114 Manufacture of Steel. 



Defects in the applications of chemical science to the subject of steel 



and iron. 



The various textures and qualities of iron and steel, probably in 

 most cases, owe their differences to their combination with different 

 foreign substances, or with the same foreign substances in different 

 proportions. How happens it, sir, that this subject is so little under- 

 stood ? Can it for a moment be believed that the powers of modern 

 chemistry are inadequate to discover the nature of these combina- 

 tions, and the means by which they may be effected, varied, modi- 

 fied, or prevented at pleasure ? When we see the chemist, almost 

 without hope of reward, seizing with avidity on some new body just 

 brought down from the skies, or up from the inmost recesses of nature, 

 summoning to his aid all his powers of analysis and synthesis ; (I had 

 almost said, of annihilation and reproduction,) dividing and subdi- 

 viding it into all its chemical constituents ; ultimately detecting in it 

 as the cause of its novelty, some thousandth of a grain of a substance 

 hitherto unknown ; then operating upon this until he has determined 

 its specific gravity, its chemical affinities, the ratio of its chemical 

 combinations, and even measured the angles of its primitive particles, 

 — I say, w4ien we see all this refinement of investigation, so freely 

 bestowed on bodies unknown in the arts, is it not surprising that the 

 causes, which so essentially modify the properties of iron and steel, 

 should still remain almost unknown ; and that the art of manufactur- 

 ing them, which, of all others, should be based on chemical science, 

 should still continue almost in the state of mere empyricism. 



Scintillation of siecl — inflammation of gunpowder. 



You inquire, sir, if we have ever tried whedier gunpowder will 

 fire in the sparks from our polishing wheels.* We have tried the 

 experiment, and find that when coarse emery is used on the wheels, 

 it will be fired at any distance to Avhich the sparks extend ; but 

 when very fine emery is used, a stream of innumerable sparks may 

 be poured upon coarse gunpowder without inflaming it. The same 

 powder, hov/ever, on being finely pulverized, will be readily inflamed 



* The polishing- wheels rcferreil to, are of vaiious sizes and kinds, from large grind- 

 slones on which the gun hanels are ground, to small wheels, covered with oiled 

 leather and armed with emery powder; all these wheels are moved with great ra- 

 pidity by strong water power, and when the steel articles aie held upon them, there 

 is a splendid corruscalion of innumerable sparks laying oQ' iu tangent lines, which 

 follow one another with such rapidity, that tlie wheel is constantly surrounded ivith 

 a glory. — Ed. 



