252 Chronicles of Science. [| April, 
the same level, and thus vacillations of the slag in the hearth are 
prevented. 
As there is no fore-hearth, there are no repairs of it, equal to 
a saving of at least twenty days in each year; and as there are no 
interruptions, the furnace does not cool. 
The doing away with the dam and the fore-hearth allows of 
the removal of the tamping-hole from the former into the wall 
of the hearth, by which its opening is rendered easy, it being close 
to the greatest heat. It is stated that the pressure of the blast 
can be increased without risk; that the number of charges can be 
greater, and a larger produce ensured. Beyond this, that the- 
number of hands may be lessened, as the operations are few and 
easy. The smelters who, at Georg-Marien Hiitte, when working 
with the old arrangement, were almost stripped, are now always in 
full working-dress. 
We are not aware that any experiments have as yet been made 
with Mr. Liirmann’s arrangement in this country. 
A Mr. Plimsoll, who is, we are informed, a coal-dealer, and, 
if we mistake not, an unsuccessful aspirant after parliamentary 
honours, has published four letters “On Iron Manufacture” in 
‘The Times.’ Mr. Plimsoll has visited some of the blast-fur- 
naces of this country and many of those on the Continent, and 
he comes to the conclusion that the ironmasters of France and 
Belgium are far in advance of ours. It fortunately happens that 
Mr. Plimsoll, in his letters, furnishes sufficient examples of his 
own want of knowledge of the subject about which he has pre- 
sumed to write, to carry conviction to all who are acquainted with 
it, of the total unfitness of such a man to offer an opinion on any 
branch of iron manufacture. 
Mr. Plimsoll’s letters have received a reply in the ‘ Pall Mall 
Gazette’ from Mr. J. Lowthian Bell, the ironmaster of the Cla- 
rence Works, Cleveland, which fully and satisfactorily shows how 
little reliance can be placed upon any of the statements made by 
the ‘ Times’ writer. 
An economical application which we have lately seen requires 
some notice. It does not strictly come under the head of metal- 
lurgy; but as it results in the production of intense heat at low cost, 
we know of no more fitting section of the Chronicles for it. At 
the works of Messrs. Miller and Company, of Glasgow, the “ dead 
oils” from the gas works—which are a waste material for which 
the gas manufacturer is glad to get a penny a gallon—are burnt 
under two steam boilers with great advantage and economy. In 
the morning the fire is lighted with coke or coal, and the fire- 
bricks heated. Then the dead ozl, which flows down a long-necked 
funnel, is forced, by a small jet of steam, into the furnace. It ignites 
at once, producing an intense heat, which is maintained all day with- 
