8 "[2 Transactions of the American Institute. 



merely to show the effect produced by giving motion to what are 

 known as " Gassiot's tubes." The cause of the striated colors pro- 

 duced by passing electricity through gases in a highly rarified 

 condition, has not yet been satisfactorily explained. 



Adjourned. 



January 16, 1868. 



Prof. S. D. Tillman in the chair. 



The following scientific notes were presented by the Chairman: 



NEW METHOB OF PRODUCING STEEL. 



Mr. Heaton, of Nottingham, England, has invented a process for 

 purifying iron and converting it into a kind of steel, which consists 

 in using a cylindrical converter lined with fire-bricks, and an upright 

 funnel to carry off the products of combustion; to this converter is 

 clamped an iron box with a movable bottom, containing from seven 

 to nine pounds of nitrate of soda, which is covered with a perfo- 

 rated iron plate. A charge of about fourteen hundred weight is 

 run into the converter from a cupola. Ripid combustion takes 

 place for about two minutes and a half. At first ruddy fumes, aris- 

 ing from the decomposed nitrate, are given off, somewhat similar to 

 the scintillations observable in the Bessemer process. When the 

 action has subsided the molten metal is run into ingots, which are 

 said to be steel or a substance closely resembling it. This process, 

 which seems not yet well systematized, is to be applied specially 

 to the purification of the cinder iron produced in large quantities 

 in Staffordshire. 



ARTIFICIAL GRINDSTONES. 



Ransome's artificial stone — the silicate of lime — has been found 

 to make excellent grindstones, remarkable for their uniform texture 

 and fineness of grain. A pair of these were lately tested in Eng- 

 land against a pair of Newcastle stones, under similar conditions. 

 According igo the report of this trial, a bar of steel, three-fourths of 

 an inch in diameter, was placed in an iron tube fixed to the frame 

 of the grindstone, in the end of which was a spring which pressed 

 against one end of the steel rod, and thus kept the other »ud con- 

 stantly against the grindstone. In sixteen minutes one-quarter of 

 an inch of this rod was ground' away by the artificial stone; the 

 same rod was placed on the Newcastle stone, having twenty per 



