522 MELIKOFF, COUNT LORIS. 



METALLURGY. 



tion of the Caucasus was completed, he was 

 appointed aid-de-camp to the Emperor, and 

 after ten years of further service in the Cauca- 

 sus was made a general. He was the trusted 

 lieutenant of the Grand Duke Michael, Prince- 

 Governor of the Caucasus, and when the Turk- 

 ish war began he assumed the chief command 

 of the army that was raised to invade the Asi- 

 atic provinces of Turkey. He crossed the 

 frontier with a smaller force than he expected 

 to mobilize, and, although he displayed great 

 energy, he was unable to cope with the active 

 strategy of Mukhtar Pasha, who, fighting on 

 the inside line and resting on his fortresses, 

 checked the Russian advance. Gen. Melikoff, 

 understanding the risk of attempting to hold 

 the extended position in the face of the victo- 

 rious Turkish army, retired within the Rus- 

 sian frontier in order to restore his troops and 

 receive supplies before resuming the offensive. 

 By the middle of August, 1877, he was able to 

 take the field with a stronger and better pre- 

 pared army. Mukhtar Pasha, whose forces 

 had been reduced by disease, forced on a gen- 

 eral engagement at Aladja Dagh. Failing to 

 makethe mostadvantageousdispositions, he was 

 defeated by Melikoff after eleven hours' fight- 

 ing, notwithstanding the desperate courage of 

 the Turkish soldiers. Gen. Melikoff waited for 

 re-enforcements, and in October resumed the 

 advance, and after several stubbornly fought 

 battles, compelled the Turkish commander to 

 evacuate his advanced line. He conducted the 

 remaining operations of the campaign includ- 

 ing the turning of the main position of the 

 enemy by Gen. Lazareff's flank march on Or- 

 dok, and while the other generals pursued 

 Mukhtar's shattered forces, he laid siege to 

 Kars, the chief objective point of the campaign. 

 When he had carried a part of the outer works, 

 he concluded that the place might be captured 

 by assault, which was accomplished on the 

 night of November 18. For this striking feat 

 of arms, Gen. Melikoff was decorated with the 

 cross of St. George and at the close of the war 

 he was made a count. 



In 1879, when the Nihilists were at the 

 height of their activity, and through the mur- 

 der of Prince Krapotkine, Solovieffs attempt 

 on the life of the Czar, and other deeds, had 

 created a general panic, Count Melikoff was 

 called away from Tiflis to take a place in the 

 Central Government. The Czar had always 

 decided to make political concessions, and Meli- 

 kotf urged that these should be definite and 

 substantial. In February, 1880, he was ap- 

 pointed president of a supreme executive com- 

 mission, and issued a proclamation calling on 

 all friends of order to support him in his efforts 

 to preserve national security and tranquillity 

 when he assumed the office, which was prac- 

 tically that of dictator. Alexander II was 

 converted by him to the idea that he could win 

 the affection of the Russian people by granting 

 a large measure of social and individual freedom. 

 Melikoff's relaxations of tyranical restrictions 



actually caused the cessation of Nihilistic out- 

 rages for twelve months. The Czar had been 

 persuaded by Gen. Melikoff, who was his Min- 

 ister of the Interior, to sign a constitution 

 granting representative institutions, when his 

 assassination on March 13, 1881, put an end to 

 all hope of liberal reforms, and caused Gen. 

 Melikoff, who was head of the police depart- 

 ment and was therefore held responsible for 

 the Czar's safety, to be discarded as well as 

 his policy. He was nevertheless retained as a 

 member of the Council of the Empire by Alex- 

 ander III. His health began to fail about 1 883, 

 and since then he has lived much of the time 

 in the south of Europe. 



METALLURGY. Iron and Steel. In his presi- 

 dential address before the Iron and Steel Insti- 

 tute, Mr. Daniel Adamson spoke of the falling 

 off that had taken place in the manufacture of 

 iron in Great Britain since 1884, and the large 

 increase in the production of steel during the 

 same period. Thus in 1884 about one and a 

 quarter million tons of Bessemer steel ingots 

 were produced, and in 1887 about two million 

 tons, being an increase of about 60 per cent. ; 

 in 1884 nearly half a million tons of Siemen's 

 open-hearth steel ingots were cast, and nearly 

 a million tons in 1887, the actual increase dur- 

 ing the period being over 106 per cent. ; and a 

 plant is in course of erection estimated to pro- 

 duce another quarter of a million tons annually. 

 There has also been an enormous increase in 

 the application of steel to ship-building pur- 

 poses. Thus, whereas in 1878 less than three 

 thousand tons of steel were employed in the 

 manufacture of steamers and sailing-vessels 

 built under Lloyd's survey, and over three 

 hundred thousand tons of iron, in 1887 more 

 than two hundred and ten thousand tons of 

 steel were employed, and about fifty-two thou- 

 sand tons of iron. The proportional increase 

 in the use of steel in the last three years had 

 been about cent, per cent., and the falling off in 

 the use of iron during the same period 350 

 per cent. 



It has been difficult to produce pig-iron with 

 a high percentage of chromium, on account of 

 the very high temperature that is required, 

 for complete fusion of the metal takes place 

 only at a temperature at which the best 

 graphite crucibles soften that is, probably 

 above the melting-point of platinum. Such 

 iron has been produced in Sweden in small 

 quantities by modifying the composition of 

 the slag, but at a cost too high to make it 

 compete successfully with the poorer chrome 

 iron produced elsewhere in blast-furnaces us- 

 ing coke as fuel. With regenerative crucible 

 furnaces, this iron could not be obtained in a 

 thoroughly fused condition, but the reduced 

 metal is always intimately mixed with slag. 

 A pig-iron can be produced containing 70 per 

 cent, of chromium. It contains less carbon 

 than the metal poorer in chromium, and acts 

 less as a carbonizing material when added to 

 the steel-bath than would a metal containing, 





