cylinders. L and M, two upright cylinders, standing on the water plates; and between which cylinders in space B are placed in equal

alternate layers, the pulverized ore and charcoal, or 25 per cent. in weight of anthracite if that is substituted for charcoal.

The escape heat passes through an opening P in the arch freely. through space C between the masonry work D and the outer cylin der L, and also within the inner cylinder M through space A, whereby the ore mixed with the coal is completely and uniformly surrounded by the flame of heat and deoxidized, and yet perfectly protected from the air, flame and noxious gases. When thus deoxidized, one charge of the ore, by elevating valve R, is readily precipitated on the preparatory bottom G; where it is stirred and freed from the small particles of coal that accompany it from the cylinders. It is then passed over on the puddling bottom G, where it is further stirred and made up into balls, when it is ready for the hammer or rolls.

In the fire chamber O, the heat and flame may be produced from wood, anthracite or bituminous coal.

The whole furnace much resembles an elongated ordinary puddling furnace, with the addition of a preparatory bottom, over which are placed the cylinders and their appendages.

While in operation, the cylinders are charged from the top with the ore and coal pulverized and mixed. The cylinders are kept at a red heat. The ore is thoroughly deoxidized in them, and deposited from them in successive charges on the preparatory and puddling bottoms, as rapidly as the balls are taken from the latter for the hammer or rolls. Thus the operation is continuous and economical, as only the escape heat of the furnace is employed in the cylinders.

The whole is easily managed and worked, the operation is steady, and the product certain and uniform. The iron produced is represented to be extremely pliable, ductile, and malleable, and applicable to all the arts. It is produced at a saving of about 40 per cent. of any other process. A ton and a half of anthracite coal, and two and half to three tons of ore make a ton of blooms in twelve hours. A furnace complete costs from $1,200 to $1,500.

MANUFACTURE OF MALLEABLE IRON.-Formerly, wrought-iron was obtained either directly from the ore, or from cast-iron, by a process still in extensive operation, in which wood charcoal is required.

PUDDLING. The crude cast-iron is remelted in quantities of from half a ton to one ton, in a furnace called the chafery, or refinery, blown with blast; it is kept fluid for about half an hour, and then cast into a plate about four inches thick, which is purer, finer in the grain than pig metal, and also much harder and whiter; it is then called refined metal. The plate when cold is broken up, and from two to four hundred weight of the fragments, with a certain proportion of lime, are piled on the hearth of the puddling furnace, which is a reverberatory furnace without blast.

In about half an hour the iron begins to melt, and whilst it is in the semi-fluid state, the workman stirs and turns it about with iron tools; he also throws small ladles full of water upon it from time to time. In this condition the metal appears to ferment, and heaves about from some internal change; this is considered to arise from the escape of the carbon in a volatilized form, which ignites at the surface with spirits of blue flame: in about twenty minutes the pasty condition gives way, and the iron takes a granulated form without any apparent disposition to cohesion; the fire is now urged to the utmost, and before the metal becomes a stiff conglomerated mass, the workman divides it into lumps or balls of about fifty pounds in weight.

These balls are taken out one at a time, and shingled, or worked under a massive helve or forge-hammer, that weighs six or eight tons, and is moved by the steam-engine: this compresses the ball, squeezes out the loose fluid matter, and converts it into a bloom, or short rudely-formed bar. The bloom is then raised to the welding heat in a reheating furnace, and again passed under the hammer, or through grooved rollers, or it is submitted to both processes, by which it is elongated into a rough bar. The shingling is sometimes performed by large squeezers, somewhat like huge pliers, or by roughened rollers that also serve to compress the iron; but the ponderous flat-faced helve is considered the more effectively to expel the dross and foreign matters from the bloom, and to weld the same more perfectly at every point of its length.

The machine for compressing and rolling puddler's balls, invented by John F. Winslow of Troy, New York, is very effective and possesses many advantages, of which may be mentioned: 1.

Great expedition in shingling puddler's iron, one of these machines being sufficient to do the work of twenty-five puddling furnaces. 2. The saving of shinglers' wages; no waste of iron; turning out the blooms while very hot, enabling the roller to reduce them to very sound bars. 3. The ends of the blooms are thoroughly upset, a very small amount of power operates the machine, and little or no expense for repairs.

The nature of the first part of this invention consists in rolling and compressing puddler's balls or loops of iron into blooms, etc,. by means of a rotating cam-formed compresser, combined with twc or more rollers placed near to one another, and at the same distance from the axis of motion of the compresser, so that the compression and elongation of the loops will be due entirely to the eccentricity of the compresser, the whole being so geared that the rollers shall turn in the direction opposite to the motion of the compresser, that the loop may be rotated and retained between the rollers and the compresser: the surfaces of the rollers are formed with slight projections to take hold of and turn the loop of iron, and the surface of the cam-formed compresser with teeth, which are very large at first, or on that part of the compresser which first acts on the loop, to squeeze out the impurities, and at the same time insure the turning of the loop, and then gradually diminished until the surface becomes quite or nearly smooth to finish the bloom.

And the second part of this invention consists in combining with the compresser and rollers two cheeks, one on each side, and provided with springs that force them towards one another that they may yield to the ends of the loop of iron as it is lengthened out by the action of the compresser and rollers, and at the same time to make sufficient resistance to give a proper form to the ends of the blooms, etc.

And the third part of this invention consists in combining with the compresser and rollers a feeder or sliding frame, operated by a projection on the compresser or the shaft thereof, to carry in the ball of iron between the compresser and roller, as that part of the compresser which is recessed for that purpose comes round to the proper place for the introduction of the ball, and the discharge of the bloom; and also in combining in like manner a follower for discharging the bloom after it has been completed.

(a) represents the frame of the machine properly adapted to the intended purpose, but which may be varied at pleasure. In appropriate boxes (bb) between the standards of this frame run the journals of an eccentric roller (c), the periphery of which is camformed and provided with cogs, for the purpose of squeezing the ball of iron and forcing out the impurities, and gradually reducing its diameter and elongating it. Below this squeezing roller are arranged two fluted rollers (dd) whose journals are fitted to appropriate boxes in the frame. These rollers constitute the concave on which the ball of iron rests during the operations of the squeezer; cog wheels (e f g h) being employed to connect the shaft

of the rollers with the shaft of the squeezer in such a manner that the peripheries of the two rollers (d) shall turn in the same direction, and that of the squeezer in a reverse direction, and thus cause the ball or mass of iron during the operation of squeezing

Fig. 26.

to rotate about its axis, or nearly so,-the requisite power for this purpose being communicated to the machine from some first mover in any efficient manner. One of the bottom rollers (d) has a strong flanch (i) on one side which projects sufficiently to pass within the periphery of that part of the squeezer which acts on the iron,

after it has been so much elongated as to have one of its ends approach the flanch, and therefore towards the end of the operation of the squeezer that end of the bloom or mass of iron which is towards this flanch will be upset by it and properly formed. On the side of the machine opposite to the flanch (2) is a hammer (j) on the end of the bar (k) which slides in collars (7). The face of this hammer is smooth, and made as hammers for working iron usually are, and its edges are adapted to the peripheries of the two rollers (dd) and to that part of the periphery of the squeezer which acts on the bloom at the time the hammer is to strike the ends of the bloom. A strong helical spring surrounds the bar (k) of the hammer, one end bearing against one of the collars (7), and the other against the back of the hammer, so that its tension will always force the hammer towards the flanch (i) of the roller (d); and towards the outer end, the said bar (k) is provided with a spur (m), the inner face of which is slightly rounded to bear against the face of a cam (n), so formed that at each revolution of the bottom rollers it gives the hammer two blows upon the bloom, and at every revolution of the rollers the spring is liberated and the hammer strikes the bloom, and thus upsets the ends, the flanch () in this part of the operation performing the office of an anvil; the face of the cam is then made in the form of an inclined plane to draw back the hammer preparatory to another operation.

Instead of forcing the hammer towards the bloom by a spring and drawing it back by a cam, this arrangement may be reversed by making the spring simply of sufficient length to draw back the hammer, and reversing the cam that it may force the hammer towards the bloom at the required time. And if desired, a lever, operated in any desired manner, such as by a cam or crank, may be used to operate the hammer instead of a cam, and under this latter modification the spring may be dispensed with altogether by connecting the hammer bar with the lever.

The bars are next cut into short pieces, and piled in groups of four to six; they are again raised to the welding heat in a reheating furnace, and passed through other rollers to weld them throughout their length, and reduce them to the required sizes; and sometimes the processes of cutting and welding are again repeated in the manufacture of still superior kinds of iron.

A similar process of manufacture is still carried on, partly with wood charcoal, in place of coals and coke; the iron thus manufactured, called charcoal iron, is much purer, but it is also more expensive in England; it is sometimes, by way of distinction, left in ridges from the hammer, when it is called dented iron.

The rollers or rolls of the iron works are turned of a variety of forms, according to the section of the iron that is to be produced; in general one pair is used exclusively for each form of iron required; although in the imaginary sketch, Fig. 27, it is supposed that the shaded portion represents the upper edge of the bottom roll; and that the top roll, which is not drawn, almost exactly meets the