reverberatory furnace, Mr. Gjers allows the trans- 

 ferred metal in a fluid state to remain at rest for a length of time, 

 exposed to a neutral or to a carbonizing or an oxidizing heat, ac- 

 cording as the crude steel metal requires more or less decarboniz- 

 ing ; the heat being sufficient to keep it perfectly fluid until the 

 metal has thoroughl}'' separated from the cinder, which will float 

 on the top, and until it has arrived at the requisite point of car- 

 bonization to form the steel or homogeneous iron which may now 

 be tapped into ingot moulds. Or the cinder may first be tapped or 

 removed, and other flux (such as oxides of iron and manganese, 

 in the shape of pure ores of those metals) ma}^ if necessary, be 

 added to assist in decarbonizing and to protect the metal. To the 

 metal may be added a certain quantity of either wrought or crude 

 iron, of the shape of spiegel iron or other matter (manganiferous), 

 so as to arrive at the point of carbonization and temper desired. 



As far as possible the process is regulated so that the transfer- 

 ence from the puddling furnace may be made at such a period of 

 the coming to nature, as will enable the metal, after having been 

 made thoroughly fluid and remained so sufficiently long to decar- 

 .bonize in the reverberatory furnace, to be obtained, without addi- 

 tion of malleable iron or ore, at the degree of carbonization de- 

 sired. If the proper precautions are taken to boil and to work 

 the iron well in a suitable cinder in the puddling furnace, it will 

 generally be pure enough for steel. At the last stage of fluidity, 

 while it is yet fluid enough to run, and just when it is about to con- 



