308 



EXPOSITION, PARIS. 



of Whit worth's steel cast under hydraulic pres- 

 sure, including an air-vessel for torpedoes ca- 

 pable of resisting a pressure of 1,500 Ibs. per 

 square im-h ; a forged shaft for a screw propel- 

 ler, the weight less than two thirds that of a 

 wrouirht-iron shaft; with shells and guns, one 

 of them exhibiting the new polygonal rifling. 

 The exhibits of Bessemer and Siemens steel 

 wore not comprehensive nor commensurate 

 with the extent of these manufactures, which 

 amount in England to about 750,000 tons of 

 Bessemer and 150,000 of Siemens steel per 

 annum. 



The Russian exhibit gave evidence of the 

 energetic efforts which have been made to de- 

 velop the mineral resources of the empire. 

 The ores on exhibition were very numerous, 

 many of them excellent, and some containing 

 as high as 75 per cent, of pure metal. The 

 coal exhibit, on the other hand, betrayed their 

 poverty in this indispensable mineral. Most 

 of the Russian iron is charcoal iron, and on 

 that account of superior quality. The great 

 Demidoff works use only charcoal fuel. They 

 exhibited a disk of Martin steel three fourths 

 of an inch thick and over 7 feet in diameter ; 

 rails and plates bent and turned cold; and fine 

 samples of Bessemer steel and merchant iron. 

 The products from the other districts were re- 

 markable for their purity and fineness; the 

 forged steel, Damascus steel, and other classes 

 were unsurpassable ; one wire rod weighing 6 

 kilogrammes was 70 kilometres in length. The 

 Russian sheet iron, well known for its remark- 

 able excellence, was well displayed. 



Four of the largest iron works in Spain ex- 

 hibited rod, sheet, rail, plate, and T iron, and 

 puddled steel of excellent quality. The factory 

 of Don Ybarra at Barracaldo sent remarkable 

 samples of sponge iron, made by the Chenot 

 process. The collection of Spanish ores was 

 comprehensive, including the varieties of Bil- 

 boa ore which are coming into use in England, 

 France, and Belgium in the manufacture of 

 Bessemer steel ; these are hydrous red, brown, 

 and yellow hematite. 



The Swedish exhibit was as fine as that of 

 any other foreign country, and was illustrated 

 in a special catalogue, and in a work on the 

 iron industry of Sweden specially prepared by 

 Professor Richard Akerman. The 26 exhibit- 

 ors presented every quality of the best grades 

 of iron and steel. 



The Belgian display was not less interesting, 

 since this little nation is now beating all her 

 rivals in the quality and cheapness of her iron 

 products ; in sheet iron, wrought iron, steel 

 castings, and machinery there was nothing in 

 the whole exhibition better than the Belgian 

 samples. 



The American exhibit was very inadequate, 



t was probably deemed unnecessary to 



lake much effort toward a national display 



rtr the very complete exhibition at Philadel- 



nia. The samples of iron made by the Dupuy 



process, from Republic ore, in the Union Iron 



Works at Pittsburg, were among the most im- 

 portant improvements shown in the exposition. 

 The castings from Lehigh iron were very good; 

 the bolts and nuts, made by the cold-punch- 

 ing process, and files, shown by Philadelphia 

 houses, were very interesting exhibits. The 

 cutlery exhibit was larger than in any other 

 line, and was effective in attracting attention 

 to the improved qualities of American cut- 

 lery. 



Machinery. MM. Sulzer, of Winterthur, 

 Switzerland, exhibited a compound engine with 

 a novel and ingenious valve-gear : the valves 

 are of the double-beat type; a single eccen- 

 tric works the steam and exhaust valves, at 

 each end of the cylinder. The boiler also was 

 of a new form, fitted with a Ten Brink grate. 

 Experiments with MM. Sulzer's engines show 

 a consumption of coal of 2 to 2 Ibs. per horse- 

 power per hour. The same firm has a revers- 

 ing gear for winding engines, of ingenious com- 

 plexity. A small engine of the annular com- 

 pound type, with opposite cranks, designed by 

 Brotherhood, and constructed by Flaud & A. 

 Cohendet of Paris, had tbe valve chest bolted 

 on to the cylinder cover, a throttle-valve 

 'worked by a Brotherhood governor, and a 

 main valve like the Corliss model ; two cylin- 

 ders were single-acting, and the steam is dis- 

 tributed by one valve only. The spring rings 

 for the inner side of the low-pressure piston 

 were placed in a recess in the cylinder, instead 

 of, as usual, within the piston, which had a 

 deep trunk against which the rings worked ; 

 this arrangement facilitates the packing of the 

 piston. Messrs. Hopkinson, of England, exhib- 

 ited interesting new steam and check valves ; 

 it is proposed to insert in the steam pipe a 

 check valve like that used in a feed-pipe, in 

 order to prevent the accidents which often oc- 

 cur from opening the steam valve by mistake ; 

 the valve is placed below its seat, and is held 

 lightly against it by a float submerged in a 

 vessel of mercury below. The same exhibitors 

 had mercurial safety-valves of remarkable sen- 

 sitiveness : a common dead-weight safety-valve 

 is controlled by the assistance of a vessel of 

 mercury, placed inside the boiler, which is 

 diminished in weight by any excess of pressure, 

 which forces the mercury into a connecting 

 reservoir ; this gives preponderance to a coun- 

 terpoise, which, by sinking, assists the safety- 

 valve to rise by a lever, until the reduction of 

 the pressure allows the mercury to flow back. 

 By proportioning the quantity of mercury which 

 thus passes, the proportion of the discharge of 

 steam to the excess of pressure can be set at 

 any desired mark. 



The furnace-feeding apparatus of Holroyd 

 Smith, of Halifax, England, conducts the fuel 

 to the grates from below by means of taper 

 screws, the movement of the fuel being grad- 

 ually forward and upward. By this arrange- 

 ment it is expected to obtain a complete com- 

 bustion of the hydrocarbons and to prevent 

 the formation of smoke. The grates are agi- 



