cellent material for ropes, and considerable and rods are now worked into ornamental NAILS.-Among the multitude of other important applications of malleable iron, that of nail making is particularly worthy of notice, as being in the machine branch of itthe preparation of cut nails-entirely an American process. Our advance in this department is ascribed to the great demand for nails among us in the construction of wooden houses. In England, even into the present century, nails were wrought only by hand, employing a large population. In the vicinity of Birmingham it was estimated that 60,000 persons were occupied wholly in nail making. Females and children, as well as men, worked in the shop, forging the nails upon anvils, from the "split iron rods" furnished for the purpose from the neighboring between their operations and those of the great establishments in Pennsylvania, consisting of the blast furnaces, in which the ores are converted into pig; of the puddling furnaces, in which this is made into wrought iron; of the rolling and slitting mills, by which the malleable iron is made into nailplates; and of the nail machines, which cut up the plates and turn them into nails-all going on consecutively under the same roof, and not allowing time for the iron to cool until it is in the finished state, and single establishments producing more nails than the greater part of the workshops of Birmingham fifty years ago. Public attention was directed to machine-made nails as long ago as 1810, by a report of the secretary of the treasury, in which he referred to the success already attained in their manufacture in Massachusetts. "Twenty years ago," he states, IRON WIRE.-The uses of iron wire have greatly increased within a few years past. The telegraph has created a large demand for it; and with the demand the manufac-iron works. The contrast is very striking ture has been so much improved, especially in this country, that the wire has been found applicable to many purposes for which brass or copper wire was before required. It is prepared from small rods, which are passed through a succession of holes, of decreasing sizes, made in steel plates, the wire being annealed as often as may be necessary to prevent its becoming brittle. In this branch the American manufacturers have attained the highest perfection. The iron prepared from our magnetic and specular ore is unequalled in the combined qualities of strength and flexibility, and is used almost exclusively for purposes in which these qualities are essential. But where stiffness combined with strength is more important, Swedish and Norwegian iron also are used. Much of the iron wire now made is almost as pliable as copper wire, while its strength is about 50 per cent. greater. In Worcester, Mass., a large contract has been satisfactorily filled for No. 10 wire, one of the conditions of which was that the wire, when cold, might be tightly wound around another wire of the same size without cracking or becoming rough on the surface. Such wire is an ex some men, now unknown, then in obscurity, began by cutting slices out of old hoops, and, by a common vice gripping these pieces, headed them with several strokes of the hammer. By progressive improvements, slitting mills were built, and the shears and the heading tools were perfected, yet much DUOTION IN 1856. In south New England, 12 mills, nails prin- Rockaway, Boonton, New Jersey, nails and spikes. On the Schuylkill, 5 mills, about.. Middle Pennsylvania, 2 mills, about.. Tons. 25,000 4,000 8,250 4,167 9,000 2,600 2,000 2,155 1,075 Pittsburg, 14 mills, nails, spikes, rivets, tacks 14,195 Mahoning Co., N. E. Ohio, 1 mill. Total.. 6,465 775 380 1,400 81,462 The number of nail machines employed in these mills was 2,645. A great variety of machines have been devised for nail making, very ingenious in their designs, and all too complicated for description. The iron is rolled out into bars labor and expense were requisite to make NAIL FACTORIES IN THE UNITED STATES, AND THEIR PRO nails. In a little time, Jacob Perkins, Jonathan Ellis, and a few others, put into execution the thought of cutting and of heading nails by water; but being more intent upon their machinery than upon their pecuniary affairs, they were unable to prosecute the business. At different times other men have spent fortunes in improvements, and it may be said with truth that more than a million of dollars have been expended; but at length these joint efforts are crowned with complete success, and we are now able to manu-Wheeling, 2 mills. facture, at about one-third of the expense that wrought nails can be manufactured for, nails which are superior to them for at least three-fourths of the purposes to which nails are applied, and for most of those purposes they are full as good. The machines made use of by Odiorne, those invented by Jonathan Ellis, and a few others, present very fine specimens of American genius." The report then describes the peculiar character of the cut nail-that it was used by northern for this manufacture, of 10 or 12 feet in carpenters without their having to bore a length, and wide enough to make three or hole to prevent its splitting the wood; that more strips, each one of which is as wide as it would penetrate harder wood than the the length of the nail it is to make. The wrought nail, etc. At that time, it states, cutting of these strips from the wider bars there were twelve rolling and slitting mills is the special work of the slitting mill, which in Massachusetts, chiefly employed in rolling is, in fact, but a branch of the rolling operanail plates, making nail rods, hoops, tires, tion, and carried on in conjunction with it. sheet iron, and copper, and turning out about The slitting machine consists of a pair of 3,500 tons, of which about 2,400 tons were rolls, one above the other, each having 5 or cut up into nails and brads. From that time 6 steel disks upon its axis, set as far apart as to the present the manufacture of nails by the width required for the nail-rod. Those machinery has been a profitable branch of upon one roll interlock with those upon the industry in the south-eastern part of Massa- other, so that when the wide bar is introchusetts, the iron and the coal being fur- duced it is pressed into the grooves above nished from the middle Atlantic states, and and below, and cut into as many strips as the nails, in great part, finding a market there are spaces between the disks. This at the south. The following table presents work is done with wonderful rapidity, several the number of nail mills in operation in bars being passed through at once. In the 1856. The smaller establishments are grad-nail factory each nail-making machine works ually going out of the business, and this is upon one of these strips, or nail-rods, at a becoming more concentrated in the coal and iron regions, thus saving the cost of transportation in these heavy articles. The manufacturers of New England, however, ingeniously divert a part of their operations to the production of smaller articles, with which the cost of transportation is a less item in proportion to their value, such as tacks, rivets, screws, butts, wire, and numerous finished articles, the value of which consists more in the labor performed upon them and in the use of ingenious machinery than in the cost of the crude materials employed. time, first clipping off a piece from the end presented to it, and immediately another, as the flat rod is turned over and the end is again presented to the cutter. The reason of turning it over for each successive cut is because the piece cut off for the nail is tapering, in order to make it a little wider at the end intended for the head than at the other, and thus, making the wider cut on alternate sides of the rod, this is regularly worked up into pieces of the proper shape. In the older operations a workman always sat in front of each machine, holding the rod and turning it over with every clip; but by a modern improvement this work is also done by mechanical contrivance. Each 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 to 14 per cent. of carbon, and from cast-iron by the latter containing a larger proportion of carbon, which may amount to 5.5 per cent. To readily convert 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 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 fatal to the quality of the steel if remaining | ceed the cost of the malleable iron employed in it, as sulphur, phosphorus, and silicon; in the other process. and the method thus admits of the use of crude irons, such as could never be applied to this manufacture by any other mode. The cast iron, in the form of thin plates, having been kept at a bright red heat in the bath of melted carbonate for a sufficient time, which is determined by occasionally taking out and testing some of the pieces, is transferred to the crucible, and is then melted and poured into moulds, as in the ordinary method of making cast steel. The crucibles, not being subjected to greater heat than is required for melting cast steel, endure much longer than when employed for melting wrought iron in the carbonizing process; thus a great saving is effected in the expense of the conversion; and this economy is still further increased by the use of a crude material, costing only from $20 to $30 per ton, in place of the superior qualities of wrought iron, worth $85 per ton. So great, indeed, is the saving, that the cost of the cast steel, when obtained in ingots, is found not to ex- in the following tables : STATISTICS.-The records of the production of iron of the United States are very incomplete up to the year 1854. Even the census returns are highly defective, as they often make no distinction between iron made from the ore and the products of the secondary operations of remelting and puddling. The first systematic attempts to obtain complete accounts of the business, as conducted in Pennsylvania, were made in 1850 by the Association of Iron Manufacturers, organized in Philadelphia. Mr. Charles E. Smith collected the returns, and published them in a small volume, together with other papers relating to the manufacture. In 1856 the association, through their secretary, Mr. J. P. Lesley, and their treasurer, Mr. C. E. Smith, obtained full returns from 832 blast furnaces, 488 forges, and 225 rolling mills in the United States, besides others in Canada, exhibiting their operations for the preceding three years. Some of these results are presented NO 1.-TABLE OF IRON WORKS IN OPERATION AND ABANDONED IN 1858. Anthracite Mills. 5 2 11 5 10 44 91 15 4 13 12 1 In working order, 560 Furnaces, 389 Forges, 210 Rolling Mills. Total, 1,159 |