90 



NATURE 



[May 24, 1888 



Formosa and its people have frequently been noticed in these 

 columns, entitled "A Ramble through Southern Formosa." It 

 really describes a long journey along the almost wholly unknown 

 east coast, and has much information respecting the various 

 tribes, their relations to each other and to the Chinese Govern- 

 ment—the Tipuns, Paiwans, Diaramocks, Amias, and others. 

 Mr. Taylor refuses to discuss gravely the theory of a cataclysm 

 put forward to account for the aborigines in Formosa. " One 

 might just as well introduce the mythical convulsion which lost 

 Atlanta to Europe, and detached Great Britain from the neigh- 

 bouring continent, to account for the painted savages Caesar 

 found in. England." The Tipuns are probably descended from 

 emigrants from some northern islands, probably Japan ; the 

 Paiwans as a rule inhabit the mountains of the interior, and are 

 head-hunters, a cruel, predatory, and passionate race, probably 

 of Malay origin, and the very earliest settlers in Southern 

 Formosa. The Pepohoans probably came from Loochoo ; they 

 have no language of their own, speaking only Chinese, while all 

 the other tribes have their own tongue. The Diaramocks are 

 the most dreaded tribe of the south part of the island ; they are 

 reputed cannibals, but Mr. Taylor doubts whether they are not 

 accused without cause. The paper concludes with some vigorous 

 engravings of representatives of the different tribes, including a 

 Diaramock, a Tipun chief, an Amia, a Paiwan, a Tipun warrior, 

 a Nicka, and Tipun weapons. 



The Bollettino of the Italian Geographical Society for April 

 publishes the results of some preliminary studies, by Prof. Giulio 

 Beloch, of the Roman University, on the vital statistics of Italy 

 during the last three centuries. According to these studies, the 

 total population of the peninsula has increased from a little over 

 ii,odo,ooo in 1550 to 13,003,003 in 1703, 16,500,000 in 1775, 

 over 18,003,030 in 1880, and nearly 30,033,030 in 1887. The 

 growth of the population for some of the larger States is given 

 as under : — 



States. 



Naples 



Sicily 



States of the 

 Church ... 

 Tuscany 

 Venetia 

 Milanese ... 

 Piedmont ... 

 Sardinia 



A geological Expedition, under the leadership of MM. 

 Ivanoff and Konshin — the two well-known investigators of the 

 geology of Turkistan — is to be sent out this summer for the 

 exploration of the littoral region of Russian Mantchuria. The 

 orography of this regi >n is hardly yet known, and the Expe- 

 pitioa will certainly throw some light on the structure of the 

 chains of mountains which are still hypothetically represented 

 on our maps. 



THE IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE. 



'T'HE annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute took 

 place last week at the theatre of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers, under the presidency of Mr. Daniel Adamson. On 

 the motion of the President, His Royal Highness the Prince of 

 Wales was unanimously elected an honorary member. Sir 

 Henry Bessemer presented the Bessemer medal to the President, 

 and referred in the course of his remarks to the circumstance 

 that whereas in Sheffield, the stronghold of steel-making, he 

 could find no one to investigate his process when he first brought 

 it out, fortunately for him — and he might add, fortunately for the 

 world — their President, Mr. Daniel Adamson, did so, and having 

 satisfied himself as to its applicability determined to employ it. 

 The President, whose investigations with regard to steel are well 

 known, thanked Sir Henry Bessemer and the Council of the 

 Institution for the award, and referred to his early connection 

 with Bessemer steel, which metal he had continued to use ever 

 since. 



The President then delivered the annual address, which was 

 .mainly statistical in character. The Iron and Steel Institute had 



been nineteen years in existence, during which period 21 16 

 members had been elected, including seventy-two elected at the 

 present meeting. He drew attention to the falling off which had 

 taken place in the production of manufactured iron in this country 

 since 1884, and the large increase in the production of steel dur- 

 ing the same period. Thus in 1884 about one and a quarter million 

 tons of Bessemer steel ingots were produced, and in 1887 about 

 two million tons, being an increase of about 60 per cent. ; in 1884 

 nearly half a million of tons of Siemens open-hearth steel ingots 

 were cast, and nearly a million tons last year, the actual increase 

 during the period being over 106 per cent., besides which plant 

 is at present in course of erection estimated to produce another 

 quarter of a million tons annually. During the same period there 

 has been an enormous increase in the application of steel to ship- 

 building purposes. Thus from a table supplied to the President 

 by Mr. William Parker, Chief Engineer to Lloyd's Registry of 

 British and Foreign Shipping, it is found that whereas in 1878, 

 under 3000 tons of steel were employed in the manufacture of 

 steamers and sailing-vessels built under Lloyd's survey, and over 

 300,000 tons of iron, last year over 210,000 tons of steel were 

 employed and about 52,000 tons of iron. The proportional 

 increase in the use of steel in the last three years has been about 

 cent, per cent., and the falling off in the use of iron during the 

 same period 350 per cent. Before leaving the subject of steel, 

 the President referred to the papers read at the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers on " Manganese in its Application to Metal- 

 lurgy," and on " Some Novel Properties of Iron and Manganese," 

 wherein it was shown that whereas 2*5 to 7'5 per cent, of 

 manganese in steel makes it as brittle as glass, breaking under a 

 much less transverse load than cast iron, 12 to 14 per cent, of 

 manganese in the metal secures high carrying power with great 

 elongation. Thus a bar of the composition— carbon 0-85 per 

 cent., silicon 0-23 per cent., sulphur o - o8 per cent, phosphorus 

 0-09 per cent., and manganese 13 '5 per cent., carried a load of 

 57-02 tons to the square inch, and took a permanent set at 

 29! tons, with an elongation of 39-8 per cent. This metal 

 is toughened by heating it to a high temperature, and plunging 

 it into water at a temperature of 72 F. It is difficult _ to 

 machine, which would militate against its practical application 

 for many purposes, unless cooling in water whilst developing 

 strength and toughness should also have a softening tendency. 

 The President concluded his address by drawing attention to the 

 influence of the alloys they contain on the various applications of 

 pig metal, as outside of high-class haematites that are used for the 

 manufacture of Bessemer and open-hearth steel, selections may 

 be made giving the highest results without using some of the 

 higher-priced irons that are now considered necessary for given 

 purposes. 



Mr. Carbutt, President of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers, in proposing a vote of thanks to the President for his 

 address, drew attention to the interesting circumstance noted by 

 Mr. Parker that 100 tons can now be carried one mile by steam- 

 ships at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, at a total cost, including 

 fuel, insurance, &c, of seven-eighths of a penny. 



The papers read and discussed at this meeting ranged oyer a 

 large variety of subjects. Mr. T. Turner's paper on "Silicon 

 and Sulphur in Cast Iron," read at a previous meeting, was 

 discussed. The conclusions at which the author arrives are that 

 in the blast furnace three chief agencies are at work tending to 

 eliminate sulphur, of which in Cleveland practice not more than 

 one-twentieth passes into the iron : (1) a high temperature tends 

 to prevent the absorption of sulphur by iron ; (2) a slag rich in 

 lime readily combines with sulphur ; and (3) the amount of 

 sulphur actually retained by the metal is influenced by the pro- 

 portion of silicon and probably certain other elements present 

 in the iron — the more silicon the less sulphur. This paper was 

 discussed by Messrs. Snelin, Gautier, Riley, Bauerman, and Sir 

 Lowthian Bell ; but the author, in his reply on the discussion, 

 considered that nothing had been brought forward to disprove 

 what he maintained, viz. that if they put silicon and sulphur 

 together in iron, they would not combine there, the sulphur 

 would pass off and the silicon remain. 



Mr. Gautier read a paper on the melting in cupola furnaces 

 of wrought iron or steel scrap mixed with ferro-silicon, the con- 

 clusion at which he arrived being that ordinary wrought-iron 

 scrap so heated may yield results as good as those obtained from 

 castings made with ordinary steel scrap. This conclusion was 

 contested, however, by various speakers in discussion. 



A paper read at the last meeting of the Institute by Mr. 

 A. Wilson, on "The Use of Water Gas for Metallurgical 





