added in certain limited quantities to iron and steel is invaluable as a purgative, and passes off in the slag, which it helps to separate. A small quantity of it seems also to be useful in the finished steel; it seems to make the metal roll better, and in common steels, such as rail or structural steels, as much as 1 per cent. is allowed. If this quantity is doubled, the product is brittle and useless for any purpose; but should the percentage be greatly increased, to 10 or 14 per cent., for instance, the metal acquires remarkable hardness and toughness; and, strange to say, such metal, if quenched in cold water, shows but a slight increase in hardness, and its decided brittleness is replaced with a degree of ductility which is most extraordinary in view of the accompanying hardness. This is the celebrated Hadfield manganese steel. This same steel with 14 per cent. of manganese and 1 per cent. of carbon is pre-eminently strong and tough, but so hard as not to be worked easily. Its electrical resistance is thirty times that of copper, and it is wholly proof against magnetic influences. Its value in instrument-making and certain needs of naval construction is discernible at a glance. The remarkable effects of nickel as a compounding metal have been the subject of much experiment, and have recently attracted attention in connection with armor-plating and the new navy. Percentages of nickel in mild steel up to 7 per cent. greatly increase tensile strength and elastic limit, while malleability is greatly decreased. Armor plate contains about 1 per cent. of nickel. Sir Frederick Abel, chemical director of the British government works at Wool wich, in his presidential address before the British Association, recently pointed out the fact that nickel steel offers to the engineer the means of nearly doubling boiler pressure without increasing weight and dimensions. The tests made by the United States government at Annapolis have proved the immense superiority of a certain grade of nickel steel for armorplating. So eminent in toughness and elasticity were these plates that no cracks were discernible in metal which had been penetrated by the projectiles, while pure steel plates were split into quarters, and showed the radiation of innumerable lines of fracture. The influence of chromium on steel is to augment its tensile strength, its resistance to fracture by

impact, and its capacity for hardening to an extraordinary degree, thus affording the best possible material for the manufacture of such products as safes proof against fire and burglar, and heavy projectiles, as is seen in the celebrated Haltzer (France) and Carpenter (United States) projectiles. As certain proportions of chromium and carbon also add enormously to elastic limit as well as to tensile strength and resistance to stress, it promises to be the coming material for big guns. In the duel between armor plate and cannon, armor is forging far ahead. The urgent need now is for a gun which shall be proof against a far greater powder pressure than any so far in use-a weapon for which we have a reasonable outlook in the Brown segmental wire gun, which is built of chrome steel. Important chrome steel works, said to be the most successful in the United States, have been established at Brooklyn, New York. "Mushet steel" is a special alloy, containing tungsten in addition to carbon. It is called self-tempering, because it is so tough that it needs no quenching to give it its proper temper or hardness. It is used mostly for machinists' tools in working the hardest metals.

These examples sufficiently emphasize the almost boundless range of modifications which may be introduced into steel by a skilful admixture of other metals, and point to the inviting field for research open to the metallurgist in enlarging the zone of effective use for the compounds of iron. The attention now being given to this in the great iron centres is sure to yield astonishing fruits within a few years, for chemistry was never so well equipped for its attack on the unknown.

When steel contains more than about a quarter of one per cent. of carbon it acquires a distinctive quality which separates it from other forms of iron and the so-called soft steel containing less carbon. The quality is a capacity for being hardened or softened to any degree required by the special use for which it is designed. In these curious molecular changes, known under the inclusive name of "temper," the steel is first hardened by subjection to a red heat and a sudden quenching or cooling. It is next reheated to a specified temperature determined by long experience, and slowly cooled again in baths of varying material. There is scarcely any operation in the

working of metals which requires such niceties of skill and judgment. The general art as a factor in steel treatment has been known and practised for forty centuries; and the Hindoo artificer on the banks of the Ganges, following this inherited craft, tempers a sword-blade equal if not superior to the best Sheffield make. The nature of the tempering bath is of great importance. Roughly speaking, it may be stated that for making steel glass-hard, ice cold water, brine, or mercury must be used; for less hardness, hot water or oil is used; while hardening and tempering are possible in one operation, by use, for example, of molten lead. The value of the softer metals as a means of hardening tools and weapons has long been known. Réaumur in 1722 writes of a method of hardening the points of tools by forcing them hot into solid lead and tin, and he hints at gold, silver, and copper as cooling metals. The composition of tempering baths seems to be a tempting subject for inventors even now, as shown by the Patent Office record.

Cherry-red is the heat ordinarily used in hardening, but high carbon steel and various kinds of the alloy steels need a less heat. Among the methods of heating used are an ordinary fire, the blowpipe flame, pinching in red-hot tongs, and immersion in red-hot molten lead, the main purpose being to secure a perfectly regular temperature whereby the steel can be soaked in heat from centre to surface. In cooling the metal the problem of unequal contraction requires even greater judgment. For example, if a long tool. should be quenched by dipping it sidewise in water it would be curved by the unequal rate of cooling on the two sides. Again, if a tool is unequally thick, the heavier part must be dipped first, or cooled by some other device, as equal immersion would cause the thin part to lose its heat first. Sometimes cold tongs or flat plates of metal are found necessary. A great variety of cooling baths are used, among which may be named, besides those before specified, melted tallow, various acids, and soapsuds. Quackery has not yet gone out of the domain of metallurgy. The most scientific methods include the use of oils and molten metals as well as water. Fixed proportions of lead and tin are greatly in vogue.

The hardness of the tempered piece is indicated by the color its surface assumes

At

after it has been suddenly cooled. first it is silver-gray; but if reheated a peculiar change takes place in the color. When a temperature of about 420° F. has been reached, the silver gray has become pale straw, which with the rise passes through straw, straw-yellow, nut-brown, purple, bright blue, deep blue, and blackish-blue. This last color is produced by a temperature of about 640° F. These various shades represent various "tempers" or hardness. Thus, lancet blades should not be reheated beyond the pale straw; straw-yellow is the color for razors, bright blue for swords and bayonets, etc. In practice the piece may be plunged in a cooling substance till quite cold, and reheated either by direct flame or by placing on a hot surface until the proper color appears, or by dipping in a bath of molten metal-usually an alloy of lead and tin, which melts at a temperature corresponding to the desired color. piece may also be quenched from cherryred directly in a molten bath or mixture of the proper temperature, from which it is withdrawn when it has cooled down to the temperature of the bath; it is found then to have acquired the desired color.

The

There is no branch of the working of metals where experience and practical observation have been so completely the source of efficiency in practice; none where theory has been of so little value. The art of tempering is based on the cumulative knowledge of countless generations of metal-workers, extending back to the mythical age of Tubal Cain.

The use of low-carbon steel manufactured by the Bessemer and Siemens-Martin processes is, however, the salient fact towering like an Alpine peak in the world of iron industries. The product can be made at a cost even lower than that of malleable iron, and it can be rolled, hammered, and welded in similar fashion. It has nearly driven iron out of use for most structural purposes.

The first record of iron-making in the colonies carries us back to the attempt made by the Virginia Company to establish iron-works on Falling Creek, in Virginia. This was about 1620. The Indians put an end to the enterprise by scalping the manager, John Berkley, and all his workmen; and the glory of setting up a successful iron-making plant was transferred to the New England colonies, where in 1645 the blast-furnace built by

John Winthrop, Jun., had "some tuns of sowe iron cast in readiness for ye forge." The manufacture of steel was first attempted by two men named Higley and Dewey, who in 1725 received a patent from the General Court of Connecticut to make steel for a period of ten years. Like many other pioneers, they found that the concession yielded no fruit. The field was not abandoned, for many more successful attempts followed in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

All the steel

made at that period was produced in a hearth similar to a bloomary, or else by cementation. It was therefore no more than "puddled steel," or "shear steel." The process of making the more perfect cast metal, or crucible steel, seems not to have been successfully practised till 1831, when it was established at Cincinnati by Garrard Brothers.

The census of 1810 gives the total production of pig at 53,408 tons. In 1820 it had receded to 20,000 tons. The total quantity of steel made in 1810 appears to have been 917 tons, of which Pennsylvania produced about one-half. lowing table, showing the production during census years since 1840, graphically illustrates the rapid stride that has been made during the last half-century:

The fol

an average of 371 tons for each. In 1890, the number of such establishments was 1040; they turned out 15,997,968 tons, or an average of 15,382 tons per works. Such results point to a significant fact: the decrease in number of establishments is concurrent with an increase of product and value, showing that capital has concentrated, and by centralization has found the economy of large and well-located plants as against a greater multiplicity of smaller ones. A still more remarkable feature is the enormous increase in a comparatively short period in the manufacture of steel, and the nearly stationary output in wrought iron. Thus in 1880 the total production of steel was 59.8 per cent. of that of iron, while in 1890 the tables are nearly reversed, since the iron output is only 58.8 per cent. of that of steel. The following table shows the rapid increase of production since the introduction of Bessemer steel in this country, late in 1864. The manufacture of open-hearth steel in the Siemens furnace was started in December, 1868:

The above table shows a remarkable progress in all directions, and if we sup plement it with a statement of the capital employed, a further proof of the importance of the iron and steel trade is found. In 1840 the capital invested was $20,432,131; in 1850, it was $31,796,065; in 1860, $44,597.297; in 1870, $121,772,074; in 1880, $230,971,884; the census reports for 1890 are not yet complete, but an increase of invested capital nearly proportionate to the increased output is probable. It will be noticed that the number of blast-furnaces in 1840 was more than two and a half times that in 1890, while the production was immeasurably smaller. The total number of iron and steel producing establishments of all kinds in 1840 was 1008, with an output of 374,147 tons, or

79,716 4.248 * Net tons of 2000 pounds.

The phenomenon exhibited in the table is explained by the gradual inroads made by steel in the field formerly occupied by The soft steel now made wrought iron. offers great advantages in the way of uniformity of product, which gives it the preference for many purposes. It has nearly superseded iron in boiler-plate, and much of the wrought metal used in machinery building is steel; wheel tires, material for ship and bridge building, are made of steel. It has entirely taken the place of iron for railroad bars, and no iron rails are manufactured now, except sparingly for street railway and mine uses. The damage done to iron by steel in this line is shown in the following table, giving the quantity of steel and iron rails made since 1870:

It is interesting to note the effect that this enormous production has had on prices. At the close of 1893 steel rails were selling at $24 a ton. Scarcely less significant, as showing the supercession of iron by steel, is the change in the nail manufacture. In 1883 there were produced 7,762,737 kegs of nail, not one of which was steel. In 1890, out of a total production of 8,776,920 kegs, only 1,806, 193 were iron nails, all the rest being steel.

It is well to consider the effect which the modern methods have had on the wages of the men employed in the iron manufacture. It was not until some time after 1850 that the system of piece-work was established in iron-works. Until then the men worked by the month at a salary varying from $8 to $45 a month. The census of 1860 shows that the wages paid to 15,927 blast-furnace hands was $4,545,430, or an average of $292 per head. The number of persons engaged in rollingmills during that year was 19,262, who received $6,514, 258, or an average of about $338. The census of 1870 gives the average earning of blast-furnace workers at $560 a year currency, or about $486 gold; $12,475,250 were distributed among 27,554 persons in that year. In 1880, 140,978 operators received $55,476,785, or about $393 60 a head. In the report of the Commissioner of Labor for 1890, the income of man labor in the United States and Europe is given as follows:

duction leaves the boundaries of the United States. Although the value of the exported finished iron product is considerable-$27,000,134 for 1890-the tonnage is not great. That in prosperous times the output of iron and steel will keep increasing is not doubtful, even in the present conditions of cost, which keep us out of the markets of the outer world for heavy material; but should such conditions change, the natural resources of this country are such that we might well look forward to the time when the present production would seem to us as insignificant as that of twenty years ago.

A very interesting phase of our recent development, resulting from the late war, which revolutionized the conditions of life and labor in the South, is found in the genesis and growth of the iron industry in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. The great coal and iron beds which began to be opened about fifteen years ago started busy communities, like the harvest of the fabled dragon's teeth. Such places as Chattanooga and Birmingham now rank among leading iron centres.

Sir

That the United States will continue to increase the distance between herself and the most productive of her competitors is scarcely to be doubted. With such a large supply of the richest ores lying within easy reach of our principal iron centres, the primary condition is in our favor. The ingenious mechanical contrivances in our works, which are in some respects in advance of those used in England, enable the workman to accomplish much more-a consideration which probably has much to do with the ability of the manufacturer to pay higher wages. Isaac Lowthian Bell, the foremost metallurgical authority of Great Britain, some years ago solemnly warned his countrymen that if they expected to compete in the world's market with the Greater Britain over the water, they must study and adopt the economies in hand labor which American skill and energy had made so brilliantly practicable in iron and steel making. Such establishments as those of the Bethlehem Iron Company, the Cambria Iron Works of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the Carnegie Steel-Works at Pittsburg and Homestead, and the Illinois Steel Company's Works at Chicago, employing from 10,000 to 20,000 workmen each, represent the highest triumphs of engineering and chemical skill.

one of the few laws which it would not repeal would be that which excludes the Jew from Holy Russia. The Russian knows his Jew better than we know him, and is therefore better qualified to legislate on the subject.

The general outburst of indignation which greeted the anti-Jewish legislation of Russia since the accession of the present Czar may be accounted for in many ways. The newspapers and banks of Europe are largely in Jewish hands, and this power was of course quickly evoked to create public sympathy for their persecuted co-religionists. The popular sentiment was, however, most intelligent and most effective in the countries immediately bordering upon Russia, whose people wasted little time in theorizing on the rights of man or the beauties of tolerance, but organized with a view of protecting themselves against an influx of unwelcome immigrants. Castle Garden is not the only point to which the Jew of Russia has fled for comfort. He is equally keen in his desire to find a home in western Europe, where he can live in towns, pursue his life as broker, and not be too far away from the headquarters of his religious inspiration. America, England, France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Norway-these countries have few Jews, comparatively speaking, and they are pretty well distributed. The stranger

the Jews in the world, and she is doing her best to reduce this number. Of ficial statistics are not quite reliable on this subject, but it is assumed by the bestinformed that Russia must have close on to 3,000,000 of the Hebrew race. The United States and England are shocked by the measures which the Czar is taking against these people, and charge him with reviving religious persecution. The Czar replies to this by pointing out that the United States deliberately closed its doors against emigration from China, whose subjects were represented in America to the extent of only about 100,000 souls, mostly upon the Pacific coast. In this matter, moreover, the Czar moves in harmony with the overwhelming majority of his people, high and low; and were his people to morrow to proclaim a republic,

VOL. LXXXVIII.-No. 526-57

signs over the shops of jobbers and importers, might conclude that the Jews own New York, yet what we have is a mere nothing to what one country of Russia alone - Poland - has, whose Jewish population, according to the last census, was about 800,000. In England, Jews are met in every walk of life-in the army, the diplomatic service, the cabinet, the House of Lords, and amongst the boon companions of England's future King. As with us, they have cast off every distinguishing badge of their race, and it is frequently only by accident that we learn the nature of their religious creed. In Russia, however, it is totally different. There the Jew is as distinct a type as is with us the negro or the Chinaman. You can distinguish him as far as you can see, not merely by the face and form, so