December 27, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



433 



when satisfactory, could not be duplicated under former manage- 

 ment with certainty as to the result. 



" All this is now changed ; and the results are so uniform and 

 certain, that, with a few hours of instruction in the manipulation 

 of the apparatus, an ordinary laborer, with no technical education 

 and with average intelligence, can secure results with entire uni- 

 formity. 



" Dr. Gesner soon discerned that one of the chief defects in the 

 former treatment arose from the fact that the steam superheated 

 in a separate furnace, and conducted by pipes into the retort, was 

 invariably cooled to the extent of several hundred degrees before 

 admission, and came in contact with the heated iron at a much 

 lower temperature. 



" To remedy this defect and insure absolute uniformity of tem- 

 perature between the iron and the superheated steam at the instant 

 of contact, a peculiar but very simple form of superheater was de- 

 vised, and inserted in the retort itself. The result was entirely 

 satisfactory ; and, after a number of experiments by him to de- 

 termine the conditions necessary to insure the best treatment, the 

 works were turned over to an employee, who has since operated 

 them with uniform results. 



" The plant now in operation is located at East Port Chester, 

 near the extensive foundery of Abendroth Brothers, and consists of 

 _ twelve vertical retorts with a capacity for the treatment of about 

 twenty tons per day of the Gesner sanitary soil-pipe. The time 

 required for each charge is about two hours. 



" After the pipes have been lowered into the retorts by means of a 

 traveller, the retorts are closed for about fifteen minutes, until the 

 contents are heated to the proper temperature. Steam from a 

 boiler at sixty pounds pressure is then introduced into the super- 

 heater, which it traverses, and from which it escapes at the tem- 

 perature of the iron, upon which it acts for about one hour. A 

 measured quantity of some hydrocarbon is then admitted with a 

 jet of steam, followed again by a fixing-bath of superheated steam, 

 which completes the process. 



" The most extraordinary feature of the operation is that, as 

 Professor Gesner positively asserts, there is no pressure in the 

 retort, and no free explosive gases. The water-seals attached to 

 the retorts show only slight oscillations, but not an inch of press- 

 ure ; and when the covers are removed, and air admitted, there is 

 no explosion, as there always is when free hydrogen or carbonic 

 oxide are present, and as there always was before Professor Ges- 

 ner took charge. 



" The absence of pressure and of explosive gases is a proof that 

 all the operations have been so nicely regulated as regards material 

 used, quantity, and time of application, that a perfect absorption 

 and union of the carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen with the iron has 

 been effected. 



" The protection thus afforded to the iron is not a mere coating, 

 like paint, but an actual conversion, to a greater or less depth, into 

 a new material, just as, in the process of case-hardening, iron is 

 converted into steel. When properly treated, this material does 

 not seem to be detachable by pounding, bending, hammering, roll- 

 ing, or heating. The pipes treated at Port Chester have been im- 

 mersed in baths of dilute sulphuric acid, and exposed to the salt 

 air for weeks without change, while untreated pipes were quickly 

 covered with red oxide or with sulphate of iron. 



" The exact chemical composition of the material produced by 

 this treatment has not been reported upon by Professor Gesner, 

 but it is probably a carbide, hydride, and superoxide of iron. This 

 would seem to be a necessary result, if, as is stated, the retorts 

 when opened contained no free gases, neither hydrogen, oxygen, 

 nor carbonic oxide. As these gases are necessarily formed, their 

 disappearance can only be explained on the theory that they have 

 combined with the iron, forming the three compounds of super- 

 oxide, plumbago, and the alloy of hydrogen and iron, for which 

 Professor Gesner has proposed the name of ' hydron.' 



" The plant now in operation at Port Chester has been designed 

 simply for cast-iron soil-pipe, but Professor Gesner is preparing 

 plans for a more extensive plant for the treatment of wrought iron 

 and steel, to be erected at South Brooklyn. 



" In the application of this process, each specialty will require a 

 plant adapted to it, and a series of experiments to determine the 



exact conditions as to temperature, quantity, kind, duration, etc., 

 to secure the best results, after which they can be duplicated indefi- 

 nitely with any ordinary intelligence. 



" The question is often asked, ' What is the effect of this treat- 

 ment upon the tensile strength of the material? ' This can only be 

 answered by direct tests ; but if the new material should not 

 possess the tensile strength of the untreated iron, as in wires or 

 rods, compensation can be secured by a slight increase in diameter. 

 It is certain that in some specimens the treatment has increased the 

 toughness and strength by the annealing process to which the ma- 

 terial is subjected. Sheet iron of poor quality, that would break 

 by bending, has been rendered tough and pliable. 



" The cost of the process is said to be about one-fourth of that 

 of galvanizing, while the durability under similar conditions prom- 

 ises to be greatly extended." 



SUPPOSED SHOWERS OF METEORITES IN THE DES- 

 ERT OF ATACAMA. 



It is now universally acknowledged, says a correspondent of 

 Nature, that meteorites come from outer space, and that shooting- 

 stars, whatever they are, have an extra-terrestrial origin. It is 

 further asserted that a meteoritic fireball and a shooting-star are 

 only varieties of one phenomenon. Indeed, after it is once 

 granted that a meteoritic fireball is produced by the passage 

 through the terrestrial atmosphere of a dense body entering it 

 with planetary velocity from without, and jhat shooting-stars have 

 an extra-terrestrial origin, it is a very fair assumption that a shoot- 

 ing-star is likewise a dense body rendered luminous during its at- 

 mospheric flight. 



One great objection to this assertion is, that again and again 

 showers of hundreds of thousands of shooting-stars have taken 

 place, during which no heavy body has been observed to reach the 

 earth's surface. The only known case of the arrival of a meteorite 

 during a shooting-star shower was that of Mazapil, on Nov. 27, 

 1885, and that single coincidence may possibly be the result of acci- 

 dent. A sufficient explanation of this difficulty, however, is to be 

 found in the small size of the individuals which produce the ap- 

 pearance of a shooting-star shower. That the individuals are 

 really minute is proved by the fact, that, while the total mass of a 

 large swarm, like that producing theNovember meteors, is so small 

 that there is no perceptible influence on the motion of the planets, 

 the number of separate individuals is almost infinite. It is estab- 

 lished that the Leonid swarm must be hundreds of millions of 

 miles in length, and some hundreds of thousands of miles in thick- 

 ness ; and in the densest part of the Bielid swarm, passed through 

 in 1885, the average distance of the individuals from each other 

 was about twenty miles. 



Further, it is now acknowledged that comets are themselves me- 

 teoritic swarms, and Mr. Lockyer has lately brought forward spec- 

 troscopic evidence that the fixed stars and the nebulas are similar 

 to comets in their constitution. 



The question therefore immediately presents itself, is the size of 

 a meteoritic shower, on reaching the earth's surface, ever compara- 

 ble with that of a meteoritic swarm, as manifested by a shower of 

 shooting-stars .' 



During the present century nearly three hundred meteoritic falls 

 on the earth's surface have been observed, and on only a single 

 date, namely, Aug. 25, 1865, has there been observed a fall on two 

 distant parts of the earth on the same day. On that date stones 

 fell at Aumale in Algeria, and at Sherghotty in India ; but as the 

 times of fall differed by about eight hours, and the stones arrived 

 from different directions, it is more than probable that the coinci- 

 dence of date was accidental. 



The most convincing proof of the actuality of such showers is 

 furnished by the masses which have been found in the valley of 

 Toluca, in Mexico. Their existence had been chronicled as early 

 as the year 1784, yet in 1856 it was still possible to collect as many 

 as sixty-nine.' Belonging, as they do, to a single type, they lead to 

 the conviction that they are the result of a single shower. But the 

 region over which the fall took place is not large : the length of it 

 is said to have been only about fourteen miles. 



