iron of whatever quality they may have, they run it into a large kettle of a capacity of five tons and thence from it in a stream about a foot wide into a circular revolving trough, twelve inches wide and ten inches deep and let fall upon the molten metal from a hopper, pulverized iron ore, Lake Superior, Champlain, or Iron mountain, in sufficient quantity to cover the melted metal as fast as it is poured in. When the trough is full, and upon the iron pavement of the foundry. The in a blast furnace a quantity of crude cast steel thus produced is pronounced by eminent metallurgists of excellent quality and practically free from impurities (the sodium combining with the sulphur and phosphorus), and it was satisfactorily demonstrated that uniformity of quality was attainable. The process is much more rapid than any other, but Mr. Bessemer asserts that the addition of the nitrate of soda makes the cost of a ton of steel about five dollars more than by his method. Mr. Hargreaves has patented a modification of this process, combining the nitrate of soda with hematite ore to form a paste, and claims that he thus obtains additional supply of oxygen. He states that he can make refined iron for puddling by.the use of about 3 per cent. of nitrate of soda and six per cent. of hematite; steel by eight to ten per cent. of nitrate of soda and an equal weight of binoxide of manganese, and the best quality of wrought iron. Mr. F. Kohn, an English steel manufacturer, had, in 1868, made use of the Siemens regenerating furnace by a new process, melting a given quantity of the best and finest wrought iron in a bath of molten cast iron, carried to the highest heat of that furnace and thus making a pure steel at one heat without puddling or cementation. By his process old railroad iron, scrap iron, and scrap steel, can be converted at once into steel of the best quality for rails. A Mr. Wilson, of Stockton-on-Tees, England, has patented a modification of the Siemens furnace which attains the same object with a still greater saving of fuel, by forcing air into the flue-bridge by a steam-jet, and causing it to pass into a conduit at the back of the furnace, and thence into the flamebridge and up into a chamber from which, in a red-hot condition, it passes into and on to the incandescent fuel. By this improvement there is no necessity of grate-bars to the furnace, most of the fettling is saved, the steam from the heated water is at once decomposed and adds its quota to the intensity of the heat which burns up all the smoke and nearly all the cinder and slag. The saving in fuel is said to be about one-third over the Siemens furnace, and the heat is all applied directly to the removal of impurities and slag from the ores and cast iron. The Shoenberger Junta Works, at Pittsburgh, Pa., have patented a method of making refined iron and steel by a new process which is both simple and ingenious, melting before the iron cools, it is broken up into slabs of suitable size for a heating furnace, when it is only necessary to heat it as blooms are heated, and put it through the machinery to produce the best quality of horse-shoe bars, or by a slight variation of the process, excellent steel. Mr. David Stewart, of Kittaniny, Pa., has patented a method of freeing cast iron from its carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, &c., by pouring the melted metal at full heat from a height of perhaps thirty feet in a thin stream or shower upon the ground in such a way as that it shall receive the action of atmospheric air over its entire surface, or if preferred, through a cylinder thirty feet or more in height, and open at both ends, into which air is constantly forced. He claims to have tested this process very thoroughly and to be capable of making pure iron or steel by it without puddling and without retaining any cinder or impurities. Messrs. J. R. Bradley and M. D. Brown of Chicago, Ill., patented in 1868 eight recipes of ingredients to be added to melted scrap or malleable iron which they claimed would produce in each case the precise kind of steel wanted, and of the best quality. A Mr. J. Edwin Sherman, formerly a blacksmith of Bucksport, Me., but more recently a Government clerk at Washington, D. C., is said to have hit upon a method of converting iron into steel of great simplicity and cheapness, and, in the autumn of 1870, went by invitation to England to lay his process before the lords of the Admiralty. Among the most remarkable discoveries of the present day, in relation to the manufacture of iron, we must count those by which iron ores, hitherto regarded as worthless, have proved either by new processes or by mixture with other ores, or with cast iron, the best of all factors for producing the purest wrought iron and steel. Thus far there are two of these instances worthy of special notice. In the township of North Codorus, York Co., Pa., there are extensive beds of a peculiar micaceous iron ore; some of which were opened in 1854 or 1855, and attempts were made to make iron from them, but the ore contained but 41.5 per cent. of magnetic iron, and its reduction, owing to its peculiar combination, was attended with much labor and no profit; the ore beds were therefore abandoned. In 1868, it was discovered by accident that this unpromising ore, mixed with cast or pig iron of ordinary quality in the proportion of one to five or six in a reverberating furnace, produced by the ordinary puddling process, a pure steel of admirable quality and remarkably uniform in character. Having tested this by a very great number of experiments the discoverers purchased the Codorus ore beds, and put up a puddling furnace and rolling mill at York to carry on the business of making steel for railway rails, and other purposes. The anThe analysis of the Codorus ore, as made by the eminent practical chemist, Otto Wurth, of Pittsburg, is as follows: Silica, 37.35 Potash, 1.87 "The discovery of an inexhaustible bed of iron ore at Port Leyden, Lewis County, about 40 miles above Utica, a few years ago, tempted citizens of the latter-named place to invest about $500,000 in the effort to establish the manufacture of iron there. The 'Port Leyden Iron Works' were a sad failure, and the entire amount of money invested in them was lost, as pig iron could not be produced from the ore. From this impracticable ore, steel is now produced, at one fusion, by a process invented by Prof. E. L. Seymour, a metallurgist and chemist, who resides in this vicinity. The outlines of the process are as follows: The ore is crushed, in something like an ordinary quartz-crusher, until it is reduced to about the fineness of rifle powder. It is then thrown into a revolving cylinder, in which are set numerous magnets. The ore is of the kind known as 'magnetic.' By an arrangement on small brushes, the metallic particles are separated from the refuse, which is principally stony and earthy matter in the shape of fine dust. The application of certain chemicals and fusion by charcoal are the next steps in the process, and the immediate product is pure steel, ready for molding into 'ingots. SpeciFurther experiments, conducted under the mens of steel thus manufactured and coneye of the veteran iron master, J. N. Wins- verted into finely-tempered table cutlery, low, satisfied the owners of the ore that they and other articles, and the certificate of a could safely dispense with the puddling pro- well-known cutler of Brooklyn, who made cess and produce directly from the ore and the articles, that it is as good steel as he ever cast iron the very best quality of steel. We worked, and adapted to all cutlery purposes, have ourselves examined the steel and the have been exhibited. The estimated cost of wrought iron produced by this combination, this steel is less than four cents. By the and in every test to which it can be subject- Seymour process, it is claimed that the aim ed, whether of tenacity, tensile strength, of iron-masters and chemists for the last 200 hardness, elasticity, or capacity of receiving years is accomplished-viz: to rid iron of and retaining the highest temper, it is unsur- its arch enemies, sulphur and phosphoruspassed by any steel or iron known to manu- the former rendering the metal what is techfacturers. Whether wrought iron and steel can be made without puddling from a combination of this ore with other ores of good quality has not yet been ascertained, but we believe that it will. By the processes at present employed, the best of steel can be made with the use of fifteen or twenty per cent. of this ore at a cost of not above $70 or $75 per ton, and possibly lower. Lime, .74 100.00 Of the other ore, found at Port Leyden, Lewis Co., N. Y., still more remarkable things are stated. The following account of the ores and process of reduction, made in the New York Tribune, is believed to be fully authenticated. The steel is certainly of excellent quality nically called 'red-short,' so that it flies to pieces under the hammer when at a red heat, though it may be quite strong when cold; while the least quantity of phosphorus renders the metal cold-short,' making it weak and brittle when cold, though quite strong when hot. 6 "The Port Leyden Works are about oneeighth of a mile from the railroad and the canal. The buildings, furnaces, etc., were erected several years ago at great expense; and for some time there have lain in the forest near by nearly 100,000 bushels of charcoal, the overplus of what was made before it was found that iron could not be produced from the ore by the old processes." It has recently been discovered that there bars are gradually spread out between smooth are extensive veins of a peculiar coal, called rolls, which are brought nearer together as block coal in Indiana, which is remarkably the metal grows thinner. The Russians have adapted to the production of the best iron. a method of giving to sheet iron a beautifully In its constituents and its working, it is very polished surface, and a pliability and duranearly a pure charcoal and containing nei- bility which no other people have been able ther sulphur nor phosphorus, it does not im- to imitate. All attempts that have been part to iron in the smelting process any in- made to learn the secret of this process have gredient which impairs its value. These entirely failed, and the business remains a veins of block coal are of great thickness, monopoly with the Russians. The nearest and extend widely over the central and imitation of this iron is produced at Pittssouthern part of the state. It has not thus burg, Pennsylvania, and several eastern estabfar been discovered in any other state. In- lishments, by what is called Wood's process. diana has no great variety of iron ores, but This consists in rolling the common sheet at her railroad facilities present, and prospec- a certain temperature while it is covered tive, for bringing the Missouri ores from with linseed oil. A very fine surface is thus Pilot Knob and Iron Mountain and the rich produced, but the pliability and toughness hematitic ores from the Lake Superior re- of the Russian iron are wanting, even though gion in Michigan, are such that with this the sheets are often annealed in close vessels, excellent coal, her citizens can manufacture and the glaze and color are also inferior. the finest qualities of iron and steel at con- Sheet iron is now extensively prepared for siderably lower prices than they can be pro-roofing, and other uses requiring exposure to duced for, elsewhere. As a consequence the weather, by protecting its surface with a numerous furnaces have been erected in coating of zinc. This application is an 1870 and 1871, along the line of the block American invention, having been discovered coal veins, and many more are now going in 1827, by the late Prof. John W. Revere, up. The improved processes and new discov- of New York. In March, 1859, he exhibited, eries to which we have alluded, while they at a meeting of the Lyceum of Natural Hiswill materially reduce the cost of making tory, specimens of iron thus protected, which steel, do not, thus far, greatly lower the cost had been exposed for two years to the action of producing iron, except in Indiana, and of salt water without rusting. He recomhence the reduction of ten per cent. on iron mended it as a means of protecting the iron and iron manufactures in the new tariff of fastenings of ships, and introduced the proc1872, may impede the progress of this de-ess into Great Britain. Sheets thus coated sirable manufacture, now fast attaining to the first rank among our national produc tions. are known as galvanized iron, though the iron is now coated with zinc by other means as well as by the galvanic current. One Though the total production of pig iron method, that of Mallet, is to place the each year is now very definitely ascertained, sheets, after they are well cleaned by acid there is more difficulty in learning the de- and scrubbed with emery and sand, in a satutails of the other branches of iron manufac-rated solution of hydrochlorate of zinc and ture. The rolling mills are really unceasing sulphate of ammonia; and after this in a in numbers and in their aggregate production bath composed of 202 parts of mercury and of rails both iron and steel, but the re-roll- 1,292 of zinc, to every ton weight of which ing of old rails is a large and yet very vari-a pound of potassium or sodium is added. able item in their annual amount of work, and it is difficult to ascertain with any considerable exactness what number of tons of new rails are produced by each mill. The aggregate product in 1871 was stated in round numbers at about 275,000 tons of iron and 180,000 tons of steel rails. This latter item will, undoubtedly, be largely increased during the present and coming The compound fuses at 680° Fahrenheit, and the zinc is immediately deposited upon the iron surface. Another method is to stir the sheets in a bath of melted zinc, the surface of which is covered with sal ammoniac. The use of heavy sheets or plates for building purposes is also a recent application of iron, that adds considerably to the demand for the metal. The plates are stiffened by the fluting, or corrugating, which they receive in a powerful machine, and may be protected by a coating of zinc. Their prep |