VARIETIES. 
565 
worn  or  indented  so  easily  as  soft  iron.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  not  so  brittle 
or  hard  to  work  as  ordinary  cast  steel.  These  qualities  render  it  eminently 
well  adapted  to  purposes  where  lightness  and  strength  are  specially  re- 
quired, or  where  there  is  much  wear,  as  in  the  case  of  railway  cars,  which 
from  their  softness  of  texture  soon  become  destroyed.  The  cost  of  semi- 
steel  will  be  a  fraction  less  than  iron,  because  the  loss  of  metal  that  takes 
place  by  oxidation  in  the  converting  vessel  is  about  2|  per  cent,  less  than 
it  is  with  iron  ;  but  as  it  is  a  little  more  difficult  to  roll,  its  cost  per  ton 
may  be  fairly  considered  to  be  the  same  as  iron.  But  as  its  tensile  strength 
is  some  30  or  40  per  cent,  greater  than  bar  iron,  it  follows  that  for  most 
purposes  a  much  less  weight  of  metal  may  be  used  ;  so  that,  taken  in  that 
way,  the  semi-steel  will  form  a  much  cheaper  metal  than  any  that  we  are 
at  present  acquainted  with. 
The  facts  which  I  have  brought  before  the  meeting  are  not  mere  labora- 
tory experiments,  but  the  result  of  working  on  a  scale  nearly  twice  as  great 
as  is  pursued  in  our  largest  iron  works — the  experimental  apparatus  doing 
7  cwt.  in  thirty  minutes,  while  the  ordinary  puddling  furnace  makes  only 
4|  cwt.  in  two  hours,  which  is  made  iniosix  separate  balls,  while  the  ingots 
or  blooms  are  smooth,  even  prisms,  ten  inches  square  by  thirty  inches  in 
length,  weighing  about  equal  to  ten  ordinary  puddle  balls. — London  Pharm. 
Jour.  Sept.  1856. 
On  the  Utility  of  Bran  in  Bread  as  tending  to  aid  Intestinal  .Evacuations. 
By  M.  C.  Saucerotte,  Chief  Physician  to  the  Luneville  Hospital. — If,  as 
appears  to  me  certain,  constipation  is  more  frequent  than  it  used  to  be,  to 
what  are  we  to  attribute  this  fact?  The  causes  are  perhaps  various,  but 
there  is  one  to  which  I  am  anxious  to  call  the  attention  of  my  colleagues  ; 
because  it  seems  to  me  the  most  general,  and  because  it  has  hitherto  been 
unobserved.  I  allude  to  the  greater  perfection  to  which  we  have  brought 
sifting  the  corn,  an  operation  the  result  of  which  is  the  extraction  of  all  the 
bran  contained  in  the  flour,  when  done,  as  it  now  is,  to  20  or  25  per  cent., 
instead  of  10  or  12  per  cent.,  which  used  to  be  the  amount  removed,  twenty 
years  ago.  Now,  to  obtain  an  exact  idea  of  the  results  of  this  real  or  ap- 
parent perfection,  it  is  necessary  to  know  what  is  the  effect  of  the  bran  on 
the  hygienic  and  alimentary  properties  of  the  bread. 
We  should  deceive  ourselves,  if  we  think  that  we  may  attribute  perfect 
certainty  to  chemical  results;  in  this  instance  at  least,  it  is  quite  at  fault. 
Nothing  can  possibly  differ  more  than  the  analyses  made  of  bran.  Thus, 
M.  Poggiale  gives  34-57  per  cent,  of  cellulose  (ligneous  matter),  M.  Payen 
only  finds  4,  M.  Millon  9-7,  M.  Kekhule  9-2.  M.  Millon,  it  is  true,  thinks 
that  he  has  found  the  cause  of  these  variations  in  the  difference  which 
exists  between  the  bran  obtained  by  the  usual  grinding,  and  that  obtained 
by  grinding  freshly  washed  corn :  but  this  is  a  point  which  has  yet  to  be 
determined.  M.  Poggiale  thinks  that  bran  is  very  valuless,  because,  ac- 
cording to  his  researches,  it  contains  but  44  per  cent,  of  assimilable  sub- 
