153 



Ordinary Meeting, December 24tli, 1861. 

 J. P. Joule, LL.D., President, in the Chair. 



Mr. Brockbank exhibited some samples of steel manu- 

 factured by Mr. Bessemer's process. These specimens had 

 been bent and twisted cold, and showed a remarkable degree 

 of ductility. He stated that the Bessemer steel %vas one of 

 the most plastic and manageable of metals- — more so even 

 than copper. It could be bent, flanged, or twisted, either 

 hot or cold, without annealing, and over a considerable range 

 of temperature — which is not the case with ordinary steel or 

 copper. 



A plate of 1 8 inches diameter had been forced through a 

 series of dies until it formed a tube 13 feet long and If inches 

 diameter, without any crack or ilaw. 



A ring of metal could, at one heat, be hammered into a die 

 to form a locomotive engine chimney top. 



In drilling a circular hole into a plate, continuous shavings 

 are formed — whereas, in copper, or Low Moor plates, or any 

 other metal, the shavings break into pieces iVin. long. 



Thin sheets of the Bessemer soft steel can be bent back- 

 wards and forwards hundreds of times without a fracture, and 

 are almost as flexible as paper. 



Mr. BiNNEY stated that many years since he had commu- 

 nicated to the Society a description of some markings on the 

 surface of the Kerridge flags. At that time he could not 

 satisfactorily account for them. He afterwards published, in 

 Vol. X (new series) of the Memoirs, a Paper on similar mark- 

 ings, found in the Upholland flags, near Wigan, and attri- 

 buted them to the burrowing of an animal similar to the 

 common lug worm of our coast, the arenicola piscatorum. 

 Proceedings— Lit. & Phil. Society—No. 7.— Session 1861-62. 



