fractured surface a dark appearance without sign of crystallisation. 

 Upon being worked, the metal shows what appears to be red- 

 shortness, but what should be termed slag-shortness. In re-piling 

 and re-heating this iron several times this defective appearance is 

 gradually removed, and crystalline iron of great purity and 

 toughness is produced. But a more ready mode of treatment was 

 suggested by Mr. Samuel Lloyd, one of my co-Directors in the 

 Towcester Company, in reverting to the ancient refinery or char- 

 coal hearth. The balls as they come from the rotator, are placed 

 under the shingling hammer and beaten out into flat cakes not 

 exceeding an inch in thickness. These are cut by shears into 

 pieces of suitable size and formed into blooms of about 2 cwts. 

 each, which are consolidated under a shingling hammer and 

 rolled into bars. 



The bars have been sold in Staffordshire and Sheffield at prices 

 varying from 7 to 9 per ton, being deemed equal to Swedish 

 bar as regards toughness and purity. 



It may therefore be asserted, as a matter of fact, that iron and 

 steel of very high quality can be produced from ores not superior 

 to Cleveland ironstone by direct process, but the question remains 

 at what cost can this conversion be effected ? The experi- 

 mental works at Towcester are unfortunately not sufficiently com- 

 plete to furnish more than the elements upon which the question 

 of cost may be determined, the principal reasons being that the 

 one re-heating furnace and a 30 cwt. hammer at the works are not 

 sufficient to deal with the iron produced by the three rotators, that 

 the iron has to be finished at a rolling mill elsewhere, and that 

 transport weighs heavily upon the cost of production. The prin- 

 cipal factor in the calculation of cost is unquestionably the 

 rotator, and Table I, furnishes the working result of eighteen 

 consecutive charges as taken from the charge book. The mixture 

 of ores consisted for each charge of 12 cwts. of Towcester ore 

 (containing about 38 per cent, metallic iran), 8 cwts. of calcined 

 Great Fenton ore, 1 cwt. of tap cinder, 1 cwt. of limestone, and 

 6 1 cwts. of small coal. The time occupied for each charge was 

 about 4j hours, and the yield of hammered blooms was, on an 

 average, 6 cwts. 2 qr. 13 lb., whereas the metal contained in each 

 charge, amounted (by estimate) to 8 "2 cwts., showing a loss of 

 19'3 per cent. This loss is, however, partially recovered in using 



