SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, MAY 29, 1891. 



PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF SIR FREDERICK ABEL OF 

 THE IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE. 



The address of Sir Frederick Abel, the new president of the Iron 

 and Steel Institute. London, at its annual meeting in the early part 

 of this month, as reported in Engineering, is full of interest. Sir 

 Frederick -went back to the date of his first labors in connection 

 with the iron and steel industry, when, as he said, those in Eng- 

 land who could appraise at their proper value the services which 

 the analytical and scientific chemist could render to the ironmas- 

 ter and manufacturer of steel could be counted upon one's fingers. 

 Shortly before the outbreak of the Russian war, Su- Frederick suc- 

 ceeded the illustrious Faraday in the professorship of chemistry at 

 the Royal Military Academy. The metallurgical operations in 

 the arsenal were then limited to the production of small castings 

 of brass for the fittings of gun carriages, and to the casting of 

 bronze ordnance for field service, which had been carried on at a 

 foundery in Moorfields until 1716, when the services of an experi- 

 enced Dutch founder, Andreas Schalch, were secured by the gov- 

 ernment, and a foundery for brass ordnance was established in the 

 Warren at Woolwich, afterwards named the Royal Arsenal. The 

 supplies of cast-iron ordnance for siege and naval use were drawn 

 fi'om a very few of the most renowned iron works, such as Carron, 

 Low Moor, and Gospel Oak, and shot and shell were exclusively 

 supplied from private works. The president next went on to 

 draw a comparison between the old cast-iron smooth-bore ordnance 

 of those days and the elaborate steel breech-loading weapons of 

 the present time. 



During the Crimean War more than one disastrous experience 

 with some armaments, supplied by contract during great pressure, 

 led to the adoption of the proposal to establish government foun- 

 deries and factories in the arsenal for the production of guns and 

 projectiles, and it was with the view of selecting suitable varieties 

 of cast-iron for the production of ordnance and projectiles that a 

 very extensive analytical examination of ores, fuel, and fluxes, 

 and^f samples of u-on produced from these at various works in 

 the United Kingdom, was carried out under Sir Frederick's direc- 

 tion in 1856-58, together with a series of mechanical experiments 

 with the metal cast under conditions practically identical, and 

 cooled in various ways. 



The president next referred to the confusion arising from the 

 different methods of analysis pursued in the determinations of the 

 proportions of alloys in a sample of iron, and gave some particu- 

 lars of what had been done to bring uniformity in this respect 

 between the chemists of various countries. The consideration of 

 this subject was first prominently brought forward at the Bath 

 meeting of the British Association in 1888 at the instigation of 

 Professor J. W. Langley of Michigan University, who reported 

 that he had, in conjunction with Professor Herman Wedding and 

 Professor Akerman, considered a general plan of operations hav- 

 ing for its object the promotion of greater uniformity in analysis 

 in the countries which are the principal producers and users of 

 iron and steel; the proposal being to prepare a series of absolutely 

 identical samples, to distribute these for analysis among highly 

 qualified operators selected in different countries, the results being 

 afterwards compared, and to deposit portions of the samples in 

 those countries as international standards, which might be utilized 

 at any time for testing or controlling the accuracy of individual 

 work, in cases of importance, or for testing the value' of new 

 analytical processes. It was decided by the association to appoint 

 a committee of English experts to co-operate with Professor 

 Langley and his associates in other countries, and this committee 



prppared a number of suggestions with reference to the prepara- 

 tion of a series of five samples of steel, containing, as nearly as 

 possible, specified total proportions of carbon ranging from 1.3 to 

 0.07 per cent; the samples to be sufficiently large, after providing 

 material for the required analyses by the selected referees, to allow 

 of the disposition of about ten pounds of each standard in each of 

 the different countries interested ; the samples to be subdivided 

 into series of small specimens, hermetically sealed in glass tubes, 

 so that portions should be available for supply to applicants with- 

 out detriment to the remainder of the samples. These suggestions 

 were approved, and have been acted upon as closely as possible, 

 the material for the standards and the mechanical work hav- 

 ing been supplied gratuitously by the Crescent Steel Works of 

 Pittsburgh. The samples were despatched to their several desti- 

 nations in the summer of 1889, and the experts selected for the 

 conduct of their analysis in England have almost completed the 

 work assigned to them. 



The address next referred to the method of examination of iron 

 and steel introduced by Dr. Sorby, consisting of microscopic in- 

 spection of prepared sections of metal after treatment with weak 

 acid. Faraday and Stodart had formerly proceeded upon some- 

 what similar lines. Dr. Wedding states that Sorby's system is 

 continually extending at the German works, and that many series 

 of experiments have demonstrated that by this system of exami- 

 nations characteristic features of grades of iron may be discovered, 

 physical differences co-existing with identity of chemical compo- 

 sition explained, and evidences of the true grounds of disasters 

 obtained. The president also referred to his own labors in a simi- 

 lar direction, in connection with his inquiry into the erosive action 

 of the powder gases, when he showed, in a paper read before the 

 institute, that the development of structure of smooth surfaces of 

 slices of the metal composing the barrels with which experiments 

 were carried out by the very slow solvent action which a chromic 

 acid solution exercises, afforded valuable evidence, attainable by 

 simple inspection, of the comparative amount of work or mechani- 

 cal treatment to which the different steel forgings had been sub- 

 jected, and which was demonstrated to affect very importantly 

 the amount of resistance opposed by the surface of the gun's bore 

 to the erosive effects of powder gases. This method of examina- 

 tion, and the production of photographic records of the results, 

 had, however, already been made use of by Sir Frederick twenty- 

 six years ago, at the time when the government first entered upon 

 experiments with projectiles of wrought iron and of steel, for use 

 against armor-plates; and he exhibited some photographs of small 

 plates of metal, exhibiting the effect of the chromic solution re- 

 ferred to, which were attached to a report made by him to the 

 Ordnance Committee in 1865. 



Sir Frederick Abel also referred to the microscopic method pur- 

 sued by M. Osmond in connection with the Le Chatelier pyrometer. 



The development of cracks in stored steel projectiles next occu- 

 pied the president's attention. Previously to 1865 this then new 

 phenomenon had been the subject of an official report he had 

 made. Up to the present day this difficulty has not been alto- 

 gether overcome, and in the case of built-up steel guns the troubles 

 arising through internal strains due to hardening or tempering 

 have taxed the powers of some of our most eminent scientific 

 and practical authorities. The difficulties which had to be en- 

 countered by manufacturers in the production of solid projectiles 

 on the molecular stability of which reliance could be placed, was 

 illustrated by a statement made by an eminent firm, then already 

 possessed of considerable experience in this special manufacture, 

 to the effect that although they were then successful in tempering 

 steel shot without difficulty — by cooling them uniformly both 

 externally and internally — this result had been preceded by many 

 failures. The successful manufacture, within the last five or six 



