PROGRESS IN ELECTRO-METALLURGY—KERSHAW. Oil 
ing. Thirty-four electrolytic refineries are now operated in Europe 
and America. 
The chief progress of recent years in this industry has been in the 
substitutron of machine for hand labor, the casting of the raw-copper 
anodes, and the charging and discharging of the vats by mechanical 
methods, now being carried out in all-the large up-to-date refineries. 
The chief improvement on the chemical side of the process has been 
the addition of a small amount of hydrochloric acid to the electrolyte 
in the vats. This, according to Carlson, prevents the loss of silver 
which otherwise occurs, the insoluble silver chloride being precipitated 
with the slimes. 
Diamantine—This is a trade name given to a new product ob- 
tained by heating alumina with small quantities of silica to a high 
temperature in the electric furnace. When finely powdered and 
mixed with clay and water, the new material is said to form a useful 
é Fic. 1.—Stassano fixed type electric furnace for copper. 
wash for the inside lining and walls of furnaces exposed to a high 
temperature. The new product is being manufactured upon a com- 
mercial scale by the Diamantine Werke at Rheinfelden, Germany. 
Graphite —The production of a hard variety of artificial graphite 
has been carried on since 1892 by Acheson at Niagara Falls. The 
method of manufacture is to form first a carbide in the electric 
furnace and then to decompose it by increasing the heat up to a point 
at which it dissociates and the second element is volatilized. Under 
these conditions the carbon remains in the furnace in the form of 
graphite. Acheson in his earlier work used coke mixed with silica 
‘or sand, but he has since found that it is simply necessary to start 
with ordinary anthracite coal; the impurities of this suffice to pro- 
vide the second element of the carbide, and when raised to a definite 
temperature, these elements volatilize and leave the carbon as graphite, 
The manufacture has been a very successful one, and the work of the 
