TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 193 
tinuous and simple process. Five or more puddled balls were put together into a 
large bloom, under a very heavy steam-hammer, shingled down into a bloom, 
passed for a short time through a heating-furnace, and rolled off into finished iron 
not more than half an hour after the iron left the puddling-furnace. Specimens of 
iron made by the process were exhibited. A great saying in the cost of manufac- 
ture was represented by this process in all departments of the manufacture of 
finished iron; and it was calculated that a saving of 1,500,000 tons of coal alone 
would result from the general application of this system. Particular stress was 
laid upon the fact that, in carrying out this process, no extensive or expensive 
alteration of existing works was required, and a saving of from 3: to 4 cwt. of 
puddled iron would be secured upon each ton of finished rails or plates now turned 
out, the cost of making malleable iron being reduced to a very considerable extent. 
The importance of the whole question, in a national point of view, was also dwelt 
upon. 
On the recent Progress of Steel Manufacture. By Ferpryanp Koun. 
The author had, at the previous Meeting at Dundee, drawn attention to a pro- 
cess of manufacturing steel upon the open hearth of a Siemens’s furnace by the 
mutual reaction of pig iron and wrought iron upon each other—a process which 
had at that time commenced to gain ground upon the Continent, but had not been 
brought into commercial practice in this country. This process, which had been 
named the Martin process by its inventors, Messrs. E. and P. Martin, in Paris, 
should, in justice to both the inventors to whom its success was due, obtain the 
name Siemens-Martin process. 
The Siemens-Martin process had within this last year been brought into opera- 
tion in this country at the Newport Steel Works, in Middleborough-on-Tees, be- 
longing to the well-known firm of Messrs. Samuelson and Co.; and it had been 
worked with great regularity and with very satisfactory results, employing in a 
very considerable proportion the puddled iron from the Cleveland district as the 
raw material. The Siemens-Martin process realized the old idea of melting 
wrought iron in a bath of liquid pig iron, and thereby converting the whole mass 
into steel. The principal elements of its successful operation, and the points which 
distinguish it from all previous unsuccessful attempts, are the high tempera- 
ture and the neutral or non-oxidizing flame of the regenerative gas-furnace, and 
the method of charging the decarburized iron into the bath of pig iron in mea- 
sured quantities, which are added at regular intervals, so that each following 
charge in melting or being dissolved increases the quantity and the dissolving 
power of the bath until the stage of complete decarburization is arrived at. The 
operation is then completed by the addition of pig iron containing manganese ; 
and by regulating the quantity of that addition, any desired degree of hardness 
could be obtained with certainty. The prime cost of the Siemens-Martin steel did 
not exceed that of Bessemer steel, made from hematite iron in this country. The 
author did not apprehend any danger for the Bessemer process from the competi- 
tion of this new mode of steel manufacture, which, working with different raw 
materials, could only assist and stimulate the Bessemer process and the spread of 
steel manufacture in general. 
On the Abrading and Transporting Power of Water. By T. Loctn, F.R.S.E. 
On the Necessity for further Experimental Knowledge respecting the Propulsion 
of Ships. By Cuartes W. Merrirmxp, F.R.S. 
The author began with a short review of what was already known on the sub- 
ject of the law of the resistance to which a ship was subjected by its having to 
force its way through the water. The author showed that although there was a 
general consent that the resistance varied, with a certain degree of approximation, 
according to the law of the square of the velocity, yet there was abundant proof 
that that law was inexact, and that the nature and causes of this discrepancy, 
although much discussed, were still in need of experimental determination. He 
1868. 13 
