eerie 
1871.] 157 [Lesley. 
North Carolina Blooms made into Steel by the Martin’s Process. 
In January, 1871, Mr. A. A. Fesquét assisted at the conversion of ten 
tons of North Carolina blooms into steel, at Cooper & Hewitt’s Works, 
Trenton, N. J. 
The blooms were some of the first made at the Tuscarora Forge fires, 
rough and variable in size and quality, and weighing from 150 to 225 lbs. 
Mr. Fesquét thus reports ; 
The Siemens-Martin’s Process consists in mixing steel scraps with pig 
iron. The Carbon of the pig iron reduces the iron oxidized by the flames; 
keeping watch, as it were, over it, and preventing the perpetually forming 
oxide of iron from forming a cinder with the silica of the furnace 
lining. 
The charge being melted, it remains exposed to the flame until, and 
even after, all the carbon is burned off. 
The exact moment is known by a series of samples being taken out, 
hammered and bent, hot. 
If the samples be red short, Franklinite iron is added to restore enough 
carbon to remove the oxygen from the iron. 
After one or two stirrings the metal is run into moulds. 
The North Carolina blooms took the place of the steel scrap. The cast 
iron used was West Cumberland (English) pig, nearly free from sulphur 
and phosphorus, and with enough silicon and carbon to fit it for Besse- 
mer use. 
At the moment of complete decarburation asample was taken. It was 
slightly red short. An analysis showed that the red-shortness was due 
to a minute proportion of oxide of iron and cinder, which had not been 
expelled because of the pasty condition of the decarburetted metal. Per- 
centage of carbon less than 1-1000th part. 
Franklinite was added; the metal became fluid, and was run into 
moulds. 
The ingots were sound, and presented large crystals, of a clean gray 
color. 
A sample from one was perfectly malleable, without a trace of hot or 
cold shortness, without a flaw, and homogeneous to all appearances. The 
large crystals were céndensed under the hammer. The fracture was 
not jagged, and resembled that of cast steel of some degree of condensa- 
tion and hardness. 
In a word, this steel was malleable, homogeneous and tough, like the 
best steel produced in any other way. af 
Tried at the forge fire (by the same workman), it seemed to bear more 
heat for welding and hardening than will the ordinary steel (with a gor- 
responding proportion of carbon). 
Less carbon is necessary in the case of titanium steel than in the case 
of common steel, to arrive at the same hardness. 
In the rolls, this steel manifested no difficulties, according to the testi- 
mony of Mr. Slade of the Trenton Works. : 
Waste: Three operations, 14,152 lbs. of metal inall; waste, 13.5 per cent., 
