564 
VARIETIES. 
into  the  forms  and  shapes  required,  provided  that  we  increase  the  size  and 
power  of  our  machinery  to  the  extent  necessary  to  deal  with  such  large 
masses  of  metal.  A  few  minutes'  reflection  will  show  the  great  anomaly 
presented  by  the  scale  on  which  the  consecutive  processes  of  iron  making 
are  at  present  carried  on.  The  little  furnaces  originally  used  for  smelting 
ore  have  been  from  time  to  time  increased  in  size  until  they  have  assumed 
colossal  proportions,  and  are  made  to  operate  on  two  or  three  hundred  tons 
of  materials  at  a  time,  giving  out  ten  toDs  of  fluid  metal  at  a  single  run. 
The  manufacturer  has  thus  gone  on  increasing  the  size  of  his  smelting  fur- 
naces, and  adapting  to  their  use  the  blast  apparatus  of  the  requisite  pro- 
portions, and  has  by  this  means  lessened  the  cost  of  production  in  every 
way.  His  large  furnaces  require  a  great  deal  less  labor  to  produce  a  given 
weight  of  iron  than  would  have  been  required  to  produce  it  with  a  dozen 
furnaces  ;  and  in  like  manner  he  diminishes  his  cost  of  fuel,  blast,  and  re- 
pairs, while  he  ensures  a  uniformity  in  the  result  that  never  could  have 
been  arrived  at  by  the  use  of  a  multiplicity  of  small  furnaces.  While  the 
manufacturer  has  shown  himself  fully  alive  to  these  advantages,  he  has 
still  been  under  the  necessity  of  leaving  the  succeeding  operations  to  be 
carried  out  on  a  scale  wholly  at  variance  with  the  principles  he  has  found 
so  advantageous  in  the  smelting  department.  It  is  true  that  hitherto  no 
better  method  was  known  than  the  puddling  process,  in  which  from  4001b. 
to  5001b.  weight  of  iron  is  all  that  can  be  operated  upon  at  a  time;  and 
even  this  small  quantity  is  divided  into  homoeopathic  doses  of  some  70  lb. 
or  801b.,  each  of  which  is  moulded  and  fashioned  by  human  labor,  and 
carefully  watched  and  tended  in  the  furnace,  and  removed  therefrom  one  at 
a  time,  to  be  carefully  manipulated  and  squeezed  into  form.  When  we 
consider  the  vast  extent  of  the  manufacture,  and  the  gigantic  scale  on 
which  the  early  stages  of  the  process  is  conducted,  it  is  astonishing  that  no 
effort  should  have  been  made  to  raise  the  after-processes  somewhat  nearer 
to  a  level  commensurate  with  the  preceding  ones,  and  thus  rescue  the  trade 
from  the  trammels  which  have  so  long  surrounded  it.  Before  concluding 
these  remarks,  I  beg  to  call  your  attention  to  an  important  fact  connected 
with  the  new  process,  which  affords  peculiar  facilities  for  the  manufacture 
of  cast  steel. 
At  that  stage  of  the  process  immediately  after  the  boil,  the  whole  of  the 
crude  iron  has  passed  into  the  condition  of  cast  steel  of  ordinary  quality. 
By  the  continuation  of  the  process,  the  steel  so  produced  gradually  loses 
its  small  remaining  portion  of  carbon,  and  passes  successively  from  hard 
to  soft  steel,  and  from  soft  steel  to  steely  iron,  and  eventually  to  very  soft 
iron  ;  hence,  at  a  certain  period  of  the  process,  any  quality  of  metal  may 
be  obtained.  There  is  one  in  particular,  which,  by  way  of  distinction,  may 
be  called  semi-steel,  being  in  hardness  about  midway  between  ordinary 
cast  steel  and  soft  malleable  iron.  This  metal  possesses  the  advantage  of 
much  greater  tensile  strength  than  soft  iron.  It  is  also  more  elastic,  and 
does  not  readily  take  a  permanent  set,  while  it  is  much  harder,  and  is  not 
