214 STEEL, AND THE BESSEMER PROCESS. 
are solid and widest at the bottom, so that the ingot will slip out there. 
Others are made in two halves, held together by hoops, and are taken 
apart to let the ingot out. 
Ingots are cast in the forms most convenient for hammering or 
rolling into the desired shapes, and of all weights, from 100 to 5,000 
pounds. The loss of iron in the whole process is from twelve to 
eighteen per cent. 
Such are the machinery and the process as put in operation by 
Messrs. Winslow, Griswold and Holley, at Troy, N. Y., early in the 
present year, and by which the specimens of steel recently on exhibition 
by them at the fair of the Institute were produced. The product is ten 
to twelve tons per twenty-four hours. Early next year this firm will 
have in operation new works capable of turning out fifty tons of ingots 
per twenty-four hours. A brief description of these new works, now 
partially completed, may be of interest. The converting house is a 
building 110 feet long by seventy feet wide, with walls twenty-two aud 
a half feet high and a ventilated roof. About fifteen feet from one side 
of the building, and fifteen feet apart, are two converting vessels, 
fourteen feet high and nine feet in diameter, suspended on trunnions. 
The outer trunnions, and the frames and standards supporting them, 
are hollow, and conduct air from the blowing engine to the tuyere 
boxes. Upon each inner trunnion is a pinion of three feet diameter 
and twelve-inch face, which is operated by a steel rack that forms the 
piston-rod of a hydraulic cylinder. The converters are thus rotated 
and held in any position by simply turning a cock. The hoods and 
chimneys into which the converters discharge are built with the walls 
of the house. The weight of the converters, including twelve-inch 
lining of refractory material, is twenty-five tons each. Their capacity 
is five to seven tons of steel at a charge. 
In front of the converters, and arranged to serve them both, is a 
fifteen-ton hydraulic crane, with a fourteen-feet jib carrying either a 
seven-ton or a fifteen-ton ladle, to take the product of one or both con- 
verters. This crane is fitted with proper gearing to revolve the ladle in 
a circle over the ingot moulds, to tip the ladle, and pour from the top 
in case the fire-clay valve should chill ; and to move the ladle radially, 
so as to pour into an outer and an inner circle of ingot moulds. On 
either side and in front of the ingot pit (which is sunk about three feet 
below the general level) are three eight-ton hydraulic cranes, with 
twenty-two-feet jibs. These three cranes handle the ingots and moulds, 
and pass the ladles and vessel bottoms from the places where they are 
used to the places where they are lined, and the ovens where they are 
heated. These ovens are in the corners of the building, on the same 
side with the converters. A railway runs in front of the pit, through- 
out the building, with branches to the coal and iron -yards. 
The melting house is joined to the main building in the rear of the 
converters, and is large enough to receive four five-ton cupolas and four 
