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rod and turning it over with every clip; but from cast-iron by the latter containing by a modern improvement this work is also larger proportion of carbon, which may done by mechanical contrivance. Each amount to 5.5 per cent. To readily convert piece, as fast as it is clipped off, disappears in the machine. There it is seized between powerful jaws, and the head is pressed up from the large end by the short, powerful motion imparted to the piece of apparatus called the header. As it is released, it slides down and drops upon the floor, or in a vessel placed to receive the nails.

Machinery has been applied in the United States to the manufacture of horse-shoe nails, according to a number of patented plans. Of these, the most successful is probably that invented about the year 1848, by Mr. L. G. Reynolds, of Providence; also the inventor of the solid-headed pin. The form of this nail could not be given as in ordinary cut nails by the cutter, but the sides required to be pressed as well as the head. This involved the use of movable plates of suitable figure; and as it was found that the nails could not be shaped except when the metal was softened by heat, the plates must necessarily be of the hardest steel, and protected as effectually as possible from the effects of constant working of heated iron. These difficulties were fully overcome, and the nails, after being turned out, were toughened by annealing, giving them all the excellent qualities of hand-made nails, with the advantage of perfect uniformity of size, so that one nail answers as well as another for the holes in the horse-shoes. They are, moreover, made with great rapidity, each machine producing half a ton of nails in 12 hours. The process has been taken to Europe, and is there in successful operation. Spikes, also, have been made and headed in similar machines; and among all small articles in iron, none, perhaps, has proved so profitable to the inventor as the hook-headed spike, used for holding down, by its projecting head, the edge of the iron rails to the sill. This was the invention of Mr. Henry Burden, of Troy, whose machines for wrought-iron spikes and for horse-shoes have also proved very successful. By the latter, perfect shoes are turned out at the rate of 60 in a minute. This process has been introduced in most of the European countries.

STEEL.

As already remarked, steel differs in composition from metallic iron only by containing from 4 to 14 per cent. of carbon, and

these varieties into each other is an object of no small importance, for their properties are so entirely distinct, that they really serve the purposes of three different metals. Steel is particularly valuable for its extreme hardness, fine grain, and compact texture, which admits of its receiving a high polish. It is the most elastic of metals, and much less liable to rust than iron. It has the peculiar property of assuming different degrees of hardness, according to the rapidity with which it is chilled when heated; and it may be melted and run into moulds like cast iron, and the ingots thus prepared may be hammered, rolled, and forged into shapes like wrought iron; and these may finally be tempered to any degree of hardness desired. Differing so little in composition from metallic iron and from cast iron, and being so universally in demand for a multitude of uses, it would seem that it ought to be produced as cheaply as one or the other of the varieties, between which its composition places it. But this is far from being the case. While pig iron is worth only $20 to $30 per ton, and bar iron $60 to $90, cast steel in bars is worth from $250 to $300 per ton. This is chiefly owing to the difficulty of procuring in large quantities steel of uniform character, which the consumers of the article can purchase with perfect confidence that it is what they require and have been accustomed to use. The English boast, with good reason, of the position they occupy in this manufacture, which is almost a monopoly of the steel trade of the whole world. Though producing themselves little or no iron fit for making alone the best steel, they have imported enough of the Swedish and Norwegian bar iron to insure a good quality, and have been especially cautious to render this as uniform as possible. Their method of manufacture is to introduce carbon into the wrought iron by what is called the cementing process. On the continent of Europe steel is made to some extent, in Silesia and Styria, by removing from cast iron enough of its carbon to leave the proper proportion for steel, and then melting the product and casting it into ingot moulds. But this cheaper method does not appear to have been taken up in Great Britain. In the United States several processes are in operation, two of which are peculiarly American. The ce

The American methods of making steel were discovered by Prof. A. K. Eaton, of New York, and the one now employed by the Damascus Steel Company was practically demonstrated by him in Rochester and its vicinity in 1851 and 1852. This consists in carbonizing and melting malleable iron in crucibles at one operation, by introducing into the pot with the pieces of iron a carbonaceous salt, such as the ferro-cyanide of potassium, either alone or in combination with charcoal powder. At an intense heat this salt rapidly carbonizes the iron, which thus first becomes steel, then fuses, and is poured into moulds. The quantity of the salt employed is proportional to the quantity of the iron and the quality of the steel required. The operation is successfully carried on in different establish

menting method, as conducted in England, has been longest known, and will be first described. The cementing furnace is a sort of oven, furnished with troughs or shelves, upon which charcoal dust is laid for receiving the bars. These are placed edgewise in the charcoal, half an inch apart, and the spaces are filled in with more sifted coal. Enough is added to cover the bars, and upon this a second tier is laid in the same way, and so on till the trough is filled with several tons of iron, all of which is perfectly excluded from the air. The trough being secured with others in the oven, a fire is started under them. In about six days the bars have absorbed enough carbon to acquire the properties of the softer kinds of steel, such as are used for saws and springs. In a day or two longer it answers for cutting instruments in New Jersey, New York, and Pennments, and some time after this it gains in hardness, so as to be fitted for cold chisels, for drills such as miners use, etc. Its character is ascertained at any time by drawing out one of the bars. After the change is effected the fire is extinguished, and about a week is allowed for the furnace and its contents to cool. When at last the bars are obtained, their surface is found to be covered with blisters, whence the steel is I called blistered steel. The fibrous texture of the iron has given place to a granular structure, but is so irregular and uneven that the metal requires further treatment to perfect it. To make the English shear-steel, so called from its being originally employed for shears used in sheep-shearing, the bars are cut into lengths of a foot and a half, and a number of these are bound together to make a faggot. This is brought to a welding heat, and drawn down first under a forgehammer, and then under the tilt-hammer. This weighs from 150 to 200 pounds, and strikes from 150 to 360 strokes a minute. The rapidity of the work keeps the steel at a glowing heat, and it is soon fashioned into a dense bar of smooth surface, susceptible of a polish, and suited for the manufacture of cutting instruments. Sometimes it is cut into pieces to be refaggoted, and drawn down again into bars, which are then called doubleshear.

Cast steel is a still more dense and perfect variety. It is prepared by melting, in large crucibles, blistered steel broken into small pieces, and pouring the metal into moulds. These are then worked into shapes by the forge hammer and the rolls.

sylvania, and cast steel of the very best quality is produced at less expense than the article has ever before cost in this country. For bar steel, according to the prospectus of the company, the best charcoal-made iron is employed, costing $85 per ton, and this, together with the coal used for fuel, the chemical materials, the melting, crucibles, and hammering, make the whole cost about $142 per ton, while that of the imported article is $300 or more. The great difficulty in the process is to obtain suitable crucibles for withstanding the intense heat required to melt the charge of 60 lbs. of malleable iron. Those in use are blue-pots, costing $1.60 each. Though made of the best of plumbago, they stand only two or three meltings.

The other process, which is just now introduced into practice, is based upon the property of carbonate of soda to remove from cast iron the carbon it contains, when the metal is kept for a few hours in a bath of the melted alkali. The decarbonizing effect is in part due to the action of the oxygen of the alkaline base, which is given up to the carbon of highly heated cast iron, but principally to the decomposition of the combined carbonic acid, which gives to the carbon one of its atoms of oxygen, and is resolved into carbonic oxide. This property of soda was discovered by Prof. Eaton in 1856, but the fact that the carbonated or bicarbonated alkalies act principally by virtue of their carbonic acid, was only recently recognized and made practically available by him. The action of soda or its carbonates is not limited to the removal of the excess of carbon in cast iron. It combines with and removes those impurities which would prove

ceed the cost of the malleable iron employed in the other process.

fatal to the quality of the steel if remaining in it, as sulphur, phosphorus, and silicon; and the method thus admits of the use of STATISTICS.-The records of the produccrude irons, such as could never be applied tion of iron of the United States are very into this manufacture by any other mode. complete up to the year 1854. Even the cenThe cast iron, in the form of thin plates, hav- sus returns are highly defective, as they often ing been kept at a bright red heat in the make no distinction between iron made bath of melted carbonate for a sufficient time, from the ore and the products of the secondwhich is determined by occasionally taking ary operations of remelting and puddling. out and testing some of the pieces, is trans- The first systematic attempts to obtain comferred to the crucible, and is then melted plete accounts of the business, as conducted and poured into moulds, as in the ordinary in Pennsylvania, were made in 1850 by the method of making cast steel. The crucibles, Association of Iron Manufacturers, organized not being subjected to greater heat than is in Philadelphia. Mr. Charles E. Smith col-· required for melting cast steel, endure much lected the returns, and published them in a longer than when employed for melting small volume, together with other papers rewrought iron in the carbonizing process; lating to the manufacture. In 1856 the asthus a great saving is effected in the expense sociation, through their secretary, Mr. J. P. of the conversion; and this economy is still Lesley, and their treasurer, Mr. C. E. Smith, further increased by the use of a crude ma- obtained full returns from 832 blast furnaces, terial, costing only from $20 to $30 per ton, 488 forges, and 225 rolling mills in the Unitin place of the superior qualities of wrought ed States, besides others in Canada, exhibitiron, worth $85 per ton. So great, indeed, ing their operations for the preceding three is the saving, that the cost of the cast steel, years. Some of these results are presented when obtained in ingots, is found not to ex-in the following tables :—

Anthracite
Furnaces.

Furnaces.
1

NO 1.-TABLE OF IRON WORKS IN OPERATION AND ABANDONED IN 1858.
Charcoal
Abandoned Bloomary Abandoned Refinery Abandoned Rolling
and Coke
Furnaces. Forges. Bloomaries. Forges. Refineries.

Abandoned.

Mills.

1

Maine......
New Hampshire.

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In working order, 560 Furnaces, 389 Forges, 210 Rolling Mills. Total, 1,159
Abandoned,

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The production of the blast furnaces in the | 2; their arrangement being according to the different iron districts for the years 1854, fuel employed and the quantities of iron 1855, and 1856, is exhibited in Table No. produced in each district in 1856:

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Pig iron as above......

Grand total production of iron from the ore in 1856.....

... 841,550

.....

In addition to this amount, the importations for the year 1856 of iron designed for manufacture are estimated at 363,998 tons, consisting of Scotch pig, 55,403 tons; rolled and hammered iron, 298,275 tons; and scraps, 10,320 tons; and if to this be added for old rails reworked, 100,000 tons, and for scrap, 25,000 tons, the total amount of iron entering into domestic consumption was 1,330,548 tons. The importation of railroad iron not included in the above was 167,400 tons. The proportion of foreign iron introduced into the general consumption, not including rails, was about 30 per cent.

The value of the immediate products of the manufacture of domestic iron is thus given at the prices current in 1856:—

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The following table gives the different kinds of pig metal and the total amount duced in each year since 1856:

Tons
Anthracite

Total. 798,157

840,627

$97,148,705

The opening of the war, in 1861, gave an extraordinary impetus to iron production and manufacture. The tariff and other causes reduced the importation to a mini

Mr. Smith presents the following conclu- mum, while the demand for iron for the sion to the "Statistical Report of the Iron fabrication of small arms and cannon; for Manufacture: " "The great facts demon- the construction of the large fleet of ironstrated are, that we have nearly 1,200 effi- clads, and for the other war vessels; for the cient works in the Union; that these pro- building of locomotives, the casting of car duce annually about 850,000 tons of iron, wheels and furnishing the vast quantity of the value of which in an ordinary year is railroad iron needed to repair the old tracks $50,000,000; of this amount the portion destroyed by the contending armies, and to expended for labor alone is about $35,000,- lay the tracks of new roads, extended the 000." business vastly beyond all former precedent; and the requirement that the Pacific railroad pro-and its branches shall be constructed solely of American iron, as well as the increase in its use for buildings, and for shipping, have maintained it in a prosperous condition. The manufacture of steel and the other 705.095 manufactures of iron, aside from those al919.770 ready enumerated, brought the aggregate 187.662 production and manufacture of iron and 1,135,497 steel, in 1860, up to $285,879,510. The 1,350.943 revenue tax paid on iron and steel manufac1.60.000 tures in 1864 indicates that the product of 1.850.000 the branches taxed amounted to about 1,900,000 $123,000,000. This estimate was far below The manufacture of iron rails has existed the production, as many branches were not for nearly twenty-five years in the United taxed, and the returns of that year were imStates, but has only assumed any great mag-perfect. The production and manufacture of nitude since 1854. The annual production 1865 were not less than 400 millions of dollars. of American rails since 1861 has been: 1861, There is every reason to expect that the de189,818 tons; 1862, 213.912; 1863, 275,-velopment of the iron mines will be pushed 768; 1864, 335,369; 1865, 356,292; 1866, 430,778; 1867, 462,108; 1863, 506,714; 1869, 593,586; 1870, 620,000; 1871, 722,000 tons. In the last named year, 572,386 tons were imported from Great Britain.

Tons raw
Bituminous

YEAR.

Pig Iron.

Coal and Coke

Tons
Charcoal
Pig Iron.

Pig Iron.

1857,

390,385

77,451

1858,

361.430

58,351

330,321 285,313

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731,544

947,604

831,282

1,461,626

1.916,641

The census of 1860 gives the following statistics of the iron production and manufacture of that year. There had been very little progress in the production of iron in the country for several years previous, in consequence of the very low rate of duty at which foreign railroad and other iron was admitted.

Iron blooms, valued at....... $2,623,178
Pig iron........
20,870,120
Bar, sheet and railroad iron.. 31,888,705

The

forward with constantly increasing energy,
and that the time is not far distant when
many of the great repositories of ores we
have described-now almost untouched-
will be the seats of an active industry and
centres of a thriving population, supported
by the home markets they will create.
great valley of the west, when filled with
the population it is capable of supporting,
and intersected in every direction with the
vast system of railroads, of which the present
lines form but the mere outlines, will itself
require more iron than the world now pro-
duces, and the transportation of large por
tions of this from the great iron regions of
northern Michigan and Wisconsin, and of

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