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 air\\ 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 ; 
