404 



METALLURGY. 



is much to be regretted. We recognize, however, that 

 the new tariff' is, in spite of its imperfections, a great 

 improvement in almost every schedule over the mon- 

 strous act of spoliation known as the McKinley tariff. 



We believe it to be the immediate duty of the 

 Democratic party to place every commodity which 

 can fairly be described as raw material upon the free 

 list; to abolish all duties which tend to create and 

 maintain monopolies and trusts, and to reduce all 

 duties which are still prohibitory in effect. 



We approve the principle of the income tax as a re- 

 turn to correct theories of taxation. 



The scope of the national civil-service system should 

 be extended as fast as the Civil-service Commission 

 deems practicable. 



We are not only opposed in the abstract to any 

 ' distinction of birth or religious creed in the rights 

 of American citizenship," but also to any organization 

 which aims to introduce such distinctions into politics. 



We recommend to the attention of the Legislature 

 a system of proportionate representation. 



There was also a Socialist-Labor ticket in the 

 field, headed by David Taylor as candidate for 

 Governor. The vote for Governor was as fol- 

 lows : Greenhalge, 189,307; Russell, 123,930; 

 Richardson, 9,965 ; Gary, 9,037. 



Late in the campaign considerable opposition 

 to the candidacy of Lieut.-Gov. Wolcott was de- 

 veloped among the members of the American 

 Protective Association, as a result of which the 

 total vote cast for him was considerably less than 

 that cast for Gov. Greenhalge. 



The Republican candidates for Congress were 

 all elected, with one exception that of the 

 Ninth District, where the Democratic candidate 

 was successful. The Legislature elected at the 

 same time is divided as follows: Senate Re- 

 publicans, 36; Democrats, 4. House Repub- 

 licans, 191; Democrats, 48; other parties, 5. 

 Eleven cities, including Boston, held elections 

 for city officers on Dec. 11, and in each case the 

 Republican candidates were successful. In Bos- 

 ton a plurality for the Democratic candidate of 

 5,099 in 1893 for mayor was changed to a Re- 

 publican plurality of 2,575 for Edwin U. Curtis. 



METALLURGY. Little that is particularly 

 striking in the way of important discoveries 

 either in the science or the art of metallurgy has 

 been brought to notice during 1894. This is 

 due in great part probably to the general com- 

 mercial depression, which has withdrawn from 

 the investigator and inventor that powerful 

 stimulus found in demands for better methods, 

 and has lessened the returns usually obtained in 

 the metal-producing industries. Nevertheless 

 the record of the year's work is a creditable one, 

 even if it is not marked by any considerable ad- 

 vance into new fields. If there have been no 

 remarkable discoveries, the claims for those al- 

 ready made have been put to the test and their 

 practical possibilities carefully measured. This 

 trial of new methods and improvement of old 

 ones has been chiefly along the lines of greater 

 efficiency in working practice, the elimination of 

 waste, and general economy of production, rec- 

 ognition of the need of which may again be 

 traced to the compelling influence of commer- 

 cial conditions, while predominant attention is 

 still given, as it ever has been, to improvements 

 in the manufacture and the qualities of iron and 

 steel, and the other metals in common use have 

 not been neglected. Interest seems to be grow- 

 ing and progress making in the utilization and 



cheapening of many of the rarer metals, some 

 of which promise, if they can be made available 

 for commerce, to be very valuable. 



Iron and Steel. As to the merits of the 

 different processes for the conversion of pig or 

 cast iron into malleable iron and steel, James 

 Tomkins, of the Cadnor Park Works, has shown 

 that in the open-hearth system the oxygen which 

 was the agent for bringing the iron into a malle- 

 able state was derived from the iron in the ore, 

 but in the Bessemer converter the oxygen was 

 derived from the air of the blast, this producing 

 oxide of iron, which was directly burnt out or 

 reduced by the silicon and carbon of the metal. 

 Lime was added in the basic process to make the 

 slag or cylinder more basic. In the acid process 

 only silicon, carbon, and manganese were elimi- 

 nated. Therefore only good haBinatitic pig iron 

 was employed for conversion, but in the basic 

 process, besides silicon, manganese, and carbon, 

 the phosphorus and much of the sulphur could 

 be eliminated. The chemical changes were simi- 

 lar in the other processes, save that in the basic 

 Bessemer process the phosphorus was eliminated 

 last. This was accounted for by the fact that 

 phosphorus could be eliminated only when the 

 oxidizing base was in excess ; that is, during the 

 first part of the " blow " the oxide of iron is 

 almost completely reduced by the superior at- 

 traction of carbon and silicon present. It is only 

 in the absence of silicon and carbon, or during 

 the "afterblow," that the phosphorus is elimi- 

 nated. Unlike the puddling process, the open- 

 hearth and Bessemer processes decarbonize too 

 much, and the metal has consequently to be re- 

 carbonized by the addition of manganese or 

 spiegel. Since the invention of the puddling 

 process by Henry Cort, in 1784, and subsequently 

 the invention of the present open-hearth fur- 

 naces by Messrs. Siemens and Martin, and of the 

 Bessemer converter by Henry Bessemer, there 

 had been many attempts to supersede these pro- 

 cesses ; but these ingenious men had found, when 

 traversing the bridge between theoretical and 

 practical confirmation, some fatal defect in their 

 theory. And in this defective foundation they 

 had the most irrefragable proof of the imprac- 

 ticability of any innovation in the metallurgical 

 arts which was not the outcome of a theoretical 

 and a practical mind combined. 



Dr. E. Kirk, who has made a great many experi- 

 ments to ascertain the effects of silicon on iron, 

 has found that that element enters freely into 

 combination with cast iron, and has a softening 

 effect upon it. Iron as hard as tempered steel 

 may be made as soft as lead by combining it with 

 silicon. But silicon is an impurity, and an excess 

 of it destroys cohesive force and crystallization 

 and reduces transverse and tensile strength. So 

 great is this effect that the strongest iron may 

 be reduced to a powder when combined with an 

 excess of silicon. Silicon in any proportion is a 

 detriment to cast iron as an iron. . The nature 

 and form of crystallization of pure cast iron are 

 changed by sudden cooling in a mold, and a 

 soft iron in the pig may become a hard iron in a 

 casting. This chilling property in cast iron is 

 destroyed by silicon, and an iron high in silicon 

 is not hardened when run into a sand mold or 

 upon an iron chill. The destruction of the chill- 

 ing tendency in cast iron is very desirable in the 



