Oct. 14, 1886] 
NAO R FE 
579 
taken of the King, and the return journey to India 
commenced. Returning by Yarkand, the Kara-korum 
Pass was ascended on June 16, and Stoliczka seems 
to have suffered from the great height. On the 17th the 
last record appears in his journal. On the 18th the first 
symptoms of a new attack of spinal meningitis showed 
themselves, and, despite all the care of his devoted 
friends, he breathed his last on the afternoon of the 19th, 
some eleven marches from Leh, where he was buried 
beneath a willow-tree. The Government of India placed 
a suitable inscription over his grave, and other evidences 
o: the esteem and regard in which his memory is held 
will be found in the Museums of Calcutta and Vienna. 
And now another, and this not the least, will be found 
in this too brief, but sympathetic, record of his life 
and labours, written by one who knew him well, and who 
was able to appreciate not only the scientific labours of 
his friend, but his honesty and loyalty. A detailed list of 
all the scientific papers and published letters of Stoliczka 
between 1859 and 1874 is appended to this memoir. 
THE /RON AND STEEL INSTITUTE 
HE summer meeting of this Institute was held on 
the 6th to the 8th inst., in London, under the presi- 
dency of Dr. John Percy, F.R.S. In his introductory 
remarks, the President made special reference to some of 
the papers about to be read. He was very pleased to 
see that the employment of chromium in the manufacture 
of steel was receiving attention. As far back as 1821 
Bertheir, in the Azmnales des Mines, had shown that iron 
with 1 to 1°5 per cent. of chromium forged well, whilst it 
took a keen edge when ground, and had a very high 
tenacity.—Dr. Percy exhibited a portion of a broken 
ploughshare of American manufacture, which was formed 
of three metals, and seemed to be produced by casting 
steel on both sides of malleable iron. He drew attention 
to mitis metal, but refrained from offering any opinion 
on the subject, referring simply to the statements put for- 
ward that by the use of aluminium in its composition the 
melting-point was lowered, whilst, as the product was 
more liquid, it ran better, and sound castings were more 
easily produced. In speaking of Indian metallurgy, refer- 
ence was made to the iron column at Delhi, the largest 
piece of forged iron in the world. The President next 
drew attention to the development of iron and steel- 
making in the United States, showing its rapid progress, 
and how enormously the capacity for production, both in 
that country and here, was in excess of the demand, as 
regarded blast-furnaces, Bessemer converters, and open- 
hearth furnaces. The address concluded with some 
remarks on diminished cost of production; to what a 
degree this has been carried, and the influence it has had 
on the labour market may be inferred from the circum- 
stance that nowadays a single lace-making machine does 
the work formerly done by 2000 women, that wood-plan- 
ing, which used to cost 12s. per square foot, is now done 
for 2d. or 3d., that the manufacture of gold chains has 
been reduced from 30s. to 3s. 6d., and that a gross of steel 
pens may now be procured for 4¢. which used to cost 7/ 
Sir Henry Bessemer proposed a vote of thanks to Dr. 
Percy for his address, which was seconded by Mr. Adam- 
son, the President-Elect. : 
The first paper read was that of Sir Frederick Abel, 
F.R.S., and Colonel Maitland, Superintendent of the 
Royal Gun Factories, Woolwich, on the erosion of gun- 
barrels by powder-products. This, in the author’s opinion 
is due to a softening, if not fusing, effect exerted upon 
the surfaces of the metal by the high heat of the explosion, 
an increase of this softening or fusing effect by the 
chemical action of the sulphur at the high temperature 
produced, and the mechanical action of the rush of gases, 
vapours, and liquid products upon the softened or fused 
surfaces. There are two kinds of scoring or erosion; 
muzzle-loading scoring is due to the rush of powder-pro- 
ducts over the top of the projectile through the clearance 
or windage, which has to be allowed for facility of 
ramming home the shot along the bore in a muzzle- 
loader ; breach-loading scoring is produced by the rush 
of the powder products behind a shot, acting as a gas- 
tight plug, during and immediately after its passage 
through the gun. Evidently erosion will increase with 
the amount of the powder products, with the pressure in 
the bore, and with the duration of the time of action, and 
it is important to ascertain what material best resists 
erosion by powder products, or what treatment of the 
material is best calculated to increase its power of resist- 
ance to erosion. With this object in view experiments 
were made on thirteen rifled barrels, of different steels, 
of 2, inch bore, firimg 100 rounds each with 10} Ib. 
charges of pebble powder and 6 Ib. shot, fitted with 
service driving rings; these barrels were screwed into 
the mouth of the chamber of a 22 cwt. breech-loader. 
Gutta-percha impressions were taken after each batch of 
twenty-five rounds. During the preparation of the barrels 
specimens were cut in prolongation of the bores and 
tested mechanically, and the proportions of carbon, 
silicon, and manganese were determined in samples of 
the metal. The average pressure of the gas was 13 tons 
to the square inch. The results of the experiments are 
given in a table, but neither the chemical analysis of the 
metals nor the testing machine gave any assistance in 
accounting for the position of the barrels in the mean 
order of merit in which they were placed by five skilled 
and independent observers. Thus the worst and the 
worst but one were respectively the highest and nearly 
the lowest in carbon, the first, fifth, and tenth were very 
closely allied both in analysis and as tested by the 
machine, and it became evident that some agency, 
hitherto unsought for, dominated the results. Separate 
and independent investigations were made by the writers 
of the paper, the one instituting a chemical and the other 
a mechanical examination of the metals. A chromic 
solution capable of exerting a very slow solvent action 
upon the metals brought their structure into relief, and 
the extent of erosion was found to be more or less refer- 
able to the less or greater amount of mechanical treat- 
ment the metal had received, and to the consequent 
extent to which uniform fibrous structure had been deve- 
loped. Experiments made on the metal as cast, and 
forged to twice to four times, and to eight times its length 
proved that the more steel was forged or worked the less 
it suffered from the eroding effect of powder gas. This 
was found to be the case both as regarded hard and soft 
metal. Several members took part in the discussion, 
notably Mr. Adamson, Sir Fredericx Bramwell, Sir Henry 
Bessemer, and Mr. Frederick Siemens. 
The next paper, which was taken as read, was an 
elaborate report of 137 pages in length by Messrs. P. C. 
Gilchrist and E. Riley, ‘‘ On the Iron-making Resources 
of the British Colonies and India, as illustrated at the 
Colonial and Indian Exhibition.” It would appegr the 
reporters are of opinion that, so far as the exhibits are 
concerned, the iron and coal-producing power of the 
Empire is rather undershown, as with a proper applica- 
tion of the materials at the disposal of our colonies and 
India, they should at all events be able to supply their 
own requirements. 
The next papers read were: ““On some Early Forms 
of Bessemer Converters,” by Sir Henry Bessemer, F.R.S., 
and “On Modifications of Bessemer Converters for Small 
Charges,” by John Hardisty. The first of these contains 
descriptions of the different forms of converters selected 
by the author as typical of the whole, and which embrace 
the main features of ten several forms of apparatus which 
he has from time to time designed for the conversion of 
crude iron into steel. It was written with the double 
object of letting those who are seeking to improve the 
