ELECTROCHEMISTRY RICHARDS. 1 79 



lifetime of most of this audience. The time at our disposal forbids 

 my describing these interesting furnaces; I can only refer you to Dr. 

 Haanel's interesting reports and to the transactions of this society, 

 particularly to our Volume XV. One surmise of my own I will, how- 

 ever, take time to mention : I have predicted that this electric-furnace 

 pig iron, made without the admittance or use of air blast, will be far 

 superior to ordinary pig iron for conversion into steel, because of the 

 absence of oxygen or, particularly, of nitrogen. Time will test this 

 prediction, too. 



Electric steel is at present a topic of absorbing interest and great 

 potentialities. It was primarily a competitor of the most expensive 

 kind of steel — crucible steel. It was first made commercially in 1900, 

 by Mr. F. A. Kjellin, of Sweden, by melting together in an electric 

 furnace the same high-grade materials which are usually melted 

 down in crucibles to form crucible steel. The product was made 

 equal in quality to crucible steel, it was produced in lots of a ton or 

 more at a melt, of very satisfactory uniformity, and with cheap water 

 power to furnish electricity the cost was considerably below that of 

 crucible steel. 



The steel melting pot or crucible is a siliceous vessel, holding about 

 100 pounds of steel, lasting only a few heats, and lifted in and out of 

 the furnace by manual labor. The consumption of fuel to get the 

 required melting heat is wickedly wasteful; not over 5 per cent of 

 the heat-developing power of the fuel used is efficiently utilized as 

 heat in the melted steel, and the actual proportion is usually less than 

 half that much. The cost of labor, crucibles, and fuel is excessive, 

 and to this must be added the high cost of the pure material which 

 must be used — practically the purest iron which can be made. 



The electric furnace is changing all this, rapidly in continental 

 Europe, slower in Sheffield, and still slower in America; but the change 

 is spreading surely and inevitably. Real crucible steel will soon be a 

 thing of the past, supplanted entirely by electric furnace steel of 

 equal quality, made and sold much more cheaply. 



The electric furnaces used are of almost all types. The induc- 

 tion furnace was developed commercially by Kjellin in Sweden, 

 improved, enlarged, and greatly developed by his associates in 

 Germany, combined with the Colby pattern in America, and still 

 further modified by Hiorth in Norway. Thirty-six of these furnaces, 

 the maximum capacity being one at Krupp's works at Essen, 8£ tons 

 at a charge, are now built or building. The American Electric 

 Furnace Co. is organized to push their building and operation in 

 America. The arc radiation furnace was developed by Maj. Stassano, 

 an Italian artillery officer. It melts by heat radiated from powerful 

 electric arcs. Several of these are in operation in Europe, and a 



