1870.] Metallurgy. 559 



phorus renders iron brittle when it is hot ; the presence of sulphur 

 renders it brittle when it is cold. The pigs containing both were 

 worth in the market about 21. 5s. a ton. By Sir Antonio's process 

 the sulphur and the phosphorus is said to be extracted at a cost of 

 about 35s. a ton, and the residual iron is described as " superb." 

 One of the pieces exhibited is stated to have been beaten cold to the 

 thinness of writing paper at one end, drawn to a point at the other, 

 and then twisted by hand eight turns in an inch at a single heating. 

 Massive bars are said to have been beaten cold until the surfaces on 

 each side of the bend came into perfect contact, and a plate six inches 

 wide and half an inch thick to have been beaten till its edges were 

 in contact, the flat surface remaining horizontal. In neither case 

 was there any trace of a flaw, either at the convexity of the curve, 

 where the metal was stretched, or at the concavity, where it was 

 compressed. Holes in a thick plate are labelled as having been 

 enlarged by driving cones into them, and, in a word, the iron is 

 described as having been knocked about in every possible way. At 

 a very low estimate it is affirmed to be worth lil. a ton, and as 

 there is plenty of the raw material to be had, the profit of the 

 invention seems likely to be great. 



A remarkable steel casting was made recently at the works of 

 Messrs. Thomas Firth and Sons, Sheffield, which deserves a record. 

 This casting is to form the shaft of the screw of the Dublin Steam- 

 Packet Company's vessel ' Munster,' and is about 15 feet in length 

 by nearly 4 feet in diameter, and weighs over fifteen tons. This is 

 one of the largest blocks of steel ever cast in this country. 



The work of melting commenced about eight o'clock, in no 

 fewer than five hundred and forty-four crucibles, each containing 

 64 lbs. — the total quantity of steel being 34,816 lbs. At half-past 

 twelve the work of casting began, and was rapidly completed, by 

 the joint and perfectly organized action of 300 men. This metal- 

 lurgical operation was a perfect triumph of mechanical skill. 



The enormous difficulty and expense caused by the ever- accu- 

 mulating mountains of slag produced by iron furnaces worked on 

 the modern scale, often amounting to as much as 60 tons per furnace 

 per day, has led to different proposals for utilizing these unpleasant 

 ejecta, and we remember certain glowing descriptions of valuable 

 results to be got by converting the despised slags into materials 

 rivalling the finest porphyries and other ornamental rocks. The 

 less ambitious but more practical plan of using them as paving 

 stones has been for some time past under trial in Brussels, and, 

 according to Kennis, with such success that they are to be employed 

 generally in the repavement of that city. The process employed is 

 simply that of allowing the cinder to run from the furnaces into 

 an excavation sufficiently large to contain the whole daily yield of 

 several furnaces, and the cooling is retarded by covering the surface 



