582 Dr. Schafhaeutl on the Different Species of 



pared, silicon, iron, and arsenic were combined. Arsenic in 

 combination with silicon has the property of rendering the lat- 

 ter more easily oxidized, so that the greater part of the silicon 

 is consumed before the arsenic, which occasioned the extraor- 

 dinary hissing noise, already mentioned, during the process 

 of ebullition of the specimen e in the puddling furnace. 

 The malleable iron thus prepared had entirely lost its sili- 

 con, without which no peroxide of iron could be formed suf- 

 ficiently liquid to resist the reducing power of the flames. 

 The protoxide, wherever it was formed, consisted of a dry 

 powder, which was speedily reduced by the action of the 

 flame into its former metallic state, combining at the same 

 time with carbon, and gradually changing the whole mass 

 into a carburet. When, on the contrary, the protoxide con- 

 tains sufficient silica, a very liquid silicate of iron is gene- 

 rated, which, not capable of being reduced by the flames, 

 spreads itself over the entire surface, and likewise prevents 

 the action of the flame upon the iron. The state in which 

 the molecules of malleable iron as well as cast steel exist, 

 seems never to have been taken into consideration, and both 

 malleable iron as well as malleable steel were considered to 

 differ from cast iron and cast steel only so far as regarded 

 their chemical properties. But this is altogether an error. 

 Malleable iron and malleable steel owe their properties to the 

 mechanical force of the hammer; and as soon as they lose 

 the peculiar arrangement of their molecules, produced by the 

 hammer, these properties are entirely changed*. The pre- 

 paration of malleable iron from cast iron shows this very di- 

 stinctly. The iron is brought into a half-melted state, in 

 which state the larger crystals of the iron, called grains, lose 

 their attractive power in respect to position ; but the smaller 

 crystalline compounds of the molecules of iron never lose 

 their form or structure, but retain them during the whole 

 process of puddling, and the slag rising only keeps the 

 small crystals of the iron separate, and by enveloping them 

 prevents their acting directly one upon the other. The 

 softened, but not liquid, grains of the iron begin now to abs- 

 tract oxygen from the surrounding slag, which is immedi- 

 ately replaced by the oxygen of the airf', and thus gene- 



* That peculiar sort of steel from which in steel pen manufactories the 

 extremely fine chisels are made to cut the slit into the pen, is entirely pro- 

 duced by long-continued and judiciously-applied hammering. 



t By putting a cap of sheet iron, resembling the head of a still, into 

 the boiling iron, the tube of which extending through the door of the fur- 

 nace dips into water or quicksilver — we soon perceive that air is ab» 

 sorbed, and the water begins to rise in the tube. By blowing an uninter- 

 rupted current of air into this apparatus, the boiling is soon re-established; 



