i88o.] 
New Scientific Processes and Inventions. 
45 
If the basic lining can reduce the phosphorus of average 
hematite pigs as low as that occasionally existing in exception- 
ally pure samples, fine tool steel may be made in the Bessemer 
converter. I make this assertion on the practical results ob- 
tained about ten years ago, at the Atlas Works, Sheffield, by the 
late George Brown and myself. I analysed the deliveries, of 
Bessemer pigs, and selected one sample of “ Cleator containing 
onlv a trace of phosphorus, and otherwise excellent. With this 
G Brown made steel capable of taking Ti per cent of carbon, 
and fairly comparable with “pot steel” made from Swedish 
charcoal iron. , . , 
The importance of this at the present moment is almost cal- 
culable as regards the future of our national steel industry. The 
temptation to use crop ends of rails and other Bessemer scrap 
for cutlery and tool-making is now so great that vast quantities 
are used, and the character of British manufactures 1S 
seriously injured. If steel as above described could be freely 
made as I now suggest, its cost would not exceed that of ordinaiy 
rail steel by more than a farthing per pound, which surely would 
be too little to tempt the meanest of unscrupulous manufacturers. 
In conclusion I may add that there is a possibility of develop- 
ment in the opposite direction, viz., that of seleaingby preference 
for ordinary purposes, pig-iron excessively rich in phosphorus, in 
order to obtain the heat from its combustion in the converter, and 
also a slag of phosphate of lime rich enough to be used as an 
artificial manure. (3.)* W . Matt.eu Williams. 
Profersor Barff’s Process for Preventing the Corrosion 
of Iron. 
The most useful of all the metals has an exceptional predis- 
position to corrosive oxidation— so exceptional that its dura- 
bility may be, to a considerable extent, increased by coating 1 
witha thm film of a metal elearo-positive to itself. The zinc 
which covers “ galvanised ” iron has a stronger affinity for oxy- 
gen than the iron which it proteas from oxidation. 
8 The source of this anomaly resides in the peculiar chemical 
and physical constitution of the respeaive oxides of these two 
metaffif When zinc is exposed to air it combines superficia y 
with an equivalent of oxygen, and then has done with it. This 
* Since the above has been in type I learn that this is being done in 
“ i - 3 
lime. 
