112 



NA TURE 



[June 2, 1892 



identifies it as being a case-hardening or partial cementation 

 treatment, the surfaces of the sieel plate being hardened by car- 

 bonization (and by a supplementary chilling process), and the 

 increase in carbon dying away towards the interior of the mass. 

 In the trials of these plates, that of hii^h carbon nickel-steel 

 appears to have stood the best, but the effect of the Harveyising 

 process upon the powers of resistance of the low carbon steel 

 plate seems to have afforded indications of beneficial effect such 

 as to warrant the applicati )n of the process to nickel -steel plates 

 included in the third series, fired at last November, and which 

 comprised a high carbon nickel-steel plate from Carnegie, 

 Phipps, and Co., a low carbon Harveyised nickel-steel plate 

 from the same makers, and a highcabon Harveyised nickel-steel 

 plate from the Bethlehem Company. In all ihe nickel-steel 

 plates, including that from Creusot tried in 1890, the amount of 

 nickel in the metal appears to have been a little above 3 per 

 cent. 



Care seems to have been taken to render all conditions 

 attending the trials as uniform as practicable, with this not un- 

 important difference, that very much less time was allowed to 

 elapse, in the second and third trials, between the firing of the 

 successive rounds than in the first experiments. 



A careful consideration of the results led the Board, of which 

 Admiral Kimherley was President, to the unanimous conclusion 

 that the high carbon Harveyised nickel-steel plate was the best, 

 but that one part of the plate was much superior in resi>ting 

 powers to the other, which was ascribable apparently to a want 

 of uniformity in the Harveyising or carbonising treatment. The 

 official report is also said to have recorded the unanimous 

 opinion of the Board that both the high carbon nickel-steel 

 Harveyised plate and the high carbon nickel-sieel untreated 

 plate were superior to the Creusot nickel-steel plate tried in 

 1890. 



Further trials will shortly be made of high and low carbon 

 nickel-steel Harveyised plates, to be supplied by Carnegie, 

 Phipps, and Co. F'rom published analyses it appears that the 

 high carbon nickel-steel plate manufactured by that Company 

 contained 0*45 per cent, of carbon and 0*65 per cent, of man- 

 ganese, and the low carbon plates of nickel-steel, o'26 per cent, 

 of carbon and 075 per cent, ^f manganese. 



The New York Sun, with what appears, from the reported 

 results, to be very justifiable sentiments of pride, winds up an 

 account of the results arrived at with the remark that they 

 show that America now stands at the top in the excellence of her 

 ship-arm lur ; and certainly our friends of the Bethlehem and 

 Pittsburg Steel-works are to be warmly congratulated upon their 

 achievements in this new direction. 



Although the trials in the United States seemed to establish 

 a marked superiority of nickel-steel plates over the co npound 

 plates of [. Brown and Co. 's manufacture, it is interesting 

 to notice that this eminent firm is gallantly striving to maintain 

 the high position which exhaustive trials had secured to that 

 form of plate, as efficient armouring for ships of war, and that 

 recent trials at Shoeluiryness and at Portsmouth of experimental 

 CO npound plates which have been submitted to a supplemental 

 process devised by Captain Tressider, late Royal Engineers, 

 seem, so far as I can learn, to have demonstrated that powers 

 of resistance and endurance, much exceeding those of the com- 

 pound plates tried in the U iied States and in the Ochta ex- 

 periments of last year, can be secured to these structures. I 

 have reason to hope that we shall receive a communication ere 

 long on the interesting results which are being obtained in this 

 direction. 



My reference to the rapid advance which has been made in the 

 United States in the manufacture of armour i)laies will recall to 

 the minds "f many here present the memorable visit of the 

 Institute to America in 1890. The valuable record of that visit 

 presented to us a few months ago l)y the American Institute of 

 Mining Engineers, in the form of a portly volume, embracing 

 full accounts of the proceedings and the papers read and discussed 

 at the international meetings at New York and Pittsburgh, con- 

 stitutes an important work of leference, as well as an interesting 

 memtnto of one of the most notable events in the history of our 

 Institute. And now, thanks mainly to the self-sacrificing exer- 

 tions of our much-estremed p\st President, Sir Lowthian Bell, 

 we have been able to match this American volume with a c >m 

 panion work, the interest and value of which it would, I venture 

 to say, be difficult to over-estimate. The series of monographs 

 by Sir Lowthian Hell and other highly competent authorities 

 which are embraced in this --pecial volume (aptly named "The 



NO. I 1 79. VOL. 46I 



Iron and Steel Institute in America"), will certainly receive 

 careful study — productive both of profit and of pleasure, at the 

 hands not only of members of the Institute, but also of our trans- 

 atlantic friends who so cordially received us ; and our warmest 

 thanks are due to the joint authors of this work, and especially 

 to Sir Low;hian Bell, who, besides contributing some of the most 

 valuable of its contents, undertook the arduous task of editing 

 the volume ; and I beg leave heartily to congratulate him up m 

 the realization of his wish, that the completed work should make 

 its first appearance in public at this meeting. 



An interesting illustration afforded by the inaugural address 

 of the Duke of Devonshire in 1869 of the advance made in the 

 knowledge at the disposal of the iron and steel maker, is found 

 in his observations on the relations of carbon to iron and steel, 

 a subject which I had occasion to discuss in some detail in my 

 opening address last year, in reference to the then recent in- 

 teresting investigations in that direction ; a subject on which 

 we may still hope to have further light thrown by the continued 

 researches of Osmond and others. The very complete and 

 systematic manner in which existing knowledge on this subject 

 is treated in the first part, recently published, of Dr. Hermann 

 Wedding's new edii.ion of his Handhuch der Eisenhiitlenkunde, 

 calls for the highest commendation. 



The importance of pursuing the investigation of problems such 

 as the conditions most favourable to economy in the use of fuel 

 in the blast furnace, and conditions to be fulfilled in the form 

 and dimensions of the furnace for en-uring efficiency and ec )nomy 

 of working, were dwelt upon by the Duke of Devonshire in his 

 comprehensive address, and reference was made to the elaborate 

 inquiry into the chemical operations occurring in the blast fur- 

 nace upon which Sir Lowthian Bell had then for some time 

 been engaged. The interesting results arrived at by him, and 

 the instructive discussions to which they and the conclusions 

 based upon them gave rise, are memorable illustrations of the 

 progress in the application of scientific research and reasoning 

 to the study of metallurgic operations, in the promotion of 

 which the Iron and Steel Institute has of late years played an, 

 important part, and the most recent outcome of which, in con- 

 nection wi h the production of pig iron, is to be found in the 

 remarkable achievements recounted by Mr. Gayley in his paper 

 on the development of American blast furnaces, which was one 

 of the most noteworthy communications dealt with at the New 

 York meeting in 1890. 



In directing attention to that paper in my address a year ago, 

 I spoke of the reference made by Mr Gayley to the importance 

 of the elaborate series of i vestigaiions carried out, nearly a 

 quarter of a century ago, by .Sir Lowihian Bell on the chemistry 

 of the blast furnace. 1 have had occasion since then to refresh 

 my memory with regard to the ground covered by the work 

 which our ex- President (hen carried out, and I must freely confess 

 that I had no recollection of its extent nor of the mass of interest- 

 ing and important experimental data accumulated by him, until 

 I lately referred to the comprehensive and systematic investiga- 

 tions on the chemical phenomena of iron-smelting, which he 

 communicated in detail to the meeting of the Institute at 

 Merthyr in 1870. His paper on the chemistry of the blast 

 furnace, to «hich I had the pleasure of listening at the Chemical- 

 Society in 1869, deals with the circumstances and conditions 

 attending the union of iron with carbon in the blast furnace, and 

 gives interesting results bearing upon the question of the 

 temperature at which carbon is deposited in a finely-divided 

 state in ironstone when it is exposed to the waste gases, rich in 

 carbonic oxide, of the blast furnace ; and the subject is discussed 

 more definitely, by the light of additional experimental informa- 

 tion, in Sir Lovthian Bell's admirable work on the " Principles 

 of the Manufacture of Iron and Steel," published in 1884. He 

 there demonstrates the readiness with which carbon is desposited 

 in iron sponge from carbonic oxide at temperatures up to a dull 

 red heat, examines into the question whether the presence of 

 iron in' the metallic state in iron ore is indispensable for 

 determining the dissociation of carbonic oxide, and, after con- 

 cluding in the negative, and demonstrating that metallic iron is 

 not more active in this respect than its oxide, he refers to trials 

 made by him of the power of several other metals and 

 metallic oxides to effect the dissociation of carbmic oxide. 



In the researches comnainicated in 1870 to the Merthyr 



meeting, the whole of the«e experiments are given and discussed, 



and it is to be regretted that ihe interesting results arrived at did 



not receive greater publicity than they met with in the Trans- 



j actions of a young technical Institute, then comparatively 



