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XLVIII. Remarks upon feveral Experiments made to prove 

 the Canverjion of Iron into Steel by means of the Diamond. 

 By David Mushet, Efq. of the Calder Iron JVorks*. 



I 



N the Philofopliical Magazine for November 1799 are 

 inferted feveral experiments performed by me to prove whe- 

 ther the experiment of the French chemifts at the Polytechnic 

 School relative to the formation of Itcel by means of the dia- 

 mond was fufficiently conclufive. Relting upon the refult of 

 thefe experiments, no inference could be drawn to validate 

 the accuracv of the Parifian experiment. In every cafe, fufed 

 metallic maifes were obtained, when neither diamond nor car- 

 bonaceous matter was ufed, which, from defcriplion, refem- 

 bled every way the button obtained by fufioii in conta6l with 

 the diamond. ' The refults produced in my experiments, when 

 hammered, and put to the ufual tefts of heating, and plun- 

 ging into water, exhibited the ufnal ftate of fteel, clofed par- 

 tially in the grain like foft fteel, and refifted, in a confiderable 

 degree, the application of the file. This was proof beyond 

 that afforded by the French chemifts. The unufual tefts of 

 polifhing upon the lapidary's wheel, dropping the nitrous 

 acid, and exhibiting the fracture of the metallic button, are 

 not fatistaotory proof to the artift that fteel was here pro- 

 duced. 



Some time after the communication of the above experi- 

 ments, mv countrvman Sir George M'Kenzie read a paper 

 before the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; in the former part 

 of which he exhiliited refults to prove that the experiment of 

 the French chemifts relative to the diamond forming fteel 

 wa? quite conclulive ; and, in the latter part of his paper, he 

 detailed a variety of experiments to invalidate a concluiion 

 which I had drawn, of carbon difl"ulved in caloric peneiratinjr 

 dole veflcls, and by its union with iron forming fteel. I ftiafl 

 in this paper take the liberty of making a few remarks upon, 

 thei'e did'erent experiments, as they occur in the order of Sir 

 Gcor<re'3 arrangement. 



I think it proper here to premife, tliat my not fubfcribing 

 implicitly to the conclufions drawn by the Parifian chcmifti 

 and Sir George M'Kenzie relative to the diamond and iron, 

 proceeds not from faftidious fcepticifm as to the carbonaceous 

 matter of the diamond ; I only wifti that the fact of its form- 

 • Comnnun!c3trd by the Author. 



Vol. XT. T 3ng 



No. 44. . 



January ibo4. 



