Ixiv PROCEEDINGS. 



hension of the processes. But we think the process of cementation for convert- 

 ing the soft iron into steel was not very clitBcult to evolve. The reasoning was 

 comparatively easy, that the iron was in some way affected by the presence of 

 the charcoal wlien both iron and charcoal were red hot, and the experiment 

 would, we think, be naturally suggested, to try the effect of the combination 

 after the iron had been obtained, had become cold and had again been heated. The 

 process of cementation for producing steel consists in placing bars of soft iron in 

 contact with charcoal in a suitable vessel and luting the joints of the vessel well 

 with a suitable clay to prevent the access of air, the wasting effect of the action of 

 the air upon the metallic iron when red hot, being known by those who were 

 engaged in such occupations as to afford them the opportunity for observation, 

 the effect of air combining with the heated charcoal and thus preventing the 

 carbon from combining with the iron, by its greater preference for combination 

 with the carbon, would have been a lesson upon which a long previous experience 

 would have afforded imquestionable instruction. 



After being thus properly luted and prepared, the pots or chests containing 

 the alternating layers of iron and charcoal are subjected to a strong heat from 

 furnaces suitably arranged, and the heat being kept up for a sufficient length of 

 time (some four to eight days) the whole is then allowed to cool, and after being 

 taken out of the pots or boxes, the carbon (from the charcoal'and other carbon- 

 izing materials) is found to have entered in combination with the iron, which is 

 also found to be covered with small blisters resulting from the expanding effects 

 of the gases evolved in the process of combination. 



The iron which has been thus treated is now known as blistered (or blister) 

 steel, and for a long time (or until the middle of the 18th centurj") this material 

 made from different qualities of bar iron was used for various purposes in which 

 steel was required. It was also learned that steel thus made could be welded 

 to its more ductile cousin, decarbonized iron, and thus tools could be prepared 

 wliich, in consequence of their combined qualities, could be made hard by tem- 

 pering the steel part, while the softer backing afforded by the iron to which it 

 w as thus united permitted the cutting part to be made harder with less tendency 

 to break or twist out of shape in the process of hardening. Also, as the steel part 

 was more expensive than the iron part, economy was efifected in thus not having 

 to make the entire article of the more expensive material. 



But as time passed on and the retjuired uses for steel became more numerous, 

 and more exacting as to the character of the steel required, it was found that a 

 more uniform and stronger steel was needed, and as the reasoning powers of man 

 acquired a greater strength for wrestling with the problems afiforded by the 

 necessities of the case, and the artizan and the investigator realized that we are 

 " the heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of time," so we think the reason- 

 ing became not so very profound which enabled Huntsman to conclude that as 

 iron when combined with carbon fuses at a much lower heat than the purer iron, 

 and, as might be easily reasoned, the blister steel could thus be melted, (an ex- 

 periment would demonstrate the fact), and as it had been required to exclude 

 the air while making the blister steel, so also it would be needed to exclude, at 

 any rate in a measure, the air from the blister steel when so fused, and also th.at 



