152 Progress of Invention. 



which is excited bv a current that is made to traverse the iron 

 while in a state of fusion. Numerous gas bubbles are produced, 

 and the resulting iron is harder and more tenacious than what is 

 manufactured in the ordinary way. 



Application of Sulphuret of Carbon to the Exteaction of 

 Oleaginous Matters on the Large Scale. — In France there are 

 two great sources of waste of oleaginous and fatty substances. 

 Vast quantities of oil remain in the olives, however much they 

 may be pressed ; and enormous quantities of soap, after having 

 been used in the silk manufactories, pass off into the rivers and are 

 lost. Both these sources of waste are now about to cease, on 

 account of the industrial applications of sulphuret of carbon — a 

 substance which possesses an extraordinary power of taking up 

 fatty matters, from which it is separated with great facility by 

 distillation. As long as it was dear, its application in this way was 

 impossible; from improved methods of manufacture it is. now 

 become extremely cheap ; and almost none of it is lost during its 

 application even on the large scale. The sulphuret of carbon is 

 allowed to flow through the olives, partially exhausted by pressure, 

 to a still, whence it passes to a new quantity of olives ; the process 

 being continuous, and so perfect that the very presence of the sul- 

 phuret is not to be perceived in the establishment. The olives, 

 completely exhausted by the sulphuret, are far more effective as 

 manure than those from which the oil has been only imperfectly 

 separated. Applied to a saving of the soap refuse of the silk 

 manufactories, several thousands of tons of that valuable material 

 will be recovered annually. Large quantities of the regenerated 

 soap have already come into use. 



Further Utilization of Aluminium Bronze. — Bronze containing 

 ten per cent, aluminium and ninety per cent, copper, has been found 

 to possess the invaluable property of being almost indestructible in 

 the working parts of machinery exposed to great wear and tear. 

 This is illustrated by a purpose to which it has recently been 

 applied in France. Paper, and especially when coated with dried 

 gum, is rapidly destructive of the best cutting instruments, and the 

 parts of the machine connected with them. Holes for rendering 

 French postage-stamps easily separable, one from another, are made 

 by an instrument having three hundred needles, that descend 

 through the five layers of postage-stamps lying under them into 

 holes which have been carefully made in a steel plate placed 

 beneath. In one day, the steel plate is worn to such a degree that 

 afterwards, instead of the holes being punched in the paper, the 

 latter is merely crumpled into the holes in the plate, and more or 

 less injured. A plate of aluminium bronze having been substituted 

 for the steel plate, it was found to last for fifteen hundred days 

 without requiring any repair, having received daily one hundred 

 and twenty thousand blows. Hitherto the utility of aluminium bronze 

 was limited by the difficulty with which it was soldered ; ordinary 

 solder does not answer for the purpose. It has, however, been 

 found, that one piece of aluminium bronze may be easily and firmly 

 united to another, or to iron, either cast or malleable, by means of 



