86 president's address — section b. 



any depth, and of avoiding blowing into finished copper, on the one hand, 

 and not sufficiently deep into the supernatant matte, on the other. 

 The mechanical details, however, still remained somewhat primitive 

 in France, calling in the assistance of hand labor. The vessel rested 

 on a light carriage, by means of which it was trammed in and out of 

 position. The arrangement of the blast connections did not permit 

 of turning it up or down, except at the end of the operation, &c. It 

 was claimed for this form that mattes running as low as 15 per cent, to 

 20 per cent, of copper could be brought up to blister in a single operation. 

 But this was facilitated by removing the excess of slag through openings 

 placed axially in the vertical ends of the vessel. At the Manhes works, 

 and others working along the same lines in Southern Europe, this type 

 has remained in vogue since 1883, the upright form thus having been 

 employed there for only two years. Outside of this locality, however, 

 and notably in the United States, the upright form has held its own 

 until the present day, its place being only quite recently disputed by 

 the horizontal type. Needless to say, the radically different industrial 

 and economic conditions in the newer countries, coupled with American 

 mechanical genius, have given rise to the perfecting of the constructional 

 details of both forms of vessel, and of all accessory apparatus, out of all 

 comparison with their European prototypes. 



Introduction into America. — After two years of successful running 

 in France on rather difficult mattes, the process was punctually scrutin- 

 ised, and favorably viewed, by an American company operating in the 

 marvellous copper-mining district of Butte, Montana, which is one of 

 the seven wonders of our modern mining and smelting industry. It 

 required considerable industrial enterprise to think of transplanting 

 the method so early to a new field of this prominence, in which opera- 

 tions were carried on on so vastly different a scale from those of its 

 birthplace, for the reason that none of the more important elusive, but 

 economically telling features, such as the question of metal losses, &c., 

 had as yet been at all settled to the satisfaction of the profession at 

 large, and the average copper metallurgist of the day entertained very 

 serious doubts on these subjects. However, the immediate economical 

 side — which has always presented a strong temptation to American 

 practitioners — was too alluring, and, with characteristic dispatch, the 

 process promptly found a lodgment in transatlantic circles. This 

 occurred as early as 1883-4, and took place at the instance of Mr. 

 Franklin Farrell, President of the Parrott Silver and Copper Company, 

 one of the oldest establishments in Butte, and then one of the largest. 

 The installation was carried out under the general direction of Mr. 

 Manhes, under letters patent applied for in 1883-4, and the immediate 

 supervision was placed in the hands of M. Vernis, a pupil of Manhes, 

 assisted by several workmen from Eguilles. Three vessels were erected 

 at the Pairott Works in 1884, for experimental purposes, of the same 

 type as the old vertical converters at Eguilles, and, after a year's trial, 

 were followed by a permanent working plant, increased to six converters 

 by 1885. For some years this remained the only such works in the 

 country, and, though surrounded with the usual nimbus of secrecy, its 



