344 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 141. 



travel to the upper surface of the metal is so short 

 that it does not have opportunity for complete re- 

 duction and slagging. Now iron-oxide can only 

 remove silicon by being reduced by it, or by com- 

 bining with already formed silica and thus pre- 

 venting its reduction. Its appearance in the flame 

 of the Clapp-Griffiths converter at a period when 

 it is absent from that of the ordinary converter 

 may indicate, not that it is formed more copi- 

 ously, but that it is reduced and slagged less com- 

 pletely in the former than in the latter. 



8. It has been attributed to the partial removal 

 of the slag (whose silica might have been reduced 

 had it remained as it does in the ordinary con- 

 verter) during the converting operation. But the 

 slag can be removed from the ordinary large rotat- 

 ing converters as well, and without serious expense 

 or trouble, by turning them down 90° and skim- 

 ming it at any desired stage of the process. 



4. Finally, there are scoffers who say, "We be- 

 lieve that the removal of silicon bears the same re- 

 lation to that of carbon in your converter as in the 

 ordinary converter. Your analyses, apparently 

 intended to show that your converter specially 

 favors the removal of sihcon, do not even point in 

 that direction. The ductiUty of your phosphoric 

 steels is indeed due to their being uniformly low 

 in carbon and silicon. But this in turn is due to 

 your admitting the blast so slowly towards the end 

 of your operation that you can hit the point of 

 complete removal of carbon and silicon more accu- 

 rately than we can in our large converters with our 

 present practice of blowing rapidly to the very 

 end. But many feasible plans at once suggest 

 themselves by which we may accomplish this in 

 the ordinary converters. Creditable statements 

 that at least one large scale Bessemer works is 

 actually producing steel as uniformly low in carbon 

 and silicon as yours, strengthen this belief." 



It is too early to decide positively which, if any, 

 of these explanations is the true one. If any of 

 them be, it is higlily probable that the excellent 

 metallurgical results of the Clapp-Griifiths practice 

 will be successfully imitated by the large Bessemer 

 works. 



The validity of the claim that the Clapp-Grif- 

 fiths steel is superior to that of identical composi- 

 tion made in the ordinary converter can only be 

 admitted on the production of far more conclusive 

 evidence than has yet been offered. 



Henry M. Howe. 



' ' He [ Agassiz] had been for two weeks striving 

 to decipher the somewhat obscure impression of a 

 fossil fish on the stone slab in which it was pre- 

 served. Weary and perplexed he put his work 

 aside at last, and tried to dismiss it from his mind. 

 Shortly after, he waked one night persuaded that 

 while asleep he had seen his fish with all the 

 missing features perfectly restored. But when he 

 tried to hold and make fast the image, it escaped 

 him. Nevertheless, he went early to the Jardin 

 des plantes, thinking that on looking anew at the 

 impression he should see something which would 

 put him on the track of his vision. In vaia, — the 

 blurred record was as blank as ever. The next 

 night he saw the fish again, but with no more 

 satisfactory result. When he awoke it disappeared 

 from his memory as before. Hoping that the 

 same experience might be repeated on the third 

 night, he placed a pencil and paper beside his bed 

 before going to sleep. Accordingly, toward morn- 

 ing, the fish reappeared in his dream, confusedly 

 at first, but, at last, with such distinctness that he 

 had no longer any doubt as to its zoological 

 characters. Still half dreaming, in perfect dark- 

 ness, he traced these characters on the sheet of 

 paper at the bedside. In the morning he was sur- 

 prised to see in his nocturnal sketch features which 

 he thought it impossible the fossil itself should re- 

 veal. He hastened to the Jardin des plantes, and, 

 with his drawing as a guide, succeeded in chis- 

 elling away the surface of the stone under which 

 portions of the fish proved to be hidden. When 

 wholly exposed, it corresponded with his dream 

 and his drawing, and he succeeded in classifying 

 it with ease. He often spoke of this as a good 

 illustration of the well-known fact, that when the 

 body is at rest the tired brain will do the work it 

 refused before." (p. 181.) 



ACTIVITY OF THE MIND DURING SLEEP. 

 In connection with the present activity in 

 psychical research, the following extract from the 

 recently published ' Life of Agassiz ' (Boston, 

 Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is of interest : — 



DEATHS FROM WILD BEASTS AND SNAKES 

 IN INDIA. 

 From time to time the Indian government issues 

 reports on the yearly loss of life by snake-bite and 

 wild beasts, — reports which still show a frightful 

 mortality from these causes, and afford significant 

 evidence that the present precautions and ex- 

 ertions of the government in this direction still 

 fall wide of their object. The latest intelligence 

 in the Gazette states that in 1883 about 22,000 men 

 died from the above mentioned causes. The re- 

 turns from the district authorities can by no means 

 be considered complete and satisfactory, since in 

 consequence of the apathy of the natives and the 

 almost universal belief among them in kismet, or 

 predestination, many cases are not reported at all 



Translated from Das ausland. 



