Gi SIXTH REPORT 18.3G. 



thor thinks he has observed congeries of exceedingly minute four-sided 

 prisms truncated at their soUd angles. 



When a small portion of the carburet is exposed to the air it soon 

 undergoes changes, oxygen is absorbed, and water, and the damp sub- 

 stance has a burning taste and is caustic potash with carbon. 



When the carburet is put into water both substances are decomposed : 

 one portion of the carbon unites with the hydrogen of the water form- 

 ing the new bicarburet of hydrogen, which seems the only gaseous 

 product, the remaining carbon being disengaged, whilst the oxygen of 

 the water and the potassium form potash. Alcohol and turpentine act 

 very feebly on the carburet, acids strongly. 



The carburet undergoes partial decom])osition at a dull red heat in 

 close vessels, potassium slowly rises from it, whilst the carbon remains 

 of a deeper black colour than the carburet. 



From the author's experiments the carburet appears to be composed 

 of one proportion of carbon and one of potassium. 



Mr. MusHET exlubited to the Chemical Section several pieces of iron 

 ore retaining their original structural form, but converted into masses 

 of malleable iron perfectly ductile and capable of receiving polish. He 

 explained to the section that this curious change was eifected by a 

 protracted process of de-oxydation in contact with carbonaceous matter 

 shut up from all access of atmospheric air, — the temperature of the 

 furnace about 80 of Wedgwood according to the old method of reckon- 

 ing, this limitation of temperature being necessary to produce the ef- 

 fects. With a higher temperature a more powerful affinity would be 

 estabhshed between the particles of iron and the embedding carbona- 

 ceous matter, which in the first instance would convert the masses into 

 steel; and next, by superinducing fusion, into cast iron more or less a 

 carburet, according to the proportion of carbon which may have united 

 with the iron. The pieces of iron ore may, by being presented to fresh 

 charcoal under a repetition of the process, be converted into steel, pre- 

 serving as in the present specimen their original forms altogether un- 

 changed. One of the pieces had by de-oxydation for twelve or four- 

 teen days passed into the state of steel ; the others in the state of mal- 

 leable iron had been exposed for about a week. Mr. M. then stated 

 that the specimens exhibited were made from the hydrous oxide of 

 iron known in the Forest of Dean by the name of Black Brush, but 

 that other ores, and even the peroxides of Lancashire and Cumberland, 

 were subject to the same change by following the same line of opera- 

 tion. The converted ore contained 95 per cent, of malleable iron, 

 a portion of which if melted alone would be re-oxydized so far as to 

 produce only 70 per cent, of cast malleable iron, — the waste or defi- 

 cient iron being found in the state of a metallic shining glass covering 

 the surface of the precipitated iron ; but if melted with ^J^th its weight 

 of charcoal, 96 per cent, of good cast steel will be the result ; and with 

 y\2th or Jyth the weight of the ore of charcoal, 98 per cent, of the richest 



