its Relations with Agriculture. 
823 
placed on draining tables, being afterwards transferred to the 
sulphate store-house. 
By the courtesy of the Carnbroe Chemical Company I am 
enabled to quote the results obtained at Messrs. Merry and 
Cuninghame’s ironworks over a period of three weeks. During 
this time three of their furnaces were being blown for a fort- 
night, and four for the third week, equal therefore to three and 
one-third furnaces for the whole time. The weight of coal con- 
sumed was 5,841 tons, which gave the following quantities of the 
three products named : — 
Tons Cwt. jE s. d. £ «. d. 
Sulphate of ammonia 48 8 sold at 10 10 0 = 508 4 0 
Pitch . . . 361 0 „ 1 1 0 = 379 1 0 
Oil . . . 33,760 gallons „ 0 0 1^= 21018 9 
1,098 3 9 
Paid: — For wages, sulphuric acid, management, rail- 
way dues, and allowance for depreciation of plant 379 12 3 
Balance, being profit, and . . i . 718 11 6 
interest on plant = 2s. 6id. per ton of coal. 
If, as is proper, we regard tlie addition of sulphate of ammonia, 
hitherto wasted, from a national point of view, we are entitled to 
credit the processes by which this is achieved with the difference 
between its present and former price. This, upon the quantity 
dealt with in the statement of account just rendered, means a gain 
of about 250/. 
Phosphorus. — Two hundred and twenty-three years ago Brandt, 
a Hamburg alchemist, while engaged in searching for a body 
capable of converting silver into gold, discovered phosphorus. After 
the lapse of two hundred years this element has acquired an in- 
diSerent reputation among iron-makers, owing to its tendency, in 
their experience, to reverse the order of the transmutation in the 
two metals to which Brandt hoped to apply it. Low as phosphorus 
stands, however, in the estimation of the ironmaster, something 
like 3 to 4 lb. are indispensable for building up and maintaining 
the life of every full-grown human being. Although of very 
frequent, we may say of universal, occurrence in the crust of 
the earth, yet, when compared with the enormous masses of 
silicious, aluminous, and calcic minerals, which abound everywhere, 
phosphorus cannot be otherwise regarded than as an extremely 
I’are substance. It is, moreover, held hrmly united as phosphoric 
acid with certain earths, of which lime is probably the chief. From 
the minerals which contain phosphorus it is transferred by the dis- 
integration of its matrix to the alluvial deposits in which, however, 
as soil it exists in very minute quantities. 
It appears to be a well-established fact that the ores of iron found 
so abundantly in the older rocks are, compared with those of more 
VOL. III. T. S. — 12 3 K 
