366 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF 



problem in that way were several. The iron sponge locked up in 

 it all the earthy materials of the ore, and if you threw it in the 

 open hearth furnace these materials prevented liquefaction of that 

 sponge in the metal. Another great difficulty was that the iron 

 sponge absorbed sulphur at a most extraordinary rate from flame. 

 In fact, he would deprecate any process of making the sponge or 

 using the sponge afterwards, which brought it into contact with 

 coke gas of any kind, as even the purest coke gas might give so 

 much sulphur to the sponge as practically to make it unfit for 

 steel. Mr. Ireland proposed a novelty which consisted in melting 

 the sponge in a cupola furnace, and then puddling or otherwise 

 treating the liquid pig metal so produced. He altogether failed 

 to see the advantage of these processes. "We had an apparatus 

 which made spongy iron better than any other, and that was the 

 blast furnace. Take a blast furnace at a certain heat, and you 

 had your spongy iron produced at the lowest possible cost and in 

 a heated condition. Why cool it, and then melt it in a cupola ? 

 There it was, perfect sponge, in the lower part of the blast furnace, 

 heated and ready to be melted. He quite failed to see what 

 advantage you could gain by dividing the process into two. 

 Altogether, the difficulties connected with spongy iron were very 

 great indeed, and were such as had induced him, at any rate, to 

 abandon that mode of proceeding entirely, and to endeavour 

 rather to treat the iron ore in such a way, that while the iron was 

 reduced to the metallic condition, the earthy matter contained in 

 the ore was at the same time fused and combined with the fluxing 

 material. The product had been obtained by a method which 

 involved but one instead of two intermediate processes, and which 

 produced iron at once in a perfect metallic condition. He was 

 sorry to be obliged to speak thus discouragingly of a paper brought 

 before the meeting, but, as Mr. Bell had said, it was much kinder 

 to point out plainly and clearly the objections one felt because it 

 could not be to the advantage of the inventor or patentee to be 

 encouraged in a direction which was open to objection. If Mr. 

 Ireland could show that these objections were inapplicable to the 

 process he brought forward, he should certainly be most happy to 

 congratulate Mr. Ireland on having overcome difficulties which 

 had made himself desist. 



