482 



METALS. 



by the Admiralty officials " gun metal." This 

 bar proved to have a tensile strength of 59 tons 

 645 pounds per square inch of original section, 

 and its elongation was 5^- inches in a length of 

 two feet. This bar was also bent double cold, 

 without sign of fracture. Tools of various 

 kinds, made of this steel, were tested at Chat- 

 ham with most satisfactory results. 



Brady's Process, Nature describes the re- 

 sults, but without giving the method, of the 

 process invented by Sir Antonio Brady, for re- 

 moving the sulphur and phosphorus from 

 refuse iron. The experiments were conducted 

 upon an iron worth, in pigs, only 2 5s. a ton. 

 The application of the process costs but about 

 35s. a ton, and the residual iron is of a very 

 superior quality. Nature says that it bears any 

 ancl every test. One of the pieces exhibited 

 had been beaten cold to the thinness of writing- 

 paper at one end, drawn to a point at the other, 

 and then twisted by hand eight turns in an 

 inch at a single heating. Massive bars had 

 been beaten cold until the surfaces on each 

 side of the bend came into perfect contact, and 

 a plate six inches wide and half an inch thick 

 had been beaten until its edges were in con- 

 tact, the flat surface remaining horizontal. In 

 neither case were there any traces of a flaw, 

 either at the convexity of the curve, where 

 the metal was stretched, or at the concavity, 

 where it was compressed. Holes in a thick 

 plate had been enlarged by driving cones into 

 them, and, in a word, the iron had been 

 knocked about in every possible way. At a 

 very low estimate it is worth 14 per ton, and, 

 as there is plenty of the raw material to be 

 had, the profit of the invention seems likely to 

 be great. 



Wheeler's Process. The United States Rail- 

 way and Mining Reporter gives an account of 

 a process for uniting iron and steel discovered 

 by Mr. E. Wheeler. He encases the steel with 

 iron during the whole operation of heating 

 and reduction. The steel is thus protected ef- 

 fectually from the decarbonizing effect of ex- 

 cessive heat, and cdn be safely heated to a per- 

 fect welding state in the usual iron fur- 

 naces, without flux of any kind, and in this 

 condition maybe rolled down and manipulated 

 as readily as iron in ordinary rolls. The writer 

 says: 



"We have seen the highest grade of cast tool steel, 

 thus enclosed, and filled with iron, subjected to the 

 intense heat of a heating furnace, and then rolled 

 down into bars at the rate of five hundred feet per 

 minute, and the steel, though perfectly welded to the 

 ' iron, presented the sanie bright, clean fracture, when 

 broken, as 'n the original state, and would harden as 

 readily in a water-bath. 



Mr. Wheeler showed us a car-axle rolled by his 

 process at one heat, at the Pencoyd Works, con- 

 sisting of a core of iron surrounded by a tube of 

 steel, and both in turn by a shell of iron, the whole 

 "being as solid and perfect as a homogeneous mass 

 of iron. This plan gives a steel journal, while the 

 iron core and shell secure strength and prevent 

 fracture or breakage of the steel. 



The practical uses to which this cheap and effectual 

 methoa of welding iron and steel can be applied are 



innumerable. By it any grade or kind of steel may 

 be used, from Bessemer or "puddled" to crucible, 

 and it can be united to iron in any shape or propor- 

 tion. 



DepJiospTiorization of Iron. The experi- 

 ments made in Prussia to remove the phos- 

 phorus from iron, by introducing chloride of 

 calcium into the blast powder, have not been 

 successful. The theory was, tliat chloride of 

 phosphorus would be formed and volatilized ; 

 but it was found that the chlorine was liber- 

 ated from its combination at too low a tem- 

 perature to effect any change. The results in 

 the United States, where fluoride of calcium 

 has been substituted for the chloride, have 

 been much more encouraging, and a decrease 

 in the amount of phosphorus has really been 

 effected thereby, some of 1 it probably passing 

 off in the form of a fluoride. The Prussian 

 iron above alluded to contains 0.497 per cent, of 

 phosphorus, and produces a highly cold-short 

 and brittle Bessemer steel. Eeflning in a re- 

 verberatory furnace, by means of jets of air 

 forced down upon the surface of the iron, was 

 tried, but led to no favorable result. On pud- 

 dling the iron and reconverting to cast-iron in 

 a cupola, the percentage of phosphorus was 

 reduced to 0.1. But this reconverted iron was 

 found to be dearer than Cumberland iron de- 

 livered at the Bessemer steel-works in Silesia, 

 and so the process was abandoned of a neces- 

 sity. It was also found that iron, when treated 

 in this manner, loses silicon, thereby unfitting 

 it for conversion into Bessemer steel. 



Treatment of Iron with Alkaline Metals. 

 Van Nostrand's Magazine gives a summary of 

 the novel process suggested by MM. Gerard 

 and Poulain of purifying iron by the agency 

 of either metallic sodium or potassium. The 

 first step in the process is to form an alloy of 

 iron with the alkaline metal. This is done by 

 forcing the vapor of the metal into a mass of 

 molten iron an expensive process, and hardly 

 suitable for adoption on the large scale, but the 

 inventors profess to be able to accomplish it 

 cheaply and easily. They say that, if the coal 

 or coke used to reduce the iron be saturated 

 with a solution of carbonate of soda and dried 

 before it goes into the furnace, or if common 

 salt be employed with the fluxing materials, 

 metallic sodium enters into combination with 

 the iron. It may be so ; but at present, so far 

 as we know, there is only the assertion of the 

 inventors for the fact. 



An alloy of iron with sodium or potassium, 

 when made by the first-mentioned process, is 

 said to be very hard, but nevertheless malle- 

 able, and can be forged and welded. Either al- 

 loy oxidizes quickly in air or water, and, when 

 a current of moist air or moist carbonic oxide 

 is sent through while it is maintained in a state 

 of fusion, as in a Bessemer's converter, the 

 alloy is decomposed and the alkaline metal is 

 said to combine with any metalloids, as .sili- 

 con, sulphur, or phosphorus, and in this way 

 these latter are removed from their mixture 



