4S8 



METALLURGY. 



access for repairs or examination: and that the 

 furnace bodies, being much stronger than those 

 of fixed furnaces, do not become deformed, iwo 

 objections to the tilting furnace are mentioned: 

 First that it is somewhat more expensive than 

 the fixed furnace: and. second, that the inlet 

 of cold air during pouring tends to oxidize the 

 manganese, which must be made up for by fur- 

 ther additions in the molds. 



An apparatus for casting sandless pig iron in 

 insulated molds, so as to constitute a good crys- 

 talline fracture equal to that of the pig iron made 

 in *aiHl beds and at a reduced cost of production, 

 was described by Mr. K. H. Wainford at the au- 

 tumn meeting of the British Iron and Steel In- 

 stitute. . . 



A blast furnace in which gas is used instead 

 of solid fuel, and in which it was represented 

 that iron or steel may be produced direct from 

 the ore, was described by the Russian metallurgist 

 1). Tschernoir at the same meeting. 



Among the methods in which electric motors 

 are applied to the operation of machines in steel 

 works is their use, now common, with charging 

 and drawing machines for placing ingots and 

 slabs in heating furnaces and of machines for 

 charging stock into melting furnaces. A con- 

 siderable development has taken place in the use 

 of electro-magnets to lift plates, bars, and ingots. 

 Formerly a plate was lifted by hooks catching 

 the edges, the hooks being at the ends of chains 

 actuated by a crane. Now the magnet is simply 

 applied to the center of the plate, the current is 

 switched on, and the plate is raised by the crane 

 carrying the electro-magnet. When the plate is 

 placed where it is wanted the switch is again 

 turned, and the plate is released and left in posi- 

 tion. 



A new dipping needle for making magnetic sur- 

 veys was described by Prof. Henry Louis at the 

 annual meeting of the British Iron and Steel 

 Institute. The author represented that the best 

 points of the Swedish and American dip compass 

 were combined in it, with a few modifications 

 introduced by him. The instrument indicated the 

 presence of magnetic minerals, and would be of 

 assistance in showing the direction of prospecting 

 operations. Prof. Bauerman, an old geological 

 surveyor, thought it would be an admirable addi- 

 tion to the instruments already in use. 



Miscellaneous. The art of incrusting iron and 

 steel with precious metals is carried on in a primi- 

 tive style and by methods of considerable an- 

 tiquity in Spain, at Eibar, in the province of 

 Guipuzcoa. Very fine specimens of a great vari- 

 ety of patterns are turned out from the shops 

 jewels, umbrella handles, and trinkets of differ- 

 ent kinds while the designs in gold and silver 

 are very elegant. The work is executed in four 

 styles rcpujado, or rcpouss6; incrustado, or in- 

 crusted; damasquinado, or damascened; and re- 

 licrr, or relief. The repujado is done with the 

 hammer and stamp, according to the workman's 

 own taste and without any oversight, and the 

 figures designed by him are quite original. The 

 incnixtfidn and the damasquinado are both exe- 

 cuted by incrusting a gold wire in the steel; but 

 in the damasquinado the surface is made abso- 

 lutely smooth, while in the Incrustado the wire 

 projects in light relief. The relief proper is the 

 most difficult of all to execute, and is done by 

 only a few of the more skillful workmen. In all 

 these styles when the work is done the object is 

 emparonado, or bronzed that is, the surface of 

 tho iron or steel is given a dark patina, some- 

 times polished and brilliant, at other times tern, 

 which heightens the effect of the precious metal. 



Experiments by M. Considere to test the value 

 of iron bars when used to strengthen cement 

 or concrete have resulted in the conclusion that 

 material strength is added to the whole struc- 

 ture by such employment; and, further, that mor- 

 tar when strengthened in this way can stand 

 elongations twenty times as great as would re- 

 sult in breaks if no such aid was given. 



An illustration of the power of galvanic action 

 in harbors is furnished by a case recently decided 

 in an Italian court, in which judgment was 

 awarded against the owners of certain wooden 

 yachts with coppered bottoms in the harbor of 

 Leghorn on account of damage done by them to 

 iron and steel vessels in the same harbor. The 

 facts of the damage and of its origin in electric 

 currents provoked by the copper-bottomed vessels 

 were clearly established. 



The composition of the new Krupp armor plate 

 is given by Capt. O'Neill, of the Bureau of Naval 

 Ordnance of the United States, as: Nickel, 3.5 

 per cent.; chromium, 1.3 per cent.; carbon, 0.2 

 per cent.; manganese, 0.4 per cent.; copper, 0.07 

 per cent.; phosphorus, 0.03 per cent.; sulphur, 

 0.03 per cent.; silicon, 0.15 per cent. The chromi- 

 um has been added comparatively recently to 

 assist hardening, but oil instead of water has 

 now to be used for cooling, otherwise cracking 

 would probably take place in the carburizing fur- 

 nace. 



W. Gowland opened a paper read before the 

 Society of Antiquaries on the Early Metallurgy 

 of Europe as illustrated by ancient remains and 

 the primitive processes surviving in Japan by ob- 

 serving that few appliances of prehistoric metal- 

 lurgy were simpler, either in form or construction, 

 than the ordinary Japanese furnace. It con- 

 sisted merely of a shallow hole in the ground, yet 

 all the copper, tin, and lead required in the coun- 

 try had, till about thirty years ago, been ex- 

 tracted from their ores by means of it, and, al- 

 though it was not used for iron, a skillful worker 

 had no difficulty in producing that metal by its. 

 aid. By means of the light thrown on rudimen- 

 tary smelting processes by this furnace and the 

 method of working it, aided by the data afforded 

 by the remains found on ancient smelting sites- 

 in Europe, by the structure of the lumps of cop- 

 per found in the bronze founders' hoards, and by 

 the characteristic features of the Roman cakes, 

 of copper found in north Wales, the evolution 

 of the copper-smelting furnace in Europe was. 

 traced, through various stages, from the domes- 

 tic fires of Neolithic man up to the low hearth 

 of Roman times. The men of the pile dwellings, 

 in Switzerland and the upper Austrian lakes, 

 melted copper and bronze for casting by the ap- 

 plication of heat above and to the inside, and 

 not to the outside, of their crucibles. The devel- 

 opment of the tin-smelting process from small,, 

 shallow trenches in the ground, in which the ore 

 was reduced by means of wood fires, is of con- 

 siderable interest, as similar trenches, with wood 

 as fuel, continued in use in Germany for the ex-- 

 traction of bismuth up to the middle of "the six- 

 teenth century. The Japanese furnace for the 

 extraction of iron from its ores, which is still in 

 use in some districts, was in its rudeness and sim- 

 plicity almost without a parallel in any region 

 of the world. It was built of common clay, and 

 only lasted for a single operation, when it had 

 to be pulled down in order to extract the iron 

 which had been produced. In Europe the early 

 furnace seems to have been a shallow, conical 

 hole in the ground, which at a somewhat later 

 date took the form of a similar-shaped cavity 

 inclosed by a wall of rough stones built on the 



