536 



IRON AND STEEL. 



him in the details of his experiments which 

 yielded the best steel, had frequently contained 

 sulphur, but never phosphorus ; and even if 

 they had contained coppery pyrites, the cast 

 iron derived from them was free from sul- 

 phur. 



Although, as has been well demonstrated by 

 Zarsten, manganese is not to be regarded as a 

 " steel-ifying " body, yet it has incontestably 

 the property of rendering steel better, and 

 above all, more durable : this power, it is now 

 not difficult to explain. "When to a gray cast 

 iron, of which the carbon is chiefly in a free 

 condition, there is added a sufficient quantity 

 of metallic manganese, the result is a white 

 cast iron, in which the carbon is almost entire- 

 ly in a state of combination. The effect is 

 similar in case of steel ; a very small portion 

 of manganese suffices to retain the carbon in 

 the state of combination, and to impart to the 

 metal the conditions characterizing steel of 

 good quality. But steel should never contain 

 more than the half of 1 per cent, of its weight 

 in manganese ; as beyond this limit, it becomes 

 hard and brittle, and loses a great part of its 

 tenacity. Manganese has moreover the prop- 

 erty of rendering steels weldable which other- 

 wise are not so. 



It is not uncommon with iron masters, in 

 order to improve the quality of their products, 

 to mix together ordinary and manganesian cast 

 irons, and then to refine the mixture. The 

 author's experiments went to show that in such 

 cases the purifying effect is in direct propor- 

 tion to the amount of manganese contained ; so 

 that, with this view, it becomes important so 

 to reduce manganesian ores as to retain the 

 largest possible quantity of this metal in the 

 cast iron. Thus, though the spathic iron ore of 

 Siegen contains 15 to 20 parts of manganese to 

 100 of iron, yet the cast iron derived from this 

 mineral retains scarcely more than 6 or 7 per 

 cent. If it were practicable, by changing the 

 management of the furnaces, or the nature or 

 proportions of the fluxes, to increase this pro- 

 portion to 10 per cent., it is certain that cast 

 iron of greater commercial value would be the 

 result. Technologiste, June, 1863. 



Mr. Robert Mushet states, in the London 

 "Engineer," his opinion that the employment 

 of the oxide of manganese has [in England] 

 revolutionized the process of steel making. As 

 first applied by Mr. J. M. Heath, of Sheffield, in 

 the way of mixing a small quantity of the oxide 

 with the carbon and iron in the smelting-pots, 

 the mode has come to be known as " Heath's 

 process " ; but the writer stated that the sug- 

 gestion of the use of manganese was made by his 

 own father to Mr. Heath. " To this great in- 

 vention, " he writes, " the Sheffield manufac- 

 turers now owe four fifths of all their wealth 

 and prosperity." In his opinion, " the process 

 of Heath does not alloy manganese with steel ; 

 the manganese simply acts as a flux, and is 

 never metallized at all. The affinity of man- 

 ganese for oxygen is most powerful ; and even 



under the most favorable circumstances, close- 

 ly combined with carbon, it is exceedingly diffi- 

 cult to metallize oxides of manganese." 



Tungsten, and Titanium, in Cast Iron and 

 Steel. Mr. Mushet, in continuing to devise 

 new methods for the improvement of cast iron 

 and steel, has patented a series of processes 

 including the use of a great variety of mixtures 

 1, of cast iron with such materials as bin- 

 oxide of manganese, powdered red hematite, 

 powdered tungsten, and chromium, or chro- 

 mate of iron ; 2, of steel, or of both a certain 

 form of steel and of iron, or of one or two 

 other forms of cast iron, with one of the pre- 

 vious mixtures. For example, he forms a mix- 

 ture (designated as No. 1) of 5 to 7 Ibs. of 

 gray cast iron from red hematites, with about 

 from 3 1 to 12 oz. of binoxide of manganese, 

 and about 17 oz. of tungsten, the whole in 

 powder ; and this mixture is then used to im- 

 prove the quality of steel, by adding in the 

 puddling process the quantity just given to 

 every 45 Ibs. of the steel or iron operated on ; 

 as, to Swedish bar, ordinary cast iron, pud- 

 dled steel, &c., about 1 per cent, of the weight 

 of such material in charcoal, being also in 

 some cases added. 



Mr. Mushet proposes also to produce a supe- 

 rior titanium iron, and suitable for making 

 steels and irons of the first class, by adding in 

 the furnace to each charge of red hematites 10 

 to 20 per cent, of an ilmenite rich in titanic 

 acid and oxide of iron, and as free as possible 

 from earthy matter, pyrites, tin, cobalt, arsenic, 

 or copper; or in more economical working, 

 owing to the refractory nature of the ilmenite, 

 from 5 to 10 per cent, of this mineral. 



In fine, it may be said that this latter process 

 consists in securing a triple metallic combina- 

 tion or alloy of iron, titanium, and manganese, 

 containing also carbon, by means of melting 

 together, by heating with coal, coke, or char- 

 coal, a combination of ilmenite and of spathio 

 iron or other manganesian iron ore, containing 

 a large proportion of oxide of manganese in 

 a manner to bring the whole to a metallic form. 

 He then adds some of this triple alloy, hold- 

 ing carbon, to cast steel or homogeneous iron, 

 in whatever manner produced, in order to 

 ameliorate the quality of the steel produced; 

 or finally, previous to such addition, he decar- 

 bonizes in part or wholly the alloy ; and h<j 

 claims that the small quantity of silicium con- 

 tained in this in no way deteriorates the quali- 

 ty of the steel or iron so made. Technologist*, 

 Dec., 1862. 



A series of experiments has been carried out 

 by Capt. Caron, under the direction of th<) 

 French minister of war, in order to ascertain 

 the effect upon the hardness and capability of 

 resistance of bronze, cast iron, and steel, pro- 

 duced by addition to these respectively of ;i 

 small percentage of the metal tungsten. Th<j 

 report concludes with a statement to the effect 

 that probably no advantage is to be derived 

 from adding tungsten to bronze, while it de- 





