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ON THE ESTIMATION OF SMALL QUANTITIES OF PHOS
PHORUS IN IRON AND STEEL BY THE SPECTRUM
ANALYSIS.
By Sir JOHN G. N. ALLEYNE, Bart., Butterley.
INTRODUCTION.
This is not the first time that the subject of the spectrum analysis
has been brought before the Iron and Steel Institute. At th®
London meeting of the Institute, in March, 1871, Professor Roscoe
read a paper on the subject; that paper is included in the Pro
ceedings, and will be found in Vol. II, 1871, of the Journal. The
Professor, after very fully describing the spectroscope itself, and
exhibiting and experimenting with sundry apparatus, in speaking
of the spectrum of the Bessemer flame, says, “ Why do we not see
the spectrum of phosphorus ? I think the analysis of the slag will
tell us why we do not see phosphorus in the flame, for the
good reason that it is not there. A very small quantity of it is
contained in the pig, and this we know quite well does not come
out, though many people here wish it would, but it remains in the
iron, so that I think it rather hard upon us to be told you cannot
do us any good at all, because you cannot tell us anything about
silicon or anything about phosphorus. In spite, however, of these
shortcomings, I hope what I have said will show you that spectrum
analysis is not wholly without its use, and that we may really
believe it will, in time to come, be much more largely employed
than it is at present, so that we may succeed, in the end, in doing
what we originally intended to tell you: when to stop your blow,
so as to have finished steel in your converters, without having
added any spiegel at alb”
Following at a very humble distance the great discoverers in
Solar physics, Augstrom and Kirchhoff, in Germany, Huggins and
�2
ESTIMATION OF SMALL QUANTITIES OF PHOSPHORUS
Lockyer, in our own country, the author has long been of 'opinion
that, if they, by means of the spectroscope, can analyse the sun—if
they can, by means of the cross prism or prism of comparison,
prove to demonstration that most of, or all, the metallic elements
and the various constituents of which this earth is formed, are
found in a state of incandescence in the sun; if Dr. Huggins, by
the displacement of the hydrogen line, can calculate whether a
star is approaching to or receding from the earth,—we should be
able to apply this system to our manufacturing operations. In
bringing the subject again before the Institute, the author wishes
to acknowledge the great advantage he has derived from the
study of the published investigations of the gentlemen before
mentioned, Dr. Huggins, Professors Augstrom and Kirchhoff, and
Mr. Lockyer. He would especially point out to the Institute that,
as practical manufacturers and engineers, it is their special business
to apply, and apply rightly, the powers of nature to operations
of the manufactory, it is the very basis of all improvement, the
very charter of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which the
author and many of the members of the Iron and Steel Institute
have the honour of being members. To quote the words of the
late Mr. Thos. Tredgold, “ A society for the general advancement
of mechanical science, and more particularly for promoting the
acquisition of that species of knowledge which constitutes the
profession of a civil engineer, being the art of directing the great
sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man.” It
is on this principle that the author invites the co-operation of the
Institute, as well as that of, as it were, the parent society, the
Institution of Civil Engineers, by whose kindness we are this day
assembled in these rooms. The subject is very large, the field of
enquiry and investigation which it opens is enormous—light, heat,
and electricity. It is impossible to say into what ramifications
a discussion may lead, bringing forward questions which in all
probability the author would be unable to answer; and which
are infinitely beyond the reasonable range of a single paper. It
is with this view that it is proposed to confine the subject
of the present paper to the estimation of phosphorus, by
means of electricity of high tension, the power of absorption of
hydrogen gas, and the spectroscope. The science of spectrum
�IN IRON AND STEEL BY THE SPECTRUM ANALYSIS,
3
analysis is a new one, one which will, if successful, be of the greatest
advantage in our blast furnace, forge, and steel manufacturing
operations, indeed to all manufactories where a qualitative or
quantitative analysis of the materials is required. If the subject
is brought before the Institute in too crude a state, the author
would plead, as his excuse, that it was his ambition that the
Institute should work it out for themselves, that a quantitative
analysis should emanate from one of themselves, and that they
should not wait until some of the great discoverers, before alluded
to, had time to turn their attention to terrestrial investigations,
and show us that the same law which applied to the absorption lines
of the sun’s atmosphere, and the effect of his rays passing through
the atmosphere of the earth, could be applied to the quantitative
analysis of the iron and steel as it passes from one process
of manufacture to another. The author does not presume
to come before the Institute and state that he has made a complete
quantitative analysis of iron by Spectrum Analysis, but hopes
that he will be able to show that he has made some progress
towards that result. Taking up the subject, then, where Professor
Roscoe left it in March, 1871, the author had first to get aspectrum
of iron, and to find the requisite apparatus. Mr. Alfred Apps, of
the Strand, furnished a powerful Grove’s Battery, an induction coil
capable of giving a spark of 12 inches between the secondary poles,
and a Leyden Battery of 4 one gallon jars. The coil was of very much
the same construction as that which he has now lent to further
illustrate this paper, and which he has kindly offered to set to work,if
the members wish to see it in operation. This offer the Council has
accepted. A spectroscope, by Mr. John Browning, with a battery
of 4 prisms of dense flint glass formed the first batch of apparatus.
The author certainly has, after a great number of experiments and
much study, formed an opinion of his own, but his wish and inten
tion is to describe a number of those experiments, showing the results
to which they lead, and leaving the members to form their own
conclusions, inviting, nevertheless, their co-operation and assist
ance. Professors Augstrom and Thalen state that there are 460
lines in the spectrum of iron. Dr. Watts, in his index of spectrum,
gives—Kirchkoff 71, Thaldn 148, Huggins 101; but there are also
present the atmospheric lines, which, in his index of spectra, give—
�4
ESTIMATION OF SMALL QUANTITIES OF PHOSPHORUS
Huggins, 32 for oxygen, and nitrogen 78. The question first to be
decided was, which of all that multitude of lines are atmospheric
lines, which sulphur, calcium, manganese, phosphorus, &c., &c. It
was very soon obvious that the spectra obtained from Geissler’s
vacuum tubes, although most beautifully made and contrived, gave
the spectra under totally different conditions from those in which
they exist in our iron. The curve recommended by Dr. Watts
was tried, but the author found that the construction of the
spectroscope was such that he could not work with certainty and
accuracy. After many trials and experiments, with the details of
which it is needless to trouble the Institute, he determined to work
wholly by spectra of comparison. But considerable difficulty arose
with silica, alumina, and sulphur, as well as phosphorus. First, as to
the means of holding them as electrodes ; secondly, they are very
bad conductors. A piece of fire brick, held in the nippers, will give
no spectrum, the spark jumps over it in the most clever way, and
gives nothing but the spectrum of the nippers, be they brass or
steel. Some of the small tubes, samples of which are on the table,
were made—they are shown at No. 7 in the drawing. The object
here was to bury the electrode in the pounded fire brick, and force
the current to pass through it. These are obviously a modifica
tion of Geissler’s tubes. The lines of silica and alumina shine out
with splendour, but they do not last long, the glass gets coated
with the material which is decomposed by the spark, and forms a
conductor, the spark only passing in fitful flashes as at X, and
giving but very little light; on the whole, the best way of charging
the tube is, as shown at the drawing No. 8, letting the platinum
electrode come through the throat of the tube, and burying the
lower electrode in the powder under examination; this has the
further advantage that the spectrum of the glass itself does not
intrude, the lines of the platinum must, of course, be noted, and
not confused with those of the powder. The spectra of iron ores
come out very well by this method. The nozzles A B are for letting
in gas. This being the most difficult spectrum with which the
author has had to deal, he has thought it better to explain it
before proceeding to phosphorus, which forms the main subject of the
paper. The phosphorus lines were got in this way—a small hole was
drilled into a piece of carbon and filled up with phosphorus, the
�IN IRON AND STEEL BY THE SPECTRUM ANALYSIS.
5
phosphorus worked over the carbon like the head of a rivet, so that
the spark could not get from one carbon electrode to the other without
volatilizing the phosphorus; but it is quite obvious that this .method
•would not do in atmospheric air, the spectrum must be taken in a
gas with which the phosphorus could not enter into combustion,
orkit would simply light in the spark, combine with the oxygen,
and fill the cylinder with phosphoric acid. Carbonic acid, hydrogen,
nr the common coal gas, all do very well for this. A special appara
tus, however, had to be fitted up, which is on the table, and is
shown on the drawing at No. 2. The lines of phosphorus on a
carbon point, taken in this way in coal gas, are shown on the
spectrum on the drawing at No. 9. It will be seen at once that
the characteristic features of phosphorus are seven broad bands in
the green, there are also three very peculiar lines in the red, like a
wicket with the middle stump thinner than the other two. There
is also the same kind of group in sulphur, but in a different position
in the red, by no means coincident. The lines of both sulphur
and phosphorus are got by comparison, that is, one pair of electrodes
were prepared with a phosphorus point, as before described, and
another pair, from exactly the same carbon, were prepared without
phosphorus; each pair was fitted into one of the glass cylinders,
the cylinders were filled with coal gas, each with a separate
branch pipe, and the gas lit, the pair of plain carbon electrodes
were arranged in front of the slit of the collimator of the spectro
scope, and the phosphorus pair were arranged opposite the cross
prism, or prism of comparison. The two spectra are seen—the
phosphorus above, and the carbon below, in the usual way. The
lines which coincide are those.of carbon and coal gas, a beautiful
spectrum well worthy of study, but one with which for the
present we have nothing to do.
The lines which do not
-coincide are those of phosphorus and anything the phosphorus
may contain; the readings on the dividing plate must be
-carefully noted.
We have now to look for phosphorus in
•our iron. The plain carbon points must be removed—the nippers
replaced with a clean pair, the cylinder covers cleaned, and the
iron electrodes, to be examined; put in. The iron is now in air,
•the phosphorus in coal gas, the lines which coincide are produced
<by phosphorus in the iron which is decomposed by the spark, taking
�6
ESTIMATION OF SMALL QUANTITIES OF PHOSPHORUS
care to note which were the readings taken as phosphorus linesin the last experiment, for there may be silicon, sulphur, and other
impurities in the carbon—there is certainly also carbon itself, all of
which are present in the iron. There is, however, little or no risk
of any confusion on this point. All the coincident lines in ordinary
pig, puddled, or bar iron, are in the green, or very near to it. The
seven lines or bands of the phosphorus are much broader, those of
fairly good iron, very fine, sharp, and bright. The idea struck theauthor, are not those iron lines brighter than the phosphorus itself,!
because they are in an atmosphere containing oxygen ? The ques-'
tion was soon put and answered, the coal gas was let into the iron
cylinder, and the lines vanished entirely; but the spectrum of coal,
gas does not do very well for this purpose. It has numerous lines of
its own, which have to be eliminated, the; part of the spectrum—the
green—where the characteristic lines of phosphorus occur, is ruled
all over by the most extraordinary number of dark absorption lines,,
through the intervals of which the brighter parts of the continuous
spectrum of the spark are seen. It is most difficult to determine
whether these are, as supposed, bright spaces of a superimposed
spectrum, or lines. Hydrogen gas is much better as an absorber,,
or as a gas in which, oxygen being absent, no combustion can take
place. It is needless to point out here that, in using hydrogen, the
greatest care must be taken to avoid explosions. The practice in
these experiments has been to fill all the cylinders and pipes withcoal gas, light it, and to displace this gas with hydrogen. It is found
that, when there are twelve cubic inches of hydrogen, as measured
by the graduated bottle hereafter to be described, the carbon
rulings (if that can be accepted as a proper term) disappear. The
lines of the spectrum, which in air are bright, and which coincide
with those of phosphorus and sulphur, are completely blotted out
or absorbed. The conclusion which the author has come to is that,
when small quantities of phosphorus or other matters are present
in the electrodes, they require oxygen in some form to bring them
out as bright lines. He is confirmed in this view by other writers.
In Schellen’s Spectrum Analysis, page 162, after describing
Professor Tyndall’s discovery of another line in Lithium, in the
intense heat of the Voltaic arc, he says : “ If a few grains of common
salt be dropped into the flame of a Bunsen burner, there is emitted.
�IN IRON AND STEEL BY THE SPECTRUM ANALYSIS.
7
an intense light of one colour, producing the spectrum of a
single yellow line. If the temperature of the flame be raised
by a further supply of oxygen, the brilliancy of this line is
immediately augmented, and the number of coloured lines so much
increased, as to approach somewhat to a continuous spectrum.” It
may be that the lines are only obscured by the spectrum of
hydrogen as a screen, or as a piece of coloured glass. If this should
prove the correct explanation, it can, just as well as the first
supposition, which the author has accepted as the true one, be used
as a means of measuring the quantity present in the spark, and
arriving at a correct estimation of that quantity by the spectrum
analysis. By the first supposition, we calculate the quantity
inversely, as the quantity of oxygen, or a compound of oxygen used;
by the second, we alter the character and condition of the screen,
it becomes less dense by admixture with the oxygen compound,
until the line is able to penetrate. If a large quantity of
phosphorus is undergoing deflagration at the electrodes, it will
penetrate a screen of considerable density. If a small quantity only
is undergoing decomposition, the density of the screen must be
reduced, until the line can penetrate it; in either case the quantity
can be estimated inversely, as the quantity of oxygen that has been
used, or on same ratio as represented by the curve on the drawing,
No. 1. In comparing a phosphide of iron with phosphorus, or a
sulphide of iron with sulphur, the quantity of sulphur and phos
phorus has power to penetrate the gas, but some of the lines at the
red end of the spectrum are missing. To return, then, to the main
subject of the paper. At No. 9 on the drawings, is shown by the
characteristic lines of phosphorus, the lines were taken as before
described on carbon electrodes tipped with phosphorus—some lines
which are exceedingly fine have been omitted as doubtful. In.
this spectrum we have 21 lines; Dr. Watt’s gives 47, as found by
Plucker, but as to how the spectrum was taken, whether as a vapour
at atmospheric pressure, or in a vacuum tube, he gives no informa
tion. The principle, which the author has introduced to the Insti
tute, of course requires further investigation; but the fact does
seem to him to be confirmed by such experiments as he has been
able to apply, which is this, that an atmosphere of hydrogen gas, or
a gas composed of the ordinary coal gas from the gas works, with
�8
ESTIMATION OF SMALL QUANTITIES OF PHOSPHORUS
an admixture of hydrogen, has power to absorb completely the
phosphorus lines in iron, even when there is as much as 3-334 per
cent, of phosphorus present—that no sign of phosphorus is seen in
the spectrum in an atmosphere of this gas—that on the admission
of a very small amount of oxygen, the line does appear—that when
very small quantities of phosphorus are present, a very much larger
quantity of oxygen must be admitted, to make the line shine out
as a bright line. The experiments which have led to this result
have spread over many months, and have absorbed almost all the
author’s leisure time; they will, however, be explained in a few
minutes. They extend over several samples of iron, from which a
selection has been made, ranging from ‘550 of phosphorus to 021.
From these samples, the curve shown at No. 1 on the drawings
has been constructed; it will be observed that they do not
proceed in a direct ratio, but in the form of a curve. If,
as the author hopes, the- principle is right—but on this
he wishes to speak with great diffidence—he has lived to see
many splendid inventions of the patent office and lecture room
blown into thin air, when they get into the practical operations of
the laboratory and the workshop, that he would use due caution.
In the present state of his knowledge on the subject he would
proceed to an analysis of iron, with the apparatus now on the table,
and set forth on the drawings, in this way :—We propose, in this
case, to deal with materials suitable for the Siemens steel furnace,
either by Dr. Siemens’ open-hearth furnace or by the SiemensMartin process. For the quality we propose to make we will
assume that we must not have more than ’050 of phosphorus. A
few pieces are chipped from the pig iron to be used, from these a
pair of electrodes are filled up, they are placed in the nippers, and
put into the glass cylinder shown at No. 2. We should place the
phosphorus electrodes themselves in the cylinder shown at No. 3,
let coal gas into No. 3, and turn on the current; when the spectro
scope is adjusted, we should see that there are seven broad lines in
the green, that the band marked 181° 6j' in the green has a decided
unmistakeable coincident in iron. The current must not be kept
on long, as the iron is in air it will be very rapidly coated with
oxide, except to satisfy the observer that it is coincident, it is better
not to turn on the current when the iron is in air, because the
�IN IRON AND STEEL BY THE SPECTRUM ANALYSIS.
9
oxide will be decomposed, and upset the subsequent calculations.
Coal gas is next let into the cylinder and pipes, and lit at such
portion of the pipes, and at the cylinder, as will ensure that all the
atmospheric air has been driven out. The hydrogen gas holder is
now connected, and the gas turned on. At No. 4 of the drawings
the graduated bottle is shown; this bottle is drawn 3|f in.
Riameter, so as to get 12 in. area. The bottle actually used
in the experiments is an old barley sugar bottle, and can be
graduated accurately to whatever its diameter may be, by
weighing twelve cubic inches, marking the space on the bottle,
and graduating it accordingly.
This bottle forms a very
important part of the apparatus. It is fitted with a syphon
pipe, shown at No. 5. When the cock at the long leg is opened,
and all the cocks to the cylinder and gas holder are also
opened, the water runs out of the bottle into the bucket shown at
pSTo. 6. The coal gas in the cylinder, No. 2, flows out and takes its
place, and the hydrogen from the gas holder follows and takes the
place of the coal gas, or mixes with it. The practice in these
experiments has been to let in, in this way, 12 cubic inches of gas
as measured by the bottle, and to examine the spectrum for air
lines; the practised eye will detect these in a moment. If the air
lines are in the spectrum, this gas is not pure, oxygen is present,
the hydrogen is unfit for use, or the pipes have not been properly
cleared of air. With 12 inches of hydrogen which has been care
fully prepared, the line, the reading of which on this particular
instrument is 181 6-J/ is completely blotted out, a continuous
hazy-looking spectrum with indications of lines at various parts,
but the line 181° 6|' has completely vanished. We have next
to ascertain what quantity of oxygen will be required to make
181° 6j' come out as a bright line. The hydrogen must be
disconnected, and carbonic acid connected, taking care, of
course, to exclude the air, 36 cubic inches are required to
bring out a bright line. This iron may with confidence be
passed and used, it drops on to the curve just at 36, showing
that it has ‘021 per cent. Supposing that we are working the
Siemens-Martin process—the next sample submitted to the
spectrum analysis we will suppose to be puddled iron, it is tried
with hydrogen and there is no line, the carbonic acid is let in as
�10
ESTIMATION OF SMALL QUANTITIES OF PHOSPHORUS
before, at short intervals, and in quantities as measured by | on
the graduated scale, which is equal to 3 cubic inches, with the
second admission of 3 inches, making in all, 6 cubic inches, the line
is bright, the iron is very bad, it contains '550 of phosphorus, and
may, with great confidence, be rejected. The curve was obtained
by only 4 samples, containing—of phosphorus
’550 H.
•301 F.
•050 I.
•021 G.
Should this system come into general use, it is very probable
that some such form of apparatus, as shown at No. 12 on the
drawings, will be found the best, because greater quantities of the
material under examination can be brought under the action of
the spark. Iron, in the form of filings, gives a very fine spectrum
in this way. Wishing to try on samples of iron containing larger
quantities of phosphorus, the author asked Mr. Edward Riley to
send him some of those from which he had made analyses—that
gentleman kindly sent him five samples—ranging from 3’334 per
cent, to '027, a sample containing ’081 was tried and fell into its
place in the curve in a very satisfactory way. The sample con
taining 3'334 was also examined, and it was found, that when such
large quantities are present, other lines must be taken into account
—the line 181'6| is wholly absorbed by the hydrogen, with six
cubic inches of carbonic acid; it came out as a great broad band,
nearly as broad as that of the phosphorus. Other lines came out
which do not appear in iron, containing *550; these lines are
nearer the blue. The special part of the apparatus for the
examination of such materials as cannot be made into electrodes
is also shown on the drawings. Samples of them are on the table.
Figure 10 is a modification of Bequerell tube, which is used
generally for the examination of solutions. A great objection has
been found to using them as open tubes, with a fluid, quantities of it
are scattered by the action of the spark, to the great injury of the
slit of the spectroscope and the eyes of the operator. The same
objection holds good with a powder. A plain glass, as shown at
No. 12, would probably be a better form of apparatus than any before
mentioned. It would be better to pass the platinum electrode
�IN IRON AND STEEL BY THE SPECTRUM ANALYSIS.
11
through a glass tube so as to insulate it from the stopper, because
the deflagration from either a fluid or a powder so coats the glass
and the face of the stopper that the current passes that way;
the glass rod, should it also become coated, is easily cleaned
by drawing it up through the cork and wiping the coating from it,
and ensuring that the circuit can be made only by passing from the
platinum electrode to the fluid or the powder. The subject of such
large quantities as 2,3, or more per cent., requires further experiment.
The time of the Institute is valuable, and must not be taken up in
dealing with suppositions. The author wishes to adhere to the
subject of the paper—the estimation of small quantities of phos
phorus in iron and steel by the spectrum analysis. As time goes on,
should he be so fortunate as to gain more knowledge and
experience, he will have great pleasure in bringing this matter
forward again, hoping that other members who have taken
up this most important subject, or who may be induced by
this introduction of it to do so, will do the same.
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On the estimation of small quantities of phosphorus in iron and steel by the spectrum analysis
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Alleyne, John [1960-]
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Collation: 11 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Reprinted from Iron and Steel Institute Journal, 1871. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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ON
THE PAST AND PEESENT
OF
IRON
SMELTING.
BY
ST. JOHN VINCENT DAY, C.E., F.R.S.E.,
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH SOCIETY OF ARTS, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL
ENGINEERS, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF ENGINEERS IN SCOTLAND, MEMBER OF THE IRON
AND STEEL INSTITUTE, HON. LIBRARIAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GLASGOW.
From the “Proceedings'” of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow,
Communicated April 23, 1873.
EDINBURGH:
EDMONSTON AND
1873.
DOUGLAS.
��ON THE
PAST AND PRESENT OF IRON SMELTING.
Part I.
(a.) Preliminary Remarks.
As to the importance of the position which pig iron occupies in
the list of our manufactures, it were idle to urge anything in expla
nation to a society located in Glasgow. When we consider that
in 1871 no less than 16,859,063 tons of iron ores were smelted in
Great Britain alone, from which was produced 6,627,179 tons of
pig iron, representing a money value at the works of £16,667,947,
*
and which for the corresponding period we have just passed through,
must by reason of an unprecedented demand for the material itself,
and at unprecedented prices, be greatly increased; it will, I venture
to hope, be readily admitted that our time may be profitably spent
in considering the steps by which a manufacture, in former years
carried on very much in the dark, has at length been reduced by
the conjoint labour of many to almost a scientific exactitude. To
say that iron smelting has yet been completely reduced to a science
would be nothing other than pretence; nevertheless, that with a
given furnace, ore, fuel, flux, and blast, we can estimate within
tolerably narrow limits the quality and quantity of the product.
Yet there are numerous points in the true understanding of what
takes place in the blast furnace which are still enshrined in the
region of uncertainty.
Within the last forty years, it may be said that iron smelting has
been becoming by slow degrees to be scientifically understood, since
Mushet and Clark in our own country, as well as several French
and German physicists, have devoted their energies to the solution
of various inquiries wherewith the subject is entangled; but since
1846, when the first furnace was built at the Walker Works, by
Mineral Statistics, 1871.
�4
Preliminary Remarks.
Mr. I. Lowthian Bell, for smelting the Cleveland iron-stone, and
*
several more iron-making districts, with furnaces of colossal dimen
sions, have sprung up, the most important investigations, so far at
least as our own country is concerned, have been canned out, the
general results of which have led to improvements in practice,
whereby the fuel required for smelting has been reduced by about
30 per cent.—this being directly due to operating with a larger
bulk a,nd higher column of materials at a time; utilizing the waste
gases for heating the blast and generating steam for the blowing
engines; and to a greatly elevated blast temperature.
No argument can be necessary to shew why it is important, in
dealing with the subject of this investigation, to attack it at the
very foundation; for that must be self-evident to any one whom it
may concern to understand it, and as certain special reasons which,
I trust, will clearly appear in the sequel, seem to render it desirable
to consider briefly some information which comes to us from remote
past ages, it may not, I hope, be considered tedious nor out of
place if, at the commencement of this record, I dwell somewhat
briefly on a few features in the history of the subject.
Any attempt at elucidating the course through which the modern
gigantic operations of iron-smelting have been reached involves at
once the history of the manufacture of cast iron—and it is not too
much to say that recent investigations into that subject, if they
prove anything at all, prove, amongst other things, that the true
history of cast-iron still remains an unwritten chapter. How
ever interesting, as well as useful it might prove, to probe the
ultimate depths of that history, yet it is not proposed as a feature
of this paper to attempt what must at present be so unfathom
able a task.
Before entering into the deeper points to which the subject before
us will probably be found to reach, I may remark that, whereas by
some researches,! made a few years since, I was enabled toprove,
from a variety of consentaneous evidence, that malleable iron was
well known and used at least as far back as 4,000 years ago, and
almost certainly much earlier still, I was thereby, and of necessity,
led to doubt whether the usually accepted assertion as to cast iron
having been invented within the last three or four hundred years
only, rested on an entirely stable and reliable basis. The sequel will
shew the results of the doubt so raised in my own mind.
* Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting, Preface.
+ Vide Proc. Phil. Soc., Glasgow, Vol. vii., p. 476.
�The Beginning of Iron Smelting.
5
(&.) The Origin of the Blast Furnace.
Not unlike many other discoveries made at periods remote from
the present age, and which have had in varied degrees incalculable
influence upon the condition and destinies of mankind, does it at a
first view appear out of keeping with an almost constant order, that
the place and date, no less than the names, of the first makers of
cast iron are not absolutely known.
When, however, we reflect upon that which we really do know,
as being reliably ascertained concerning early methods of making
iron and steel, weigh carefully the precise nature of the conditions
involved under those methods, and seek out the results inevitably
accruing through them, as explained by the guiding light of modern
chemistry, it would appear that the blast furnace as a distinct
apparatus could scarcely at any time have consisted in a definite or
sudden departure from an existing order of things; by saying which,
I mean to explain, that in all probability, there never was in the
development of iron smelting an immediate complete change made
from the method of reducing ore at once to malleable metal (the
direct method) to that of first making pig or sow metal (or the
indirect method of the blast furnace as we practise it to-day); rather,
on the contrary, the evidence which has been collected goes to shew
that the blast furnace was ultimately reached as a definite and
distinct apparatus for reducing iron ore quickly, and producing an
easily fusible compound of iron, partly by its accidental production
occasionally when reducing easily fusible ores in the air or blast
bloomeries, or other formerly used types of low furnaces, in which
the product sought to be obtained was malleable iron or steel
This probability, indeed, appears to rest on conclusive grounds; and
the tendency of the evidence is further to shew that the blast
furnace, as an apparatus having as a distinct object the production
of cast iron, was at last arrived at through very gradual accessions
to the height of the ancient types of low furnaces.
Where we are to look for the earliest traces of the practice of
reducing iron to the form of a carburet or as cast iron, I cannot
suppose that at the present time any one would venture to assert;
*
but as the employment of steel in fashioning the stones used in the
monuments of Proto-Egypt, India, Greece, and elsewhere, has been
shewn, that almost seems to imply the acquaintance of those ancient
nations with the fusion of iron, and leads us to expect that to the
East and not the West must we look for the beginnings of the art.
In so far as our own country has yet given testimony, the oldest
�6
The Oldest British Blast Furnaces.
blast furnaces yet recorded are those of which the ruins formerly
existed, and may, for aught I know, still exist, in the Forest of
Dean, and the age of which Mr. Mushet has computed as belonging
to the commencement of the seventeenth century.
*
* In his “Papers on Iron and Steel,” Mr. Mushet supplies us with the follow
ing instructive remarksI have examined the sites of many old charcoal blast
furnaces, with a view of determining their age, by the quantity of slags with
which they were surrounded. Here, however, another difficulty has been, in
every case but one, interposed. The manufacture of black bottles has, I think,
been traced as far back as the fifteenth century. At what time the manu
facture was introduced into this country, I am uncertain; but it is not
improbable that in early times, as in the last century, the slags or cinders of
the charcoal blast furnace have entered into the composition of black bottles,
and created a consumption of that sort of waste which otherwise would have
remained in the vicinity of the furnaces. The superior quality of the Bristol
black bottles has been attributed to the immemorial use of a portion of the
slags of the charcoal furnaces from the neighbourhood of Dean Forest. The
consequence of this long-standing practice has been to carry from the furnaces
not only the old slags, but those currently made. In one instance only have
I found from this source data for calculation. Before the civil commotions of
the seventeenth century, the Kings of England were possessed of two blast
furnaces in the Forest of Dean, when the cord-wood of the Forest and the
king’s share of the mines were used for the purpose of iron-making. Soon after
the commencement of the struggle between Charles the First and his Parlia
ment, these furnaces ceased working, and at no period since have they been in
blast. About fourteen years ago, I first saw the ruins of one of these
furnaces situated below York Lodge, and surrounded by a large heap of the
slag or scoria that is produced in making pig iron. As the situation of this
furnace was remote from roads, and must at one time have been deemed
nearly inaccessible, it had all the appearance, at the time of my survey, of
having remained in the same state for nearly two centuries. There existed
no trace of any sort of machinery, which rendered it highly probable that
no part of the slags had been ground (the usual practice) and carried off, but
that the entire produce of the furnace in slags remained undisturbed.
“The quantity I computed at from 8,000 to 10,000 tons; a quantity which,
however great it may appear for the minor operations of an early period, would
yet in our times be produced from a coke furnace in less than two years. If it
is assumed that the furnace made annually 200 tons of pig iron; and further,
assuming the result which has been obtained with ores richer than the Boman
cinders, and ores used at that time in Dean Forest, that the quantity of slag run
from the furnace was equal to one-half of the quantity of iron made (in modem
times the quantity of cinder from the coke furnace is double the weight of the
iron), we shall have 100 tons annually for a period of from 80 to 100 years. If
the abandonment of this furnace took place about the year 1640, the nommenoe.
ment of its smeltings must be assigned to a period between the years 1540 and
1560.
Mushet, from this computation, assigns the mean period or 1550 as the
most probable period for the commencement of smelting operations with this
furnace. In a note, however, at the end of the paper from which the previous
�The Oldest British Blast Furnaces.
7
It is desirable, ere proceeding too far in the paths of research
which for the present occupy our attention, in order to avoid any
extract is taken, he says, “the calculation of age, which proceeded on the
assumption of a certain weight of cinder being obtained in the production of a
given weight of iron, and which with so rich ore may be correct; yet, on
further consideration of the subject, and taking into account the calcareous
nature of the iron ores of Dean Forest requiring a considerable portion of
argillaceous schist to neutralize the lime, it is more than probable that the
furnace would necessarily, from this circumstance, and from the inferior pro
duce of the ores, produce fully as much cinder as pig iron, and that in place of
only being one-half the weight, it would probably be of equal weight with the
iron. Taking the calculation in this way, we should not reach an older period
than the commencement of the 17th century for the introduction of the blast
furnace into Dean Forest.’ . . . The local history of Tintern Abbey
assigns a later period (the early years of James the First) for the erection of
that furnace. The opportunity afforded of examining both the slags and the iron
produced in that early period abundantly proves that the furnace in Dean
Forest above mentioned was one of the earliest efforts in the art of making pig
iron. Small masses or shots of iron are found enveloped in the slags, specimens
of iron in a malleable state, though rarely, more frequently rough nodules of
large grained steel, resembling blistered steel, and others of a more dense
fracture, but of a similar quality. The more fusible reguli of white, mottled
and grey iron are found' in great abundance, all of them possessing forms and
appearances of fusion more or less perfect, according to the quantities of carbon
with which they are united; and it is but justice to the memory of the fathers
of this art to add, that the specimens of grey cast iron are more abundant than
those of the other sorts.
“This furnace seems to have been erected upon the spoils of former ages of
iron-making; and probably the situation was in the first instance determined by
the numerous bloomeries that existed in the neighbourhood—the scoria of which
has in after ages been worked to so much advantage in the blast furnace; and
though, as a blast furnace, possessed of no great antiquity, yet, as the site of
the ancient bloomery, entitled to be considered as the remains of an extensive
manufactory of iron in ages more remote.
“ Upon the whole, several circumstances incline me to the opinion, that the
blast furnace must have been known in some of the then iron-making districts
of England before it was introduced into Dean Forest. The oldest casting
I have met with in Dean Forest is dated 1620.
“ The great infusibility and difficulty attending the management of calcareous
ores, such as those belonging to Dean Forest, is another circumstance that
inclines me to think that the art of making pig iron did not originate in that
quarter, and probably did not succeed entirely till the practice of increasing
their fusibility by the addition of the bloomery cinder became known and
established. These conjectures are confirmed by reference to a paper in my
possession, professing to be an account of all the blast furnaces in England
previous to the manufacture of pig iron from pit-coal—probably about the year
1720 or 1730; in which, however, the blast furnace of Tintern Abbey is omitted,
and possibly others. At that period there were in all England 59 furnaces,
�8
High Furnace not Essential to Produce Cast Iron.
necessity for raising the question hereafter, once and for all to
point out, that, it is not a consequence, because we are unable to
assign an earlier positive date for the blast furnace than that above
given, that cast iron was unknown before that period; indeed,
from what we do glean from the historical records, they assure us
that it was in considerable use at a much more remote age. And
whereas this knowledge might lead some persons to conclude that as
the blast furnace constitutes the first step taken in the manufacture
of cast iron to-day, it was necessarily the first step taken in ages long
past; still, a candid consideration of certain features of history,
coupled with a consideration of what chemistry now teaches, are
more than sufficient to convince us that the high or blast furnace
is not indispensable to the production of that carburet, however
much it is essential, under our. current knowledge at the present
period, in order to comply with modern demands for the metal at
paying prices.
To but briefly, indeed, indicate how much more ancient cast iron
may really be than, so far as I have ascertained, has been noticed
during the last quarter of a century,—a period unprecedented in
the issue from the press of a metallurgical literature of extreme
value,—I may mention a process of making steel- used by the
making annually 17,350 tons, or little more than 5 tons of pig iron a week for
each furnace.
“ Should it appear that there have been since the invention of blast furnaces
iron-making districts in England in which a greater number of furnaces have
been established than in Dean Forest, then to that quarter I should be inclined
to look for information on the history, rise, and progress of the blast furnace.
Brecon,
Glamorgan,.
Carmarthen,
Cheshire, .
Denbigh,
Derby,
.
.
.
.
.
.
2
2
1
3
2
4
Gloucester,
Hereford, .
Hampshire,
Kent, .
Monmouth,
Nottingham,
.
.
.
.
.
.
6
3
1
4
2
1
Salop, .
Stafford,
Worcester, .
Sussex,
Warwick, .
York, .
. 6
. 2
. 2
. 10
. 2
. 6
“It would appear from this account, that the counties of Sussex and Kent
alone contained, in the early part of the eighteenth century, 14 blast furnaces;
and as it is probable that the woodlands in the vicinity of the metropolis would
sooner disappear than in the more distant counties, it is equally probable that
a century before the number of blast furnaces might have been considerably
greater in that district. The only other iron-making district that will at the
time now spoken of bear a comparison with Sussex and Kent, is that of Dean
Forest, in which I include the Furnace of Tintern Abbey, in Monmouthshire,
not included in the list; Gloucestershire 6, and Herefordshire 3,—making in
all 10 blast furnaces.”
�Molten Iron known to the Greeks.
9
Greeks, and recorded in the writings of no less an authority than
Aristotle, and to which I have, on a previous occasion, directed
*
attention. Where it is stated:—
“ Wrought iron itself may be cast so as to be made liquid, and to
harden again."
Somewhat obscure as the Aristotleian account of Greek-steel
manufacture unquestionably is, nevertheless, when the terms of the
fragment are analyzed, and it is placed in juxta-position with other
accounts of steel-making appertaining to times long subsequent,
it is even sufficient to assure us that such iron, although it may not
have been specially employed in the art of making castings, but
produced for the purpose of converting bars of wrought iron into
steel, by a process of cementation in a bath of metal surcharged
with carbon, was known to and practised by the Greeks at least
as early as 400 years before our era.
Indeed, we may venture further still—for recent discoveries in
India, and the impossibility of explaining Egyptian sculpture in
granite, porphyry, diorite, &c., without the use of steel tools, hold
out much to hope for towards the increasing of our acquaintance
with the metallurgy of the ancient eastern world, by further special
researches into the storehouses of information yet waiting there
to be opened up. For, after the discovery of the Kutub Minar
Laht,t near Delhi, as well as the -huge iron beams in the Temple of
- Kanaruc,J and the coming to light of numerous other testimonies,
proving beyond doubt the extremely high acquaintance with manu
facturing art, which some persons at least possessed in the East in
ages long past, the cautious observer is compelled to pause ere risk
ing to pronounce, whether, as it even yet is generally asserted,
Western civilization has in all respects exceeded all previous civil
ization, or questioning, whether we have attained in some respects
the position in certain of the manufactures most important to
man at one time reached in the old world; for, whilst the rate of
production has increased as a necessary sequence of the growth
of population, and novel as well as wider fields of application, yet
it is notorious that in many instances high quality is not main
tained. There is much to be met with in the remains of the
Proto-Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Chinese nations to assure
us that we have not—while to Central Asia, Asia Minor, and
Persia we must look hopefully for further light in this respect.
* Vide Proc. Phil. Soc., Glasgow, vol. viii., p. 244.
+ Trans. Asiatic Soc., Bengal, 1864.
J Illust. Ancient Architecture of Hindustan, p. 28, Pl. iii., 1848.
�10
Early Accounts of Molten Iron.
With this much of digression from the immediate subject in
hand, purposely introduced too as a forewarning signal to us that at
this time we have no sufficient facts to warrant us in assigning any
approximate period even for the origin of the indirect method of
reducing iron ores (the prevalent system of this age), we may with
advantage return to the question of producing cast iron without the
blast furnace; in order to satisfy ourselves that, whilst all the very
old examples of iron which we do find are malleable, and appear
from more than one point of view to have been produced from ores
reduced without fusion; and when inquiring still further into the
most ancient practice of reduction, no country so far affords con
clusive evidence of cast iron having been an established man nfa.ctured product—in the sense we find malleable iron to have been
therein—yet the collateral evidence as to an extremely early
method of making steel, in the production of which cast iron was a
sine qua non, convinces us of the necessity for exercising extreme
caution ere drawing a conclusion.
The next early intelligible account that we have of steel-making
throws equal light over cast iron making, and this is to be found
in a work entitled “De la Pirotechniaf published at Venice in 1540,
by Vanoccio Biringuccio; and in the somewhat later, but better
known writings of Agricola—« De re Metallica ”—published about
1561. Both these authors describe a process of converting bars of
malleable iron into steel by keeping the bars immersed for a con
siderable time in molten cast iron.
The process as described by the earlier author has been translated
by Mr. Panizzi, of the British Museum; and I here quote an
*
extract from that translation, shewing how the cast iron was
produced.
“ Steel is nothing but iron well purified by means of art, and
through much liquefaction by fire brought to a more perfect ad
mixture and quality than it had before. By the attraction of some
suitable substances in the things which are added to it, its natural
aridity is mollified by somewhat of moisture, and it is made whiter
and denser, so that it seems to be almost removed from its original
nature; and at last, when its pores are well dilated and mollified
with much fire, and when the heat is driven out of them by the
extreme coldness of the water, they contract, and so the iron is
converted into a hard substance, which from its hardness becomes
brittle. This may be done with every kind of iron, and so steel
* Metallurgy, Iron and Steel. By John Percy, M.D., F.R.S., London, 1864
Murray, p. 807, et seq.
�Early Accounts of Molten Iron.
11
may be made of all kinds of iron. It is true, indeed, that it is
made better from one kind than from another, and with one sort of
charcoal than another, and it is also made better according to the
skill of the masters. The best iron to make it good is, however,
that which, being by its nature free from the corruption of any
other metal, is more easy to melt, and which is to a certain extent
harder than other kinds. With this iron is put some pounded
marble or other fusible stones, in order to melt them together.
By these it is purged, and they have, as it were, the power of
taking away its ferruginosity, of constricting its porosity, and of
making it dense and free from cleavage. Now, to conclude, when
the masters wish to do this work, they take of that iron passed
through the furnace or otherwise as much as they wish to convert
into steel, and they break it into little bits; then they prepare
before the aperture of the forge a circular receptacle, about a foot or
more in diameter, made of one-third clay and two-thirds small coal
(carbonigia), well beaten together with a hammer, well mixed, and
moistened with so much water as will make them keep together
when squeezed in the hand; and when this receptacle is thus made
in the same way as they make a hearth (ceneraccio), but deeper, the
aperture is prepared in the midst, which should have a little of the
nose turned down, so that the wind may strike in the midst of the
receptacle. Then, when all the space is filled with charcoal, they,
moreover, make round about it a circle of stones or soft rock to keep
in the broken iron and the additional charcoal which they put
upon it, and so they fill it up and make a heap of charcoal over it.
Then, when they see that the whole is on fire, and well kindled,
especially the receptacle, the masters begin to set the bellows to
work, and to put on some of that crushed iron mingled with saliup
marble and with pounded slag, or with other fusible and not earthy
stones; and so melting this composition by little and little, they
fill up the receptacle so far as they think fit; and having first
formed with the hammer three or four lumps of the same iron, each
weighing 30 or 40 lbs., they put them hot into that bath of melted
iron, which bath is called by the masters of this art the art of iron;
and they keep them thus in the midst of this melted matter with a
great fire about four or six hours, often turning them about with a
rod as cooks do victuals, and so they keep them there, turning
them again and again, in order that all that solid iron may receive
through its porosity those subtle substances which are found to be
within that melted iron, by virtue of which the gross substances
which are in the lumps are consumed and dilated, and the lumps
�12
Early Accounts of Molten Iron.
become softened, and like a paste. When they are seen thus by the
experienced masters, they judge that that subtle virtue of which
we have spoken has thoroughly penetrated; and taking out one of
the lumps which appears best from their experience in testing, and
bringing it under the hammer, they beat it out, and then throwing
it suddenly as hot as they can into the water, they temper it, and
being tempered, they break it, and look to see if the whole of it
has in every particle so changed its nature as to have no small
layer of iron within it; and finding that it has arrived at that point
of perfection which they desire, they take out the lumps with a
large pair of pincers, or by the ends left on them, and cut them
into small pieces of seven or eight each, and they return them to the
same bath to get hot again, adding to it some pounded marble and
iron for melting to refresh the bath and increase it, and also to
restore to it what the fire may have consumed, and also that that
which [is to become steel may, by being immersed in that bath, be
the better refined; and so at last, when these are well heated, they go
and take them out piece by piece with a pair of pincers, and they
carry them to the hammer to be beaten out, and they make rods of
them as you see. And when this is done, being very hot, and
almost of a white colour from the heat, they cast them all at once
into a stream of water as cold as possibly can be had, of which a
reservoir has been made, in order that the rods may be suddenly
cooled, and by this means get the hardness which the common
people call temper, and thus it is changed into a material which
hardly resembles that which it was before it was tempered. For'
then it was only like a lump of lead or wax, and by tempering it, it
is made.so very hard as almost to surpass all other hard things; and
it is also made very white, much more so than is the nature of its
iron, even almost like silver, and that which has its grain white,
and most minute and fixed, is of the best sort. Among those kinds
which I know of, that of Flanders, and in Italy that of Valcamonica,
in the territory of Brescia, are very much praised; and out of
Christendom, that of Damascus, that of Caramenia and Lazzimino (?),
as well as that of the Agiambi (?).”
The same process is described by Agricola; but it is worthy of
remark, as stated on the authority of the elder Mushet, that “ no
where does he describe a process by which cast iron was obtained
and applied to foundry purposes.” *
In India, near Trincomalee, steel (wootz) is still made in the same
manner, its manufacture being confined to a few families in that
* Papers on Iron and Steel, London, 1840, p. 380.
�Early English Gast Iron.
13
neighbourhood, and altogether unknown to the common steelmakers
of Salem, a distance of only 70 miles. The cast iron used in this case
is obtained from “ a small blast furnace, about 8 feet high, and
tapering from 18 inches diameter at the bottom to 9 inches at the
top. The iron flows out of a grey quality, but without perfect
separation, as the cinders produced contain a good deal of iron.
With regard, then, to the production of cast iron in the most
ancient low furnaces, that was practicable with ores not difficult to
fuse when in presence of large quantities of flux and a great excess of
charcoal—the former of which would preserve the metal from
oxidation, whilst it was allowed to remain a sufficient time in con
tact, to take up a maximum quantity of carbon from the latter; but
as the temperature in such furnaces was low, the slag of necessity
contained a large proportion of the iron, and, except with the most
easily fusible ores, the process was very slow; indeed, with the
more difficult fusible ores, almost impossible. With this certainty
before us, however, of the possibility of producing cast iron even
in the oldest known types of furnaces, coupled also with the
well-ascertained fact of the use of iron and steel by Greeks,
Indians, ancient Egyptians, and Assyrians, f it is impossible
to say how far back we may carry the date of the discovery of cast
iron. But it is not, as I have already pointed out, to be inferred
that the blast furnace has any claim at all to antiquity; on the
contrary, I have collected together the foregoing evidence with the
one object, amongst others, of avoiding any misapprehension on
that point.
Percy, J remarking on a quotation from Lower’s Contributions to
Literature, &c., says,—
“ The date of the discovery of cast iron has not, so far as I am
aware, been precisely ascertained, though it is a point of great
archaeological interest. Lower has published the following remark
able statement, which would lead to the conclusion that cast iron
was made and applied in England 500 years ago. A curious
specimen of the iron manufacture of the fourteenth century, and,
as far as my own observation extends, the oldest existing article
produced by our foundries, occurs in Burwash church (Sussex).
It is a cast iron slab, with an ornamental cross, and an inscription
in relief. In the opinion of several eminent antiquaries, it may be
* Papers on Iron and Steel, London, 1840, p. 673.
t Proceedings Phil. Soc., Glasgow, vol. vi., 1871; also Trans. Devon. Assocn.,
1868.
+ Percy’s Metal; Iron and Steel, p. 878.
�14
Early Dutch Cast Iron.
regarded as unique for the style and period. The inscription is
much injured by long exposure to the attrition of human feet.
The letters are Longobardic, and the legend appears, on a careful
examination, to be,—
‘ Obate P. Annema Jhone Coline, (or Colins).
‘ Pray for the soul of Joan Collins.’
Of the identity of the individual thus commemorated I have been
unable to glean any particulars. In all probability she was a
member of the ancient Sussex family of Collins, subsequently seated
at Locknersh, in the adjacent parish of Brightling, where, in com
pany with many of the neighbouring gentry, they carried on the
manufacture of iron at a place still known as Locknersh Furnace.”
M. Verlit says that cast iron was known in Holland in the
thirteenth century, and that stoves were made from it at Elass, in
1400, a.d. ; and, according to Lower, the first cannon of cast iron
*
were manufactured at Buxteed, in Sussex, by Ralphe Hogge, in 1543.
It is recorded, however, by others that the first iron guns cast in
England were made in London, in 1547, by Owen; and in 1595 the
art of iron casting was so well understood that John Johnson and
his son Thomas had by that time “ made forty-two cast pieces of great
ordnance of iron for the Earl of Cumberland, weighing 6,000 pounds,
or three tons a-piece.” Agricola, too, who died in 1494 a.d., seems
to have been acquainted with cast iron; for he Writes,—“ Iron
melted from ironstone is easily fusible, and can be tapped off; ” so
that although he does not appear to say anything as to the method
by which such cast iron was produced, it nevertheless is evident,
when we consider the large extent to which cast iron was probably
then employed for guns, and doubtless other purposes, that the
blast furnace was at that time in existence, though on a very small
scale, grown out of the Catalan, and through the Blaseofen, or
Osmund, f to the German Stiickofen, in which cast or malleable iron
* Mushet’s Papers on Iron and Steel, p. 391.
+ Percy says {Iron and Steel, pi 320),—“ Between the Luppenfeuer, or Catalan
furnace, and the Stiickofen, German metallurgists place a furnace of inter
mediate height, which they designate Blaseofen and Bauernofen. This furnace
was formerly employed in Norway, Sweden, and other parts of Europe; and
although a century may have elapsed since it became extinct in the first two
countries mentioned, yet to this day it continues in operation in Finland.”
“ Osmund” is the Swedish word for the bloom produced in this particular kind
of furnace, of which the annexed woodcuts (Figs. 1 and 2) are a plan and vertical
section, respectively, shewing the outside as consisting of a timber casing,
�The Osmund Furnace.
15
was produced as required, by varying the proportions of the materials
constituting the charge.
“ Osmund” Furnace.
Fig. 1.—Plan.
As the Stiickofen would appear to be the last stage of transition
from the low to the high furnace, into which it ultimately became
‘ ‘ Osmund ” Furnace.
Fig. 2.—Section.
merged altogether, when the discovery was made that the ore was
more completely reduced, and the variety of purposes to which
and the inner part a lining of refractory stone, the space between them being
filled with earth.
The Osmund furnace is used for reducing the hydrated sesquinoxide ores (lake
or bog iron ores) found in the lakes and rivers of some parts of Northern Europe,
and in Finland is stated at the present day to be working side by side with the
modern blast furnace.
�16
The “ Stuck ” or “ Wulf ” Oven.
the pig or sow metal could be applied increased the demand for
cast iron to such an extent as to induce the indirect ^method of
reduction to be carried out on a large scale, it will be unnecessaryin this paper, which deals with cast iron and the blast furnace
as its principal subjects, to refer further to the pre-existing low
furnaces.
Regarding the Stiickofen, then, or high bloomery furnace, it has
been correctly described by writers on metallurgy as a Catalan
or low furnace, extended upwards in the form of either a circular
or quadrangular shaft. In Germany this furnace is also known
as Wulfsofen, the reduced metallic mass resulting from the opera
tions being designated “ Stuck ” or “ Wulfhence the Stiick or
Wulf oven—Salamander furnace—for the following particulars of
*
which I am indebted to Professor Osborne’s treatise,f and who, in a
paragraph preceding the extract, significantly terms this the
“ transition furnace,” which might be used for the production of
cast iron or malleable iron at will, by varying the constituents of
the charge and the intensity of the blast.
Osborne says,—
“ This kind of furnace is at present very little in use. A few are
still in operation in Hungary and
The “Stiickofen. ’
Spain. At one time they were
very common in Europe. The
iron produced in the Stuck oven
has always been of a superior
kind favourable for the manu
facture of steel; but the manipu
lation which this oven requires
is so expensive that it has been
superseded. Fig. 3 shews a cross
section of a Stuck oven; its inside
has the form of a double crucible.
This furnace is generally from 10
to 16 feet high, 24 inches wide
at bottom and top, and measures
Fig. 3.—Section.
at its widest part about 5 feet.
• “ Salamander is the term now given to the mass of half-pure iron, which
results when the molten mass of a furnace chills before it can be regularly
tapped off into pigs. It is difficult to melt, and is sometimes largely malleable
iron. The present may have originated from the earlier use of the word as
applied to this furnace.
+ The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel, Theoretical and Practical, in all its branches,
�The “Stuck ” or “ Wulf" Oven.
17
There are generally two tuyeres [tw^-er, allied to tuyaw, a pipe],
*
a a, and at least two bellows and nozzles, both on the same side.
The breast, &, is open, but during the smelting operation it is shut
by bricks; this opening is generally 2 feet square. The furnace
must be heated before the breast is closed; after which charcoal
and ore are thrown in. The blast is then turned into the furnace.
As soon as the ore passes the tuyere, iron is deposited at the
bottom of the hearth; when the cinder rises to the tuyere, a por
tion is suffered to escape through a hole in the dam, 6. The tuyeres
are generally kept low upon the surface of the melted iron, which
thus becomes whitened. As the iron rises the tuyeres are raised.
In about 24 hours one ton of iron is deposited at the bottom of
the furnace. This may be ascertained by the ore put in the furnace.
If a quantity of ore is charged sufficient to make the necessary
amount of iron for one cast, a few dead or coal charges may then
be thrown in. The blast is then stopped, the breast wall removed,
and the iron, which is in a solid mass, in the form of a salamander
or “stuck-wulff as the Germans call it, is lifted loose from the
bottom by crowbars, taken by a pair of strong tongs, which are
fastened on chains suspended on a swing-crane, and then removed
to an anvil, where it is flattened by a tilt hammer into 4-inch thick
slabs, cut into blooms, and finally stretched into bar iron by small
hammers. Meanwhile the furnace is charged anew with ore and
coal, and the same process is renewed.
“ By this method good iron as well as steel may be furnished.
In fact, the salamander consists of a mixture of iron and steel—
of the latter, skilful workmen may save a considerable amount.
The blooms are a mixture of fibrous iron, steel, and cast iron. The
latter flows into the bottom of the forge fire, in which the blooms
are re-heated, and is then converted into bar iron by the same
method adopted to convert common pig iron. If the steel is not
sufficiently separated, it is worked along with the iron. This would
be a very desirable process, on account of the good quality of iron
which it furnishes, if the loss of ore and waste of fuel it occasions
were compensated by the price of bar iron. Poor ores, coke, or
anthracite coal, cannot be employed in this process. Charcoal
made from hardwood, and the rich magnetic, specular, and sparry
ores are almost exclusively used.”
It is obvious that the conditions necessary to the production of
edited by H. S. Osborne, LL.D., Professor of Mining and Metallurgy in Lafayette
College, Easton, Pennsylvania. Triibner & Co., London, 1869.
* One tuyere, however, is frequently used.—S. J.V.D.
�18
The, “Blauofen.
cast iron—viz., a column of materials which gradually become
increased in temperature during their descent, exposed to reducing
gases, and latterly, prolonged contact in the reduced state to carbon
izing matter, obtained in this furnace; and the result frequently
was that, when intending to produce malleable iron at once, the
lump was so much carbonized, owing to excess of carbonizing
materials, that it had to be submitted to a decarbonizing process
before it could be hammered. Experience in working the Stiickofen
proved it to be extremely wasteful of fuel; and about 1840 it was
to a great extent abandoned in Carniola, Carnithia, and Styria,
although still worked in Germany and Hungary to a limited
extent (Karsten). In some cases a throat was added to the furnace,
of a gradually widening form: this gave facility in charging. The
tuyere was placed about a foot above the hearth bottom; but
as the furnace continued in operation this distance became
increased, by reason of the disintegration or wear of the hearth
(silicious conglomerate), which we learn influenced the yield and
quality of the iron as well as the quantity of charcoal consumed.
Besides being made of the form shewn at fig. 3, the Stiickofen
sometimes increased with a regular taper throughout' the entire
height of the shaft, being broadest at the bottom, and both
rectangular as well as circular in horizontal section.
The
tuyeres were sometimes made of clay, at others of copper,
situated at different parts of the furnace; and when in the
breast, the bellows had to be removed before the lump of reduced
iron could be withdrawn. As the demand for cast iron increased,
the Stiickofen was gradually replaced by the Blauofen, in which
*
cast iron was produced alone; but it still retained its place for the
direct production of malleable iron—and indeed malleable iron was
also produced in the Blauofen, which at first, it would appear,
was simply a tall Stiickofen, eventually becoming increased in
height to from 20 to 25 feet, in which case it was capable
of producing cast iron only. In working these furnaces for
the production of malleable iron, the slag was allowed a constant
escape, so that the lump of metal in the hearth might be
exposed to the action of the blast, which prevented it from becom
ing carbonized to excess; at other times the slag was allowed to .
accumulate, thus protecting the metal from the decarbonizing
action of the blast, after it had become carbonized in passing
through the lower part of the furnace, and therefore producing
•By some authors termed “blue furnace.” Fr. “ Fournean blue,” “blue
oven.
�The “Blauofen.
19
carbonized or cast iron. The Blauofen, as in common use on
the continent, is represented in vertical section at fig. 4, wherein
a is the breast, b the tuyere. This furnace may be kept in blast for
three to six months, or even longer, when the hearth widens and
interferes with successful operations. In working with this furnace,
the practice is to heat it by a fire,
The “ Blauofen.”
after which the breast previously
open is closed; it is then filled
to the top with coal and iron ore,
which are renewed as the charge
sinks. The tuyeres are about
14 inches above the hearth, which
slopes towards the breast. This
furnace requires rich ores and a
plentiful supply of charcoal, and
produces good pig iron, as well
as a metal specially suitable for
steel, sometimes called “ steel
metal,”* and said to be that from
Fig. 4. Section.
which German steel (shear steel) is made. The management of the
Blauofen is simple—generally and where sparry carbonates are
plentiful—and the furnace is cheaply constructed.
From the preceding remarks we have become familiar with the
earliest known form of the blast furnace, which originating in the
Stuckofen, or high bloomery, of some’95 cubic feet capacity, passed
into the Blauofen of some 500 to 600 cubic feet; and without
following its progressive development minutely through the fur
naces in the Hartz, Silesia, Prussia, Sweden, Great Britain, and
America—all of which has been already done, and so excellently in
the Treatises of Percy, Osborne, and others—we may at once come
down to our own age, and now find furnaces in the Cleveland
district of the enormous capacity of 20,000 to 30,000 cubic feet, or
about 280 times that of an early Blauofen.
* Osborne’s Metallurgy, p. 294.
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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On the past and present of iron smelting.
Creator
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Day, John Vincent
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Edinburgh
Collation: 19 p. ill. (figs.) ; 24 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From the 'proceedings' of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, communicated April 23, 1873. Inscription on front cover: From the Author. Includes bibliographical references.
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Edmonston and Douglas
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1873
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G5273
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Engineering
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (On the past and present of iron smelting.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Engineering
Iron