S7A' WILLIAM SIEMENS, l-'.K.S. 



445 



which I had given me contained certainly a very considerable per- 

 ('inage of silicon. 



Tki' J're.tu/fnt. Could you state the percentage ? 



Dr. Siemens. I can give it in the notes ; I think it was about 

 ".; per cent., but unfortunately I have not the analysis with me. 

 Other analyses by eminent chemists have given, I am aware, 

 different results ; they have shown no silicon. But if we look 

 upon the interesting table that has been placed before us, I think we 

 have quite sufficient ground given us to account for these differences 

 in the analyses. There we have in the same plate, carbon, differ- 

 ing in the proportion of at least one to two between the outside 

 and the inside of the plate ; we have phosphorus, a substance 

 that is not easily oxidised, when combined with metal, distributed 

 in the same irregular manner, and the same with regard to sulphur. 

 Now a question arises, how can that very great difference in those 

 constituents have arisen in the metal ? Is it that the metal 

 itself the ingot was not composed of the same mixture, that it 

 was imperfectly fused, and imperfectly distributed in the ingot 

 mould ; or has the metal, after it has been rolled into plates, been 

 subjected to treatment whereby its chemical nature has been so 

 completely disturbed as would appear from that table ? I can 

 hardly imagine that in the same ingot although there may be 

 some differences of composition found between one portion and 

 another differences of such extraordinary magnitude could possibly 

 have occurred. I am, therefore, forced to the conclusion that the 

 metal has been greatly injured in the after-process to which it has 

 been subjected. Mr. Kirk has brought before us very interesting 

 experiments indeed, showing how steel of undoubted good quality, 

 when heated injudiciously and heated for a length of time in a 

 furnace containing a large excess of oxygen, can be, what we call 

 in the trade, burnt. It would have been interesting if we could 

 have seen another column there, only I admit it would have been 

 very difficult to ascertain it, showing the amount of oxygen 

 absorbed in the metal. I think it would have been found that 

 the plate near the surface had absorbed a very considerable 

 amount of oxygen, which assisted in making it the brittle, un- 

 reliable substance which it became when it was expected to stand 

 its work. It is stated in the paper that every precaution was 

 taken, and that when the plates after punching showed defects, 



