187 4.] Metallurgy. 407 
The first volume of the “ Transactions of the American Institute of Mining 
Engineers” has been recently published in Philadelphia. This volume con- 
tains a rich collection of papers on mining and metallurgy, selected from com- 
munications made to the Institute since its foundation in 1871. 
METALLURGY. 
No one will be disposed to question the good sense of the governing body 
of the Iron and Steel Institute in awarding the first Bessemer medal to Mr. I. 
Lowthian Bell, as a fit recognition of his services to the science and pra¢tice 
of iron-smelting. 
In delivering the Presidential Address at the recent meeting of the Institute, 
Mr. Bell referred to the advance of mechanical puddling in this country, at the 
same time expressing his fear that at present the success of Danks’s system 
had hardly been found equal to what might have been expected from the Report 
of the Commissioners appointed by the Institute to examine ifto the working 
of this system in America. Danks’s furnaces have now been erected by 
Messrs. Bolchow and Vaughan, Messrs. Hopkins, Gilkes, and Co., the Erimus ° 
Iron Company, and the North of England Industrial Iron Company, whilst in 
North Statfordshire they have been introduced by Mr. R. Heath. It is there- 
fore to be expected that we may soon have opportunity of thoroughly testing 
the practical value of this system of puddling. Mr. J. A. Jonesywho has had 
perhaps more experience than any one else on this subject, contends that the 
Danks principle is perfectly sound, and merely requires development, and per- 
haps a little mechanical modification, to make it commercially a success. He 
maintains, indeed, that a few months hence we shall be able to turn out better 
bars, cheaper by the rotatory furnace than by the old method of manipulation. 
It has been said that the Danks furnace is, trom a mechanical point of view, a 
complete failure, but the details of construction may be easily modified without 
affecting the general principle. At the Erimus Works a furnace is to be 
erected which will combine some of the principles of the Danks with those of 
the Crompton furnace. Mr. Crompton’s furnace, in which finely-divided fuel 
is introduced with the blast, has been working with great success at 
Woolwich. 
A mechanical puddling-furnace of peculiar construction, devised by M. Per- 
not, has been worked by MM. Petin and Gaudet, at St. Charmond. The 
puddler is an iron bowl, mounted on a cast-iron carriage, which is caused to 
rotate by machinery. The bloom may be divided into as many portions as 
may be desired, instead of being limited to a single large ball. The iron is 
said to be of high quality, while the mechanical arrangements admit of being 
applied to existing plant. 
Spiegeleisen formed the subje& of an interesting paper communicated to the 
Iron and Steel Institute by Mr. G. J. Snelus. This paper was intended to 
supplement Mr. Forbes’s valuable “ Report on the Manufacture of Spiegeleisen 
on the Continent,” published some time ago in the Journal of the Institute. 
The use of spiegeleisen, originally suggested by Mr. Mushet, was worked out 
by Mr. Bessemer, and its manufacture has now become an important branch of 
manufadture even in this country. Instead of relying for our supply, as for- 
merly, upon the Continent, we have found ores suitable for its production, and 
have established its manufacture at Ebbw Vale, at the Landore Steel Works, 
at Dowlais, at Middlesbro’, at Sheffield, and in Cumberland. 
Attention has been recently called to the part which silicon plays in pig-iron 
during its conversion in the Bessemer process. By oxidation in the converter, 
the silicon is converted into silica, which passes into the slag, and during this 
oxidation a much greater quantity of heat is evolved than could be obtained 
by the oxidation of an equal weight of carbon. According to the experiments 
of Troost and Hautefeuille, the carbon of cast-iron, at a temperature above 
that of the fusion of the metal, reduces silica, the silicon replacing the carbon 
in the pig. 
y 
