

.s/A' \VIIJ JAM SIEMENS, FJt.S. 305 



that tin- bauxite lining did not actually touch the silica brickwork, 

 but was pt 'i-hups an inch apart from it, and that the flame in 

 making a turn through the furnace did not carry with it so much 

 dust outward as might be the case if it swept across a furnace. He 

 t'< 'inid also in the puddling furnace a very great difference in favour 

 of the return current ; it seemed as though the dust were swept out 

 of the flame and little ashes were deposited in the passages. They 

 could get any amount of heat, even coming up to full steel melting 

 heat, inside the rotating furnace without artificial blast. With 

 regard to manganese and its necessary presence in steel, he thought 

 that Mr. Riley was perfectly right in saying that tool steel was 

 found without more than a trace of manganese, but they must 

 remember that such steel contained one per cent, of carbon, and 

 generally was very free from sulphur ; but it had been established 

 in a very absolute manner at Landore, that mild steel containing 

 sulphur must necessarily also contain manganese in a given propor- 

 tion to the amouut of sulphur present, and that this proportion 

 increased with the mildness or the relative absence of carbon in the 

 metal. Thus, if the metal contained '08 per cent, of sulphur, they 

 considered it not safe to have less than three-tenths per cent, of 

 manganese in the metal, and whenever, through accidental causes, 

 the manganese in the metal was less, the steel did not work so 

 well, nor did it do so well when cold. He (Mr. Siemens) was much 

 impressed by the kind observations made by Mr. Bessemer. Mr. 

 Bessemer had been an early labourer in that field, and the great 

 successes which he had attained were vividly before them. It was 

 no small compliment to him (Mr. Siemens), he considered, that 

 Mr. Bessemer had some years since been thinking of extending his 

 labours in the direction which he (Mr. Siemens) had taken, and if 

 circumstances had not prevented him (Mr. Bessemer), he doubted 

 not would ultimately have arrived at the same, if not superior 

 results, but he (Mr. Siemens) had given attention to this question, 

 not a few years, but many years ; and if results of a practical 

 kind had been obtained, Mr. Bessemer, he was glad to think, 

 would be the last man in the world to dispute or discredit them. 

 Mr. Parks referred to the analysis of a bar of iron (which had 

 been produced at Birmingham) containing one-third per cent, of 

 copper. Now it was an undoubted fact that the process under 

 discussion fetched all the copper out of the ore, and, therefore, if 



VOL. I. X 



