60 THE ADDRESSES, LECTURES, ETC., OF 



It is presumed that in thus raising formidable engines of 

 offensive and defensive warfare the civilised nations of the earth 

 will pause before putting them into earnest operation ; but, if 

 they should do so, it is consolatory to think that they could not 

 work them for long without effecting the total exhaustion of their 

 treasuries, already drained to the utmost in their construction. 



While science and mechanical skill combine to produce these 

 wondrous results, the germs of further and still greater achieve- 

 ments are matured in our mechanical workshops, in our forges, 

 and in our metallurgical smelting works ; it is there that the 

 materials of construction are prepared, refined, and put into such 

 forms as to render greater and still greater ends attainable. Here 

 a great revolution of our constructive art has been prepared by 

 the production, in large quantities and at moderate cost, of a 

 material of more than twice the strength of iron, which, instead 

 of being fibrous, has its full strength in every direction, and which 

 can be modulated to every degree of ductility, approaching the 

 hardness of the diamond on the one hand, and the proverbial 

 toughness of leather on the other. To call this material cast 

 steel seems to attribute to it brittleness and uncertainty of temper, 

 which, however, are by no means its necessary characteristics. 

 This new material, as prepared for constructive purposes, may 

 indeed be both hard and tough, as is illustrated by the hard steel 

 rope that has so materially contributed to the practical success of 

 steam ploughing. 



Machinery steel has gradually come into use since about 1850, 

 when Krupp of Essen commenced to supply large ingots that were 

 shaped into railway tyres, axles, cannon, &c., by melting steel in 

 halls containing hundreds of melting crucibles. 



The Bessemer process, in dispensing with the process of 

 puddling, and in utilising the carbon contained in the pig iron to 

 effect the fusion of the final metal, has given a vast extension to 

 the application of cast steel for railway 'bars, &c. 



This process is limited however in its application to superior 

 brands of pig iron, containing much carbon and no sulphur or 

 phosphorus, which latter impurities are so destructive to the 

 quality of steel. The puddling process will still have to be 

 resorted to, unless the process of decarburisation proposed by Mr. 

 Hcaton should be able to compete with it, to purify these inferior 



