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SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Aug. 31, 1888. 



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IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE. 

 The autumnal meeting of this Institute was opened at 

 Edinburgh on the 21st inst. by the Lord Provost, who said 

 that on the part of the Municipality he had the greatest 

 pleasure in giving them a very hearty welcome to the 

 ancient city of Edinburgh. His predecessor in office was 

 once asked what was the principal industry of Edinburgh. 

 He (the late Sir George Harrison) answered that it was 

 education. If that was true at the time in question it 

 was still more true now ; and Edinburgh was a great 

 resort from all parts of the world for educational pur- 

 poses. What he would like particularly to bring before 

 them was this, that in all their large schools in the city 

 technical education formed a very important part of the 

 instruction. He did not know that there was a large 

 school in Edinburgh, either private or public, in which 

 there was not a very large technical department, and 

 during the last two or three years the old institution of 

 Heriot's Hospital — a building which, he was sure, those 

 of them who were strangers to Edinburgh would be glad 

 to see, as being not only notable architecturally, but edu- 

 cationally — had been re-modelled, and in unison with 

 the Watt College combination, had added very much to 

 the technical instruction carried on in the city. First of 

 all and foremost, however, they had now a Professorship 

 of Engineering in the University, and, fortunately, also, 

 they had a Professor of Engineering who devoted all his 

 energies to the advancement of engineering. Quite re- 

 cently, he was glad to say, Professor Armstrong had 

 been fortunate enough to obtain a very large legacy 

 from a citizen of Edinburgh, who lately died ; and he had 

 no doubt that, in a short time, and through that legacy, 

 the material used in the department for the purposes of 

 instruction would be augmented in a very important 

 manner. 



After Mr. Daniel Adamson, the President, bad replied 

 on behalf of the members of the Council and of the mem- 

 bers present, the members adjourned to the Examination 

 Hall, where the business of the Institute was conducted. 



The President, on taking his seat, said that in the first 

 place the Council had unanimously chosen Sir James 

 Kitson, of Leeds, to be the president of the Institute 

 for the two succeeding years. He thought it was a 

 fitting thing that a gentleman connected with the old 

 Yorkshire iron industry should be appointed to that 

 position. The members would be interested in learning 

 that the autumnal meeting of 1889 was to be held in 

 Paris. 



After the minutes of the last meeting had been read 

 and approved, the President read a paper — " On a hori- 

 zontal compound lever testing machine of 15,000 powers, 

 with further recording lever of 15,000 powers." The 

 machine was composed of one strong box framing, and 

 being self-contained, only required a very light founda- 

 tion, the object being more especially to prevent vibra- 

 tion, which might destroy the high sensitiveness of the 

 machine when testing with great delicacy. The quad- 

 ruple levers are enclosed in a box having glass sides, so 

 that the operation might be seen, and in order to note the 

 force by the floating weights on the fourth or registering 

 lever. After giving a technical description of this 

 valuable machine, Mr. Adamson concluded by saying 



that he did not claim to be the author of the multiple 

 lever testing machine. In the earliest investigations, a 

 single lever was used, the load being measured by sus- 

 pending 561b. weights, and when the full load was put on 

 the specimen instant rupture followed, the load not being 

 capable of being reduced as the breaking elongation took 

 place. This latter principle was made known by him in 

 a paper which he read before this Institute at Paris in 

 1878. The American " Emery" machine now being ex- 

 hibited in London was also a multiple lever apparatus, 

 but it had two hydraulic chambers with reducing areas, 

 as 1 is to 20 — the lever system being as 1 is to 20,000 — 

 making the total ratio of the hydraulic chambers and the 

 lever system together as 1 is to 400,000 ; and it was re- 

 ported that the motion of one-millionth of an inch on 

 the specimen produced a motion of the indicator rod o 

 four-tenths of an inch. This high indicating power would 

 be found of great value in noting the amount of force neces- 

 sary to produce permanent set. The earlier tests made 

 by Mr. Kirkaldy, in Glasgow, were with a single lever 

 machine, but he no doubt saw the necessity of greater 

 accuracy and higher refinement. Mr. Adamson believed 

 that Mr. Kirkaldy was the first to adopt the multiple lever 

 system, and his tests were taken as the standards of 

 accuracy by the whole of the professional community. 



Sir Lowthian Bell (who presided during the discussion 

 on Mr. Adamson's paper) said his recollections of the 

 iron industry of West Yorkshire extended back for many 

 years. In those early times no manufacturer thought of 

 employing a testing machine on his own premises. 

 Now, however, it was necessary for a manufacturer of 

 any pretentions to have such a machine. The qualifica- 

 tions of testing machines involved not only great accu- 

 racy of performance, but, owing to the amount of work to 

 be done by them, they must be of such a construction as 

 to enable those entrusted with them to do the greatest 

 amount of work in the shortest possible time. He be- 

 lieved that no one had contributed to popularise the use 

 of testing machines more than Mr. Adamson. 



Mr. R. A. Hadfield (Sheffield) then read a paper on 

 manganese steel. He said that it would hardly have 

 been thought probable that the ordinary properties and 

 nature of the metal iron could be so completely changed 

 as it is now known to be by its alloy with a second 

 metal, manganese. This new steel had drawbacks that 

 at present interfered with its usefulness and commercial 

 introduction. The chief one met with was its hardness. 

 The majority of articles used in machine construction of 

 any kind must be tooled, fitted, or adjusted to shape, 

 and this was almost out of the question with this mate- 

 rial — in fact, in its machining it might be described as 

 equal to the hardness of chilled iron. No doubt, by 

 experiments and perseverance, this and other difficulties 

 would be overcome, and possibly this very drawback 

 might eventually prove a blessing in disguise, inasmuch 

 as should some better method of machining or finishing 

 be perfected it should be equally beneficial to all 

 branches of engineering. He briefly described the early 

 history of manganese, ferro-manganese, and the manu- 

 facture of ordinary steel, observing how much the world 

 at large has been indebted to the early experimentalists 

 with that now all-important metal manganese. Mr. 

 Hadfield described in detail the experiments on man- 

 ganese steel, remarking that this material is not so liable 

 to honeycombs as ordinary steel, and the addition of 

 silicon is unnecessary. It is very fluid, and can be run 

 into thin sections, but cools more rapidly than ordinary 





