196 
soundness, when they are not run into the mould in a good 
hot and fluid state. 
Railway Foundry, Leeds, May 8th, 1841. 
The Chairman said, it was important to arrive at the 
greatest strength of iron, because in engines used both by 
sea and railroad the cranks were obliged to be formed at 
right angles, and not in the direction of the fibres of the 
iron. In these engines there were two cranks, and an axle 
was more likely to break than from one. Two or three acci- 
dents had occurred on the railroad from York to London, 
by the breaking of the axletrees, and apparently from want 
of uniformity of strength, so that the great object for makers 
of iron to aim at was to produce an article of uniform tough- 
ness and durability. 
Mr. Hartop said that with respect to the subject to which 
the Chairman had alluded, the British Association had 
thought it a matter of so much importance as to induce 
them to offer considerable sums of money for the best essay 
upon it. He was sorry to say that the experiments which 
had been made by the British Association, from circum- 
stances not under the control of the very able engineer by 
whom they had been conducted, had in a great measure, if 
not totally, failed, inasmuch as the party sending iron for the 
experiment, knew precisely what was going to be done with 
it ; and Mr. Fairbairn had said that he experienced the 
greatest difficulty in obtaining iron that he could depend 
upon, and that in some cases he could not obtain it at all. 
Mr. Todd, from inclination, as well as from the intense in- 
terest he had manifested in the matter, had virtually accom- 
plished that which Mr. Fairbairn could not accomplish with 
the materials at his command. Mr. Todd, also, had the op- 
portunity which he had not failed to avail himself of, to 
obtain iron not sent to him for the purposes of an experiment, 
