WILLIAM SIEAfENS, F.R.S. 273 



rails in a short space of time to a test which, in the ordinary 

 working of a railway, would only be obtained after some months, 

 or even years, of trial. But if any railway company were public- 

 minded enough to devote a length of their main line, where there 

 was a steep gradient or a terminal station for experimental pur- 

 poses, placing the same at the disposal of engineers to put down 

 their rails, such a trial would be as valuable, perhaps, as any that 

 could be desired. 



In the discussion of the Paper 



DESCRIPTION OF TWO BLAST FURNACES ERECTED 

 IN 1870 AT NEWPORT, NEAR MIDDLESBROUGH," 



By BERNHARD SAMUELSON, M.P., M. Inst. C. E., 



MR. C. W. SIEMENS * observed that the information contained 

 in the paper and elicited by the discussion went far to show that, 

 by carrying out a chemical operation on a large scale, the utmost 

 results which theory indicated could be almost realised. Two 

 years ago, when the question of large furnaces was first mooted, 

 he made a calculation of the work done in a blast furnace, and of 

 the heat that was developed in that blast furnace. By taking into 

 account, on the one hand, the ore to be heated and reduced, the 

 pig to be melted, the slag to be melted, and the heat and com- 

 position of the escaping gases at the temperature at which they 

 were carried away ; and, on the other hand, the temperature of 

 the blast and the heat due to its combustion with coke, in pro- 

 ducing the gaseous mixture escaping from the top of the blast 

 furnace, he found that 20 cwt. of ordinary coke should suffice 

 theoretically to smelt a ton of pig iron from Cleveland ironstone 

 containing 40 per cent, of metallic iron, and that 21 cwt. per ton 

 of iron was a result that might be practically realised. Assuming 



* Excerpt Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Vol. 

 XXXII. Session 1870-71, pp. 361-364. 



VOL. I. T 



