2l6 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF 



cutlery. The Hindoo process has, however, been revived within 

 the last twenty years, by Heath, Price and Nicholson, Gentle 

 Brown, Attwood, and others, and large quantities of steel are now 

 made in Sheffield and elsewhere, by the fusion of puddled iron or 

 puddled steel with charcoal, or with pure pig-iron (Acadian or 

 Spiegeleisen), in such proportions as to form steel of the required 

 quality. The Uchatius process is somewhat similar to these in 

 principle ; it consists in effecting the partial decarburization of 

 granulated pig-iron by fusing it in contact with iron-ore, but the 

 temper obtained is said to be irregular, and, together with the 

 process just mentioned, it labours under the disadvantage of 

 involving the expensive operation of fusion in pots. 



OPEN HEARTH. Some method of effecting the fusion of steel 

 more cheaply than in crucibles, as well as in larger masses, has 

 long been a desideratum. Heath, the discoverer of the beneficial 

 action of manganese, was the first (in 1845) to conceive that cast- 

 steel might be produced in large quantities by fusing wrought 

 and cast-iron together upon the open hearth of a reverberatory 

 furnace. The modus operandi he proposed, consisted in melting 

 pig-metal in a cupola, and running it into the heated furnace. 

 The wrought-iron was introduced into another part of the furnace, 

 forming a bank between the bath of fluid metal and the chimney, 

 to be there heated by the waste heat of the flame, previously to 

 its being pushed forward into the liquid in order to be dissolved. 

 Fearing the effect of the ashes from a common fire-place, Heath 

 proposed to heat his furnace by jets of gas, and there is every 

 probability that his experiments would have been crowned with 

 success, if he had possessed the means of imparting to his flame 

 the intensity of heat and, at the same time, the absence of cutting 

 draught, which are essentially necessary. Since the date of 

 Heath's patent, the fusion of steel in an open furnace has formed 

 the subject of an extensive series of experiments, by Sudre, in 

 France. The experiments of M. Sudre were made at the Monta- 

 taire Iron Works, at the expense of the Emperor of the French, 

 and were superintended, on his behalf, by three members of the 

 French Institute ; MM. Sainte-Claire Deville, Treuille de Beau- 

 lieu, Colonel of Artillery, and Caron, Captain of Artillery, who 

 have made an able report on the subject, showing that it is just 

 possible to raise the heat of an ordinary furnace by means of a 



