S52 Mr Stodart ami Mr Faraday 
In making the alloys on a large scale, we were under the ne- 
cessity of removing our operations from London to a steel fur- 
nace at Sheffield ; and being prevented by other avocations 
from giving personal attendance, the superintendence of the 
work was consequently entrusted to an intelligent and confiden- 
tial agent. To him the steel, together with the alloying metals ' 
in the exact proportion, and in the most favourable state for the 
purpose, was forwarded, with instructions to see the whole of 
the metals, and nothing else, packed into the crucible, and pla- 
ced in the furnace, to attend to it while there, and to suffer it to 
remain for some considerable time in a state of thin fusion, pre- 
vious to its being poured out into the mould. The cast ingot 
was next, under the same superintendence, taken to the tilting- 
mill, where it was forged into bars of a convenient size, at a 
temperature not higher than just to render the metal sufficiently 
malleable under the tilt hammer. When returned to us, it was 
subjected to examination both mechanical and chemical, as well 
as compared with the similar products of the laboratory. From 
the external appearance, as well as from the texture of the part 
when broken by the blow of the hammer, we were able to form 
a tolerably correct judgment as to its general merits : the hard- 
ness, toughness, and other properties, were farther proved by 
severe trials, after being fashioned into some instrument, or 
tool, and properly hardened and tempered. 
It would prove tedious to enter into a detail of experiments 
made in the Royal Institution ; a brief notice of them will at 
present be sufficient. After making imitations of various speci- 
mens of meteoric iron by fusing together pure iron and nickel, 
in proportions of 3 to 10 per cent., we attempted making an 
alloy of steel with silver, but failed, owing to a superabundance 
of the latter metal. It was found, after very many trials, that 
only the j of silver would combine with steel, and when 
more was used a part of the silver was found in the form of me- 
tallic dew lining the top and sides of the crucible. The fused 
button itself was a mere mechanical mixture of the two metals, 
globules of silver being pressed out of the mass by contraction 
in cooling, and more of these globules being forced out by the 
hammer in forging ; and, farther, when the forged piece was 
examined, by dissecting it with diluted sulphuric acid, threads 
