ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 119 



will be far more simple and less expensive to make several bars or rails from a sin- 

 gle ingot. Doubtless this would have been done long ago, had not the whole pro- 

 cess been limited by the size of the ball which the puddler could make. I wish 

 to call the attention of the Meeting to some of the peculiarities which distinguish 

 cast steel from all other forms of iron — namely, the perfect homogeneous charac- 

 ter of the metal, the entire absence of sand cracks or flaws, and its great cohesive 

 force and elasticity, as compared with the blister steel from which it is made — 

 qualities which it derives solely from its fusion and formation into ingots, all of 

 which properties malleable iron acquires in a like manner by its fusion and form- 

 ation into ingots in the new process ; nor' must it be forgotten that no amount of 

 rolling will give to blister steel (although formed of rolled bars) the same homo- 

 geneous character that cast steel acquires by a mere extension of the ingot to some 

 ten or twelve times its original length. One of the most important facts connect- 

 ed with the new system of manufacturing malleable iron is, that all the iron so 

 produced will be of that quality known as charcoal iron ; not that any charcoal is 

 used in its manufacture, but because the whole of the processes following the 

 smelting of it are conducted entirely without contact with, or the use of any mineral 

 fuel ; the iron resulting therefrom will in consequence be perfectly free from those 

 injurious properties which that description of fuel never fails to impart to iron 

 that is brought under its influence. At the same time this system of manufactur- 

 ing malleable iron offers extraordinary facility for making large shafts, cranks, and 

 other heavy masses. It will be obvious that any weight of metal that can be 

 founded in ordinary cast iron by the means at present at our disposal may also be 

 founded in molten malleable iron, to be wrought into the forms and shapes re- 

 quired, provided that we increase the size and power of our machinery to the 

 extent necessary to deal with such large masses of metal. A few minutes' reflec- 

 tion will show the great anomaly presented by the scale on which the consecutive 

 processes of iron making are at present carried on. The little furnaces originally 

 used for smelting ore have been from time to time increased in size until they have 

 assumed colossal proportions, and are made to operate on two or three hundred 

 tons of materials at a time, giving out ten tons of fluid metal at a single run_ 

 The manufacturer has thus gone on increasing the size of his smelting furnaces, and 

 adapting to their use the blast apparatus of the requisite proportions, and. has by 

 this means lessened the cost of production in every way. His large furnaces require 

 a great deal less labor to produce a given weight of iron than would have been 

 required to produce it with a dozen furnaces ; and in like manner he diminishes 

 his cost of fuel, blast and repairs, while he insures a uniformity in the result that 

 never could have been arrived at by the use of a multiplicity of small furnaces. 

 While the manufacturer has shown himself fully alive to these advantages, he ha a 

 still been under the necessity of leaving the succeeding operations to be carried 

 out on a scale wholly at variance with the principles he has found so advantageous 

 in the smelting department. It is true that hitherto no better method was known 

 than the puddling process, in which from 4001b. to 500 lb weight of iron is all 

 that can be operated upon at a time ; and even this small quantity is divided into 

 homoeopathic doses of some 10 lb. or 80 lb., each of which is moulded ami fashioned 

 by human labor, and carefully watched and tended in the furnace, aud removed 

 therefrom one at a time, to be carefully manipulated aud squeezed into form. 

 "When Ave consider the vast extent of the manufacture, and the gigantic scale on 

 which the early stages of the process is conducted, it is astonishing that no effort 



