WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 



413 



/-/ the discussion of the Paper 



"ON THE ELIMINATION OF PHOSPHORUS," by 

 MR. SIDXKV 0. THOMAS and MR. PERCY G. GILCHRIST, 



DR. Si KM HNS* said they should distinguish two things in the 

 discussion the proposition to use a basic lining, and the chemical 

 results which had been brought before them. As to the first of 

 these, he had no experience and no knowledge with regard to the 

 Bessemer converter, but as regarded the open-hearth furnace, he 

 had to say that the question of the advantages which would result 

 from a basic lining had occupied his serious attention as early 

 as sixteen years ago. In 1863, he, in conjunction with M. le 

 Chatelier, conceived and patented a lining for the open-hearth 

 furnace, with which he was then experimenting for the purpose of 

 producing steel. They had arrived, by inductive reasoning, at the 

 conclusion that in order to carry out the process properly, a basic 

 material ought to be adopted for the lining ; and M. le Chatelier 

 suggested bauxite (alumina with a certain proportion of peroxide 

 of iron). They commenced experiments in France, at the Four- 

 chambault Works, with a lining composed of bauxite, crushed 

 and rammed into the furnace. But they did not find that they 

 could get that lining to stand when the fluid charge came upon it. 

 He afterwards made bricks of bauxite (at the present time he had, 

 perhaps, 50 or 100 tons of those bricks in Birmingham), and by 

 the use of these they had succeeded in forming a lining which 

 would stand for a series of charges. But although the result with 

 the use of this lining had been good, he confessed that he had 

 no such marvellous effects to put before them as were stated in 

 Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist's paper. He also tried lime mixed 

 variously with clay and other binding substances, and he found 

 that the difficulty of getting the binding to stand increased very 

 much in using that material. He had also used a lining made 

 of magnesia formed into bricks, and burned at a very high 

 temperature ; a magnificent lining was thus produced, but it was 

 expensive, and on that account not commendable. The reason 



* Excerpt Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, 1879, pp. 153-156. 



