THE AGE OF STEEL 



brick, and arranged on low, flat cars designed specially 

 for the purpose. These tanks are run under the spout 

 of the furnace, filled with molten metal, and drawn 

 to the steel works, possibly five miles away. As a rule, 

 the distance is much less, but as far as the condition 

 of the metal is concerned distance seems to make 

 little difference, as even at the extreme distance there 

 is no apparent cooling of the seething mass. The 

 intense heat given off by these trains necessitates 

 specially constructed cars, tracks, bridges, and cross- 

 ings. 



The destination of this train load of iron pots is 

 the "mixer" a great 200- ton kettle in which the prod- 

 ucts from the various furnaces are mixed and rendered 

 uniform in quality. On the arrival of the train at the 

 mixer, Titanic machinery seizes the twenty-ton pots and 

 dumps their contents bodily into the glowing pool in the 

 great crucible. Like the filling process, this operation 

 occupies only a few minutes. 



From the mixer the metal is poured out into ladles 

 and transferred immediately to the "converter" 

 the important development of Sir Henry Bessemer's 

 discovery that has made possible the modern steel 

 industry. This converter resembles in shape some 

 of the old mortars used in the American Civil War 

 barrel-shaped structures suspended vertically by trun- 

 nions at the middle and having an opening at the top. 

 Into this opening at the top the metal from the mixer 

 is poured and when the converter has been sufficiently 

 charged a blast of cooled air is blown in at the bottom 

 through the molten metal. This blast emerges at. 

 VOL. vi. 19 [ 289 ] 



