520 Progress in Science. (October, 
carbon, and the barest traces of sulphur, whilst phosphorus, silicon, and man- 
ganese were entirely absent. 
The manufacture of charcoal-iron has just been resumed in South Stafford- 
shire. On the same site as that originally occupied, by one of the earliest 
charcoal furnaces in the county, Mr. Light has recently ereGted a furnace and 
blowing-engine for the make of charcoal pig-iron, and other furnaces are in 
progress. The chargeis raised in a cage moved by a water balance-lift. The 
furnaces are blown by an engine having a blowing cylinder above the steam 
cylinder, and the links conneéted to the beam working between the two 
cylinders. By this means the engine works smoothly without a parallel 
motion. The charcoal-iron run from these furnaces will bear the brand, 
‘* Bradley Bridge Charcoal.” 
Within the last few months the ‘‘ Barron Steel Process”’ is said to have 
been successfully at work in the United States. The cast-iron tools to be 
converted into steel are first placed in revolving drums, and the rough surface 
which the castings present as they leave the mould is thus worn smooth by 
attrition. They are then packed in layers in iron boxes, closely covered with 
clay, and subjeed to the action of oxide of iron or some other decarburising 
agent. After being annealed in these boxes for a period of from three to six 
days, the tools are brought into the state of malleable iron, and it only 
remains to convert them into steel. This conversion is effected by exposing 
them in a large retort, in the centre of an oven, to the action of certain 
gaseous compounds of carbon. By this means about a ton of iron tools in 
the retort may be converted into steel in from eight to ten minutes. 
Some improvements in the mode of removing slag from the blast-furnace have 
been patented by Mr. D. Joy, of Middlesbro’. The slag, as it is run from the 
furnace, is received into recesses formed on the rim of a cylinder or wheel, 
and, having been carried through part of a revolution, is discharged from the 
cylinder. During its passage through the machine, the slag is cooled by a 
blast of cold air, or by both air and water, the water being the waste liquid 
from the hydraulic machine by which the cylinder is caused to rotate. 
At the recent meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute at Glasgow, Mr. John 
Mayer read a paper on the rise and progress of the Scotch iron manufacture. 
The author traced the history of the trade from 1760, and, of course, dwelt 
especially on the discovery of the black-band ironstone by Mushet, and the 
introduction of the hot blast by Neilson—the two great events which gave 
such powerful impulses to the development of the iron industry in Scotland. 
Two papers on Reversing Rolling Mills were brought forward at the same 
meeting—one by Mr. J. D. Napier, of Glasgow, and the other by Mr. G. Ste- - 
venson, of Airdrie. In the discussion on the comparative merits of the two 
systems introduced by these gentlemen, opinion seemed to favour Mr. Napier’s 
differential gear, an arrangement which has been successfully employed at 
the Codnor Park Iron Works in Derbyshire, the property of the Butterley 
Company. 
MINERALOGY. 
A new mineral] species, apparently of much interest, has been described in 
the ‘‘ Chemical News’’* by Mr. Hugo Tamm. It presents the form of a 
dense, crystalline, dark steel-grey powder, consisting of distiné crystals 
strikingly resembling those of silicon, and having a specific gravity of 12°5. 
Unfortunately but a very small quantity of the substance has been at the 
disposal of the analyst, but it has been satisfactorily determined that the 
mineral contains 88°05 per cent of tungsten, 5°6 of iron, and o'15 of manga- 
nese. There yet remains 6:2 per cent of some undetermined substance, and 
it is difficult to conjecture what this missing constituent is likely to be. Mr. 
Tamm is prepared, however, to say that it is not oxygen, or sulphur, or 
arsenic; but suggests that it may be phosphorus, nitrogen, hydrogen, or even 
a new element. Should it be condensed hydrogen, the mineral will be of 
great interest, as the first example of a native alloy containing hydrogenium. 
* Vol. xxv., No. 659; July 12, 1872, p. 13. 
