68 



NA TURE 



[May i8, 1905 



instruction of newcomers in tlie part played by mosquitoes 

 in conveying malaria, and in the habitual and proper use 

 of mosquito nets ; (2) the segregation of the native popula- 

 tion away from the European quarters ; (3) the total aboli- 

 tion of cess-pits ; (4) the rational and systematic use of 

 anti-malarial measures ; (5) the public control of drinking 

 water ; and (6) the establishment of laboratories on the spot 

 for the study of health problems. R. T. Hewlett. 



IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE. 



'PHE annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute was 

 •'■ held at the Institution of Civil Engineers on May 11 

 and 12, and was very largely attended. The report of the 

 council, read by Mr'. Bennett H. Brough, the secretary, 

 shows that the institute continues to make satisfactory 

 progress. The membership now amounts to 2000. The 

 proceedings began with the adoption of a resolution of 

 regret at the death of Sir Bernhard Samuelson, Bart., 

 P.C., F.R.S., past president, referred to elsewhere (p. 61). 



.After the usual routine business, the retiring president, 

 Mr. Andrew Carnegie, inducted into the chair the presi- 

 dent-elect, Mr. R. A. Hadfield, whose first duty was to 

 present the Bessemer gold medal to Prof. J. O. Arnold 

 (Sheffield). 



Mr. R. A. Hadfield then delivered his presidential 

 address. It dealt chiefly with the history of metallurgy 

 and with those branches of the subject to which his atten- 

 tion had been directed, more especially with the alloys of 

 iron with other elements. He urged the necessity for 

 constant research. In progressive manufacture, the com- 

 plexity of which increases year by year, there is, in addi- 

 tion to the many ordinary difficulties met w'ith, that of 

 the solution of new problems which constantly present 

 themselves. This can only be done by research, which 

 should form an actual part of industrial operations, and 

 demands almost as much attention as is devoted to the 

 manufacturing side. It is more than ever necessary not 

 to rest satisfied with the knowledge of to-day, or to think 

 that this will satisfy the needs of to-morrow. Rapid and 

 great changes are constantly occurring in metallurgy as in 

 other branches of scientific knowledge. The thanks of the 

 meeting for the address were expressed by Sir E. H. 

 Carbutt and Sir William White, K.C.B. 



Mr. S. Surzycki (Czenstochowa) submitted results 

 obtained with the continuous open-hearth steel process as 

 carried out in fixed furnaces in Poland. The process, 

 which has proved eminently successful, is based on the 

 principle of the Talbot process, with the essential difference 

 that it can be carried out in any fixed furnace of not less 

 than 25 tons capacity. The advantages do not consist 

 solely in the continuity of the process, but in the longer 

 life of the furnace, the higher production and yield, the 

 lessened fuel consumption, and the simplicity of the plant. 



A very elaborate paper was read by Mr. R. K. Hadfield, 

 the president, describing some experiments relating to the 

 effect produced by liquid-air temperatures on the properties 

 of iron and its alloys. .About eleven hundred specimens 

 were tested. The bars, which were prepared with great 

 care, were submitted to various heat treatments, the exact 

 temperatures being recorded, and then forwarded to Sir 

 James Dewar's laboratory at the Royal Institution. The 

 tests were carried out on a small hydraulic testing machine, 

 to which the necessary arrangements could be readily 

 applied for immersing the specimens in liquid air. The 

 results showed that, with certain exceptions, the effect of 

 low temperatures is to increase in a remarkable degree the 

 resistance of iron and iron alloys to tensile stress, and to 

 reduce the ductility from the highest point to practically 

 nil. The changes take place even in the softest wrought 

 iron. The absence or presence of carbon in ordinary 

 carbon steel in which other special elements are not present 

 has little influence. Subjected to Brinell's hardness ball 

 test, a specimen of Swedish charcoal iron at normal 

 temperature had a hardness number of 90, whereas when 

 tested at about - 182° C. this increased to no less than 

 2fi6, or about equal to the hardness of o-So per cent, carbon 

 steel at normal temperature. This almost seems incredible 

 when it is remembered that this iron shows bv analysis 



NO. 1855, VOL. 72] 



9982 per cent, of iron, and normally has only 20 to 22 

 tons tenacity with 25-30 per cent, elongation. This iron 

 becomes brittle to an extraordinary degree under the in- 

 fluence of the low temperature —182° C, whereas nickel 

 tested at the same low temperature has improved rather 

 than deteriorated, not only in tenacity, which iron also 

 does, but in ductility, in which latter quality iron entirely 

 breaks down. If nickel, therefore, is present in an iron 

 alloy containing but little carbon or comparatively low in 

 that element, it acts as a preventive of brittleness, or is 

 a very considerable modifier of that objectionable quality. 

 This action of nickel is simply marvellous in certain of the 

 alloy specimens, for example, in the case of an alloy of 

 iron, carbon i-iS per cent., nickel 24-30 per cent., and 

 manganese 6-05 per cent. Here the ductility is extra- 

 ordinary at not only ordinary but low temperatures, prob- 

 ably the highest known for any iron alloy, and certainly 

 for an alloy having such tenacity as 84 tons per square 

 inch. There is still present in this alloy 68 per cent, of 

 iron, yet the tendency of the latter metaj to wander into 

 the paths of brittleness is not only entirely checked at the 

 liquid air temperature — and this brittleness, as shown so 

 clearly in this research, occurs to an extraordinary extent 

 in pure iron cooled to — 182° C. — but the elongation or 

 ductility, already so great, is considerably increased, namely, 

 from 60 per cent, to 675 per cent. There is also an in- 

 crease of tenacity in both cases, namely, a rise of from 

 10 per cent, to 38 per cent. Thus the nickel present 

 enables the bar under this high tension and at — 182° C. 

 to remain far more ductile than the very best of ductile 

 iron of one-third the tenacity. .Although the action of 

 nickel has been specially referred to, it must not be over- 

 looked that in this alloy there is also present 6 per cent, 

 of manganese, which in its ordinary combination with iron, 

 that is, with no nickel present, would confer intense brittle- 

 ness upon the iron and render it more brittle than if not 

 present. This treble combination of nickel-manganese 

 with iron appears to reverse all the known laws of iron 

 alloys. 



.\ir. J. H. Darby (Brymbo) and Mr. George Hatton 

 (Round Oak) summarised the recent developments in the 

 Bertrand-Thiel process of steel manufacture. This process, 

 which was first used in Bohemia in 1894, consists in 

 carrying out the preliminary refining in an upper open- 

 hearth furnace, and the steel-making is completed in a 

 secondary open-hearth furnace. The original plan of 

 having furnaces at different levels has not proved so satis- 

 factory as having the furnaces arranged in line with a 

 mixer at one end. Pig iron of almost any ordinary com- 

 position may be used. At Brymbo, with a highly phos- 

 phoric pig iron, seven 20-ton charges per day have been 

 atlained, and at the Hoesch works in Dortmund ten 

 charges per day have been regularly produced. 



.At the New York meeting of the Iron and Steel Insti- 

 tute, the paper read by Mr. James Gayley on the appli- 

 cation of the dry air blast created quite a sensation in the 

 iron industry. Mr. Gayley now gives, in a supplementary 

 paper, a record of operations of the Isabella furnaces at 

 Pittsburg from November, 1904, to March, 1905, showing 

 that the increased iron output and the decreased coke con- 

 sumption derived from the use of dry air were well main- 

 tained. 



The rapid development of the gas engine of recent years 

 has given special value to the gas escaping from the blast 

 furnace, previously often described as waste gas. The gas 

 leaving the blast furnace carries with it a varying amount 

 of gritty dust, which has proved a serious obstacle to the 

 successful operation of large gas engines. The various 

 methods of cleaning the gas were described in the paper 

 submitted by Mr. Axel Sahlin, who has designed a slowly 

 revolving apparatus for the purpose. 



Dr. O. Boudouard (Paris) submitted a lengthy account 

 of experiments made to determine the fusibility of blast- 

 furnace slags. He gave a chart enabling metallurgists to 

 determine the fusion temperature of a given alumino- 

 calcic silicate. The information given in this lengthy paper 

 is of great value, inasmuch as one of the most important 

 considerations in the satisfactory running of a blast furnace- 

 is a knowledge of the degree of fusibility of the slag. 



Mr. Sidney A. Houghton contributed a note on the 

 failure of an iron plate through fatigue. The plate was 



