ADIRONDACK MAGNETIC IRON ORES 1 53 



nation for this may be found possibly in the introduction of the mag- 

 netite and ilmenite after the congealing of the walls, the silicates 

 representing material that was caught up during the progress of 

 the iron magma toward the surface. 



Commercial utilization of the titaniferous ores 



The use of ores containing high percentages of titanium is gen- 

 erally regarded as impracticable under present furnace practice. 

 They have been smelted, however, on a small scale in England and 

 Sweden, as well as in the Adirondack^, under conditions approach- 

 ing those of today, but the operations were short-lived and prob- 

 ably financially unsuccessful. It has been frequently suggested 

 that the difficulties they present in the blast furnace might be over- 

 come by adopting some changes either of furnace construction or of 

 metallurgical process, but there has been, in the past, very little 

 incentive to a practical investigation of the subject. The experi- 

 ments by Rossi carried out in 1892 comprise about all that has been 

 done along that line since the early work above mentioned. 



The objection to the use of titaniferous ores in the blast furnace 

 is based upon the infusibility of their slags. They yield a good 

 quality of iron which contains only a slight trace of titanium. This 

 element enters mostly into the slag, and with the employment of 

 fluxes in ordinary proportions forms a viscous mass that adheres 

 to the furnace walls and can not be readily withdrawn, while accu- 

 mulations of the infusible nitro-cyanide of titanium also compli- 

 cate the operation. Rossi sought to overcome the difficulty by 

 proportioning the fluxes (quartz and limestone) so as to obtain 

 compounds, mainly multiple-titanates, into which the titanium 

 entered as a chemical constituent approximating the structure of 

 the more fusible known titanates. ' By working with a small labora- 

 tory furnace, ores running as high as 20 per cent Ti0 2 were reduced, 

 with a production of pig iron and a fluid of slag. The experiments 

 have not been repeated, so far as known, on a commercial scale. 



It is not unlikely that a solution of the problem of dealing with 

 the ores may be found by reducing the amount of titanium before 

 entering the furnace. The small amount of the element found in 

 most Adirondack magnetites now mined seems to have no note- 

 worthy influence upon the smelting process. Furnaces have been 

 run upon ores containing two or three per cent of titanium with- 

 out serious trouble, and under special circumstances even larger- 

 percentages have been handled. There would thus seem to be 

 some room for adjusting the difficulity, either by mixing the ores, 

 with others that are nontitaniferous or by concentration. 



