pared with the starches, sugars, and fats, and not at all with the nitrogen-containing foods, such as

meat.

A series of experiments were conducted on 3 young healthy men, 2 of whom had always been abstainers. The alcohol was taken in small quantities-2 ounces per day in 6 doses--equivalent to 6 ounces of whisky of a bottle of claret.

It is expressly stated by the authors that their conclusions have no bearing whatever on the effects of long-continued drinking, nor of the effect of alcohol drinking on the ability to do hard muscular work.

They found that over 98 per cent. of the ingested alcohol was oxidized (which means utilized) in the body. Compared with the ordinary food substances as heat-producers, the following figures were obtained:

The proportions of food and the several kinds of nutrients digested and made available for use in the body were practically the same in the experiments with and those without alcohol in the greater with the alcohol diet than with the ordinary diet, but the difference was extremely small. The potential energy of the alcohol was transformed into kinetic energy in the body as completely as that of the ordinary nutrients. The efficiency of alcohol in the protection of body fat from consumption was very evident. Its efficiency in protecting body protein was evident, but it was not fully equal in this respect to the isodynamic amounts of the ordinary nutrients. The results, however, were not the same with the different subjects. An increased excretion of nitrogen at first occurred in the men unaccustomed to the use of alcohol; this, however, disappeared in the course of five or six days.

"That a part of the potential energy of the alcohol was transformed into the kinetic energy of muscular work these experiments do not prove, though they make it highly probable. We repeat," say the authors in closing, "that there is a very essential difference between the transformation of the potential energy of alcohol into the kinetic energy of heat, or of either internal or external muscular work, and the usefulness or harmfulness of alcohol as a part of ordinary diet. Regarding this latter question, the experiments bring no more evidence than they do regarding the influence of alcohol upon the nervous system, or its general effect upon the health and welfare." Surgery of the Heart.-Dr. H. M. Sherman, of San Francisco, has collected the records of 34 cases of surgical operations on the heart. Of these, 5 died on the operating-table from hemor

rhage; 10 died soon after leaving the table; 6 died later from blood-poisoning; and 13 recovered. The ventricles, owing to their much thicker walls, may be more successfully sutured than the auricles. Sir Lander Brunton, as the result of experimental work on heart-wounds, suggests that it may be possible to treat mitral stenosis (a form of heart-disease caused by the gradual closing of the mitral valve) by surgical means.

Surgery, Bloodless.-Dr. Adolf Lorenz was born in a small town in northern Austria fortynine years ago. His father was a watchmaker, and was poor. The son entered the University

of Vienna in 1875;

soon won an en

dowed scholarship, and with the aid of this and what he could make by tutoring managed to complete the course, and obtained his degree in medicine in 1880. He soon became clinical assistant to Dr. Albert, Professor of Surgery. His ambition was to become a general surgeon, but a special sensitiveness of his skin to the antiseptics that were then coming into use in surgergy carbolic acid and bi

chlorid of mercury-so seriously hampered him that he was obliged to stop his clinical work. Prof. Albert advised him to devote himself to orthopedic surgery, and to this he reluctantly turned. He is 6 feet 2 inches in height, and muscular in proportion.

Prof. Hoffa, a surgeon of Würzburg (since removed to Berlin) devised, about 1890, an operation for the cure of congenital hip dislocations, which now goes by his name. Dr. Lorenz, after operating according to Hoffa's method several times, modified and improved it by considerably reducing the cutting, and the operation became known as the Hoffa-Lorenz method. Dr. Lorenz performed this operation several hundred times in Vienna, and out of the experience thus gained came his so-called bloodless method. This he performed for the first time in 1892, on a little Viennese girl. It proved successful, and he used it in other cases, improving the technique on each occasion. The operation was first called to the attention of the profession at the twenty-fifth Congress of the German Association of Surgeons at Berlin in May, 1896. It was then generally conceded that a new and valuable principle of treatment had been discovered. Paci, an Italian surgeon, declares that he discovered and announced the same operation as early as 1888. But there is considerable difference between the two methods, although both are bloodless. The Paci operation is apparently much less thorough, and consequently less effective. The Lorenz operation was first performed in the United States about six years ago by Dr. George R. Elliott, a pupil of Prof. Lorenz, on a girl of five years, who presented a typical congenital dislocation of the right hip. Other American surgeons have since performed the operation in several cases, with varying success; and, in fact, it was tried unsuccessfully in the case of the Armour child before Dr. Lorenz was sent for. She had a double

congenital dislocation, both hips being deformed, and the Chicago surgeon's operation resulted, it is said, in curing but one joint. The hip-joint is formed by a hemispherical depression in the pelvic bone, called the acetabulum, and a round, ball-like protuberance from the upper end of the thigh bone, or femur, set almost at right angles to the shaft. This protuberance fits into the socket of the pelvic bone and forms what is known as a ball-and-socket joint. In congenital dislocation of the hip, either because of some imperfection in the ball or in the socket, or through a prenatal accident, the ball and the socket are separated, and because of the arrangement of the muscles surrounding the socket, the head of the femur is displaced upward, usually either backward or forward. The object of the Lorenz operation is to replace the ball in the socket and hold it there until the joint has recovered its power sufficiently to retain the correct position without the use of the knife. After the dislocation has existed for some time the surrounding muscles become contracted, and great force is required to stretch or tear them sufficiently to permit the ball to drop back into its socket. Hence the essential part of the operation consists in stretching and tearing the muscles until they are limp and functionless. This is accomplished by Dr. Lorenz in the following manner: An anesthetic is given; an assistant then firmly holds the pelvis of the child, while the doctor raises the leg forward and upward until the foot is carried to the shoulder; this is done gradually, the muscles meantime being kneaded and massaged, especially at the points where they are fastened to the bone. The child is now turned on its face, and the same extreme stretching produced in the opposite set of muscles by carrying the leg backward and upward. The leg is drawn away from its fellow-abducted, as it is called-and the inner thigh muscles thus stretched and torn. These movements are continued until the muscles about the thigh are all quite flaccid. The skin is usually considerably bruised during this operation. The femur is now drawn down until the ball is opposite the socket, and then manipulated until it drops into the latter. Dr. Lorenz is thus quoted regarding the sensations produced by the curious click that is heard when this occurs: "The event, always expected with great tension of mind and deep longing, is accomplished like the triumphal entrance of a princely lord through the doors of his hereditary residence, from which he has been excluded for a long time through stress of circumstances, amid the chiming of bells, the beating of drums, and the firing of cannon which shakes the foundation of his castle. And yet this plaintive music of nature is for the parched ears of the operator a sound-intoxicating song of the spheres; as long at least as he preserves, during his laborious work, a receptive soul for such enjoyment."

Owing to the flaccid, rag-like condition of the muscles, the newly formed joint is not stable, so that a redislocation is very apt to occur. In order to prevent this, the leg is drawn out sidewise so that it rests at an angle of 90 degrees with the body, and maintained in this position by a plaster cast. The pains due to the operation subside in a few days, and the child is then encouraged to walk about and play. Dr. Lorenz lays great stress on the early use of the limb, holding that the pressure of the head of the femur in the acetabulum, caused by the weight of the body, is an important element in causing the reformation of a useful and efficient joint.

In his earlier operations mechanical contri

vances were used for stretching the leg and drawing down the femur, but these are now rarely required by Dr. Lorenz, although it is probable that the surgeon of average strength will have to resort to them much more frequently. He now leaves the plaster cast in place for six months to two years; his early practise was to remove it after three months, and, if necessary, put on another. He holds that a cure is obtained in about 60 per cent. of his cases, and an improvement in nearly all. It is said by other surgeons that the cutting operation is equally successful. Dr. Lorenz has applied the same bloodless methods to the treatment of other joint and bone deformities, and even to wryneck. Stiffened knees and clubfoot are corrected by the intraarticular modeling redressement, as he calls his powerful massage, and the shortened (sternocleidomastoid) muscle in cases of wryneck is torn apart and stretched instead of cut, as by the old method.,

One of his principles is to save the bone, even at the expense of the soft parts. He believes that efforts should always be made to cause the patient's own anatomical apparatus to correct a deformity, or a tendency thereto, whenever possible, rather than to clothe him in a suit of mail or a cage of steel rods. In chronic joint disease he uses as little apparatus as possible, and discards it early.

The Lorenz bloodless operation is by no means entirely free from danger. Among the few patients operated on in Chicago there was one case of fracture of the femur, another in which an extensive blood tumor formed, and a third in which severe tearing of the perineum occurred.

METALLURGY. General.—In a lecture on the Relations between Metallurgy and Engineering, delivered before the Institute of Civil Engineers, Sir W. C. Roberts-Austen pointed out that when metallurgists gave engineers mild steel they provided a carbon-free solid solution of iron and carbon. All subsequent advance had been due to recognition of this fact and to the profound studies of metallic solid solutions. Sir John Hawkshaw had said that if the strength of iron could be doubled the advantages might be equal to the discovery of a new metal more valuable than iron ever had been. The lecturer believed that this was exactly what metallurgists had done with regard to steel. By suitable thermal treatment and by suitable addition of comparatively rare metals they had doubled the strength of steel as it was made in the early days. Having explained the nature of solid solutions, the lecturer dwelt upon the importance of allotropie modifications of iron, and cited evidence of the possibility of the past molecular history of a mass of steel being traced by microscopic examination of the metal. It was demonstrated that solid metals might reveal, by their structure, the vibrations to which they had been subjected. With regard to the efforts metallurgists were making to study the influence of rare metals on iron and other metals, the reducing power of aluminum on metallic oxids was shown. The need for the careful measurement of high temperatures in connection with the treatment of large masses of metal was illustrated by reference to the new Alexander III Bridge in Paris. In the construction of this bridge 2.200 tons of cast steel had been employed, and a peculiar molecular structure was imparted to this steel by rapidly cooling it in air from a temperature of 1,000° C. to 600° C. This gave the metal certain mechanical properties which it would not otherwise have possessed. The use of copper, aluminum, and other metals in

electrical engineering was referred to, and the lecture ended with an appeal for the more extended study of the physical properties of metals. The report of the committee of the Iron and Steel Institute which was appointed to ascertain whether it would not be possible to make the terminology of metallography less complicated and more precise comprises a glossary of the more important terms used by authors of memoirs dealing with the subject, with the exact equivalents in French and German. Care was taken in performing the work to exclude controversial matters, and when a definition was not universally accepted to quote the definition given by the specific author.

The investigations of Prof. J. O. Arnold and Mr. Andrew McWilliam on the composition of steels were confined to pure iron and carbon steels such as are produced in the best crucible practise. The authors reached the conclusions that the clear and definite constituents of hardened steel are (a) hardenite, Fe,,C., of which the whole mass consists only in the case of 0.89 per cent. carbon steel; (b) ferrite, Fe, which segregates more or less in unsaturated carbon steels in spite of the rapid action of quenching; and (c) cementite, which segregates more or less in saturated steels in spite of the rapid action of quenching. The indefinite portions of the hardened steels consist in unsaturated carbon steels of hardenite containing more or less unsegregated ferrite, or in supersaturated carbon steels of hardenite containing more or less unsegregated cementite. Martensite is not a constituent, but a crystalline structure developed at high temperatures. It is marked in saturated carbon steels by preferential etching lines; in unsaturated carbon steels by striæ of ferrite; and in supersaturated carbon steels by striæ of cementite. The existence of the constituents sorbite, troosite, and Austentite is extremely doubtful. Students should guard against apparent or false constituents really due to optical causes or to obscure polishing or etching effects. The views expressed by the author were opposed on the reading of their paper at the meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute by Sir W. C. Roberts-Austen, Mr. J. E. Stead, and others. Iron and Steel.-The first paper read at the summer meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute, at Düsseldorf, Germany, was by Mr. W. Brüg. mann, of Dortmund, and showed that almost all of the increase in the world's production of pigiron from 18,300,000 tons in 1880 to 39,000,000 in 1901 had been shared by Germany and the United States, the weight of pig-iron made in America in 1901 having been more than three and a half times what it was in 1880, and that of Germany more than three times greater. The large increase in the German production was ascribed by the author to the development of coal-mining, which had made available a good supply of native fuel, and to the opening up of the iron deposits of Luxemburg and Lorraine, by which a supply of native ores suitable for the basic process of steelmaking had been placed at the disposal of the manufacturer. The dephosphorization of iron in the converter exercised the most important influence in the rise of the German iron industry. While the make of basic pig-iron had developed to be more than 4,800,000 tons, or 2,000,000 tons more than the total iron production of 1880, and the make of foundry pig-iron had also increased from 200,000 tons in 1880 to 1,500,000 tons in 1900, the manufacture of puddling-iron and spiegel had declined from about 2,000,000 tons to 1,800,000 tons. The reduction in wrought-iron is regarded as no more than the inevitable consequence of the

advance in steel. Notwithstanding the development of the German iron industry, the blastfurnaces of the land have not been able to meet the demand. The author spoke of the excellent equipment of the German iron-works, and said that their appliances had to a large extent been based on those of American works, but were not mere copies of them. Among special features of German iron-making practise spoken of were the recovery of by-products from gases evolved in coke-making, improvements in mechanical appliances, the extensive adoption of the practise of carrying iron in the liquid state from the blastfurnace to the steel-works, the increasing utilization of blast-furnace gas, and the application of surplus power to the manufacture of cement from blast-furnace slag.

Mr. Axel Wahlberg, reviewing Brinell's researches into the influence of chemical composition on the soundness of steel ingots, maintained that the percentage of carbon and the casting temperature, which had hitherto been considered the agents responsible for the presence and position of blow-holes, were to be regarded as exercising a secondary influence. The principal cause of the defect was the presence of manganese and sometimes of aluminum contained in the ingot metal at the moment of casting.

In a paper on the Properties of Carbon in the Hearth of the Blast-Furnace, read before the Iron and Steel Institute, Mr. W. J. Foster showed that by increasing the temperature and diameter of the hearth more carbon would be exposed to the oxids, with proportionally less interruption by the gases that are decomposed in the neighborhood of the tuyères; hence more carbon would be converted into carbon monoxid in the hearth per unit of air introduced at the tuyères, and consequently an increased rate of driving would result.

In a paper on the overheating of low-carbon mild steel, Prof. Heyn, of Berlin, submitted as his principal conclusions that when low-carbon mild steel is annealed at temperatures above 1,000° C. there is an increase in the degree of brittleness, if the annealing process is sufficiently long. This increase is more considerable and manifests itself the sooner the higher the temperature of annealing. Prolonged annealing, say uninterrupted for fourteen days at temperatures between 700° and 890° C., produces no increase in brittleness. In such cases, where the brittleness of the material in its initial state was not yet at the lowest degree possible, that degree is attained by this treatment. Between 1,100° and 900° C. there exists a temperature limit, above which, if annealing is carried on for a longer period and at an increasing temperature, the degree of brittleness increases. Below this limit, however, such is not the case. Overheating does not occur at most extreme white heat, but manifests itself at considerably lower temperatures, which must, however, exceed the temperature limit just referred to. By suitable annealing, the brittleness of overheated low-carbon mild steel can be eliminated. If annealing is carried on above 600° C., a short period of about half an hour is sufficient. Longer annealing must be the more carefully avoided the more the temperature limit between 1,100° and 900° C. is exceeded, otherwise the signs of overheating will reappear. Below 800° C. an annealing of even five hours is not enough to eliminate the brittleness in the overheated metal; but by annealing of one day's duration at temperatures between 700° and 850° C. this object can be attained. If low-carbon mild steel which has been annealed for a longer period at a high enough temperature, so that after undisturbed cooling it

would show extreme brittleness, is rolled or forged during cooling to bright-red heat it will exhibit no brittleness when cold. The fracture of the overheated steel generally shows a coarse grain, although this is not necessarily always the case. The single crystal grains of which the structure of the iron is built up, which can be detected under the microscope by suitable etching, are often of considerable dimensions when in the state of overheating. Nevertheless, this is not to be considered as proof positive that overheating has taken place, since the method of cooling also exercises a great influence over the size of the ferrite grains. Rapid cooling from the temperature causing overheating produces fine ferrite grains, without reducing the brittleness appreciably. Moreover, it is possible, by heating lowcarbon mild steel for days together at between 700° and 890° C., to bring the material into such a condition that it will show exceedingly coarse ferrite grains, and yet not exhibit brittleness. A new method of compressing steel during solidification and while still liquid in the ingot mold, which the author called "wiredrawing," is described by M. A. Harmet. When molten steel is poured into the ingot mold it may suffer various changes in character, being subject to contraction, crystallization, and liquation, with injurious effects upon its qualities. When the metal begins to cool, it shrinks from the walls of the mold, a solid steel shell is formed, enclosing liquid, and this continuing to cool, shrinks, becomes plastic, and attaches itself progressively to the shell, leaving a hollow corresponding to the shrinkage, and extending along the axis of the upper part of the ingot. The lower central part of the ingot also has porosities and tiny cracks, and fissures may be detected by the microscope pervading the whole mass. Injurious stresses are set up, crystals are formed having little cohesion between themselves, whereby the liability to crack is increased, and the metalloids that enter into the composition of the steel have a tendency to separate from the iron by liquation. The ingot, as cast, may therefore be useless, and require mechanical treatment to remedy its defects. The author's method is intended to effect compression on the steel while it is in the mold. Pressure is applied by means of a hydraulic press to the bottom of the ingot while it is liquid in the mold. Owing to the form of the modern ingot mold, tapering toward the top, the upper diameter is less than that of the lower part. By applying pressure from below, the ingot, which has shrunk on cooling, is thrust upward into the smaller part of the conical mold. The cooled shell thus presses on the central part, and the hollows due to shrinkage are not free to form. By hastening the solidification in this way the tendency to coarse crystallization is counteracted, and the tendency of carbon to accumulate in the part of the ingot where solidification last takes place is lessened. The process is called wiredraw ing because of a supposed similarity between the pressing of the metal into the upper part of the mold to forcing it through a draw-plate. Advantages are claimed for this method over that of Sir Joseph Whitworth, who applied pressure from the top, in that the pressure as applied by him is more effective and thorough. The author represents that with it production is increased 25 per

cent.

In the Blau-Thiel process as described by Mr. J. W. Cabot, the fluid iron from the blast-furnace was charged in the refiner with 7 per cent. of quicklime; 10 per cent. of ore was added, and then a second ladle of iron. The charge was

made of 15 tons. The pig-iron contained 3.70 per cent. carbon, 1.35 phosphorus, 0.90 silicon, 0.40 manganese, and 0.05 sulfur. After boiling in the refiner two hours, 90 per cent. of the phosphorus and 95 per cent. of the silicon had been removed, while more than two-thirds of the carbon remained. The finishing furnace, containing 3 per cent. of lump lime, 7 per cent. of ore, and 7 per cent. of scrap, having been brought up to heat, the refined metal was tapped into it after the slag had been skimmed off. After boiling two and a half hours the phosphorus was brought down to 0.01, and the bath was ready for tapping. The belief that the percentage of graphite in iron is independent of the amount of silicon present is attributed by H. M. Howe to a wrong interpretation of the evidence. Mr. Howe shows that the graphite content in normal and relatively pure commercial pig-iron is influenced only indirectly by the percentage of silicon, in that silicon lowers the solvent power of iron for carbon, and thus lessens the proportion of combined carbon and increases that of graphite, provided the total carbon remains constant; the decrease of combined carbon is rapid at first, especially as the silicon rises from zero to 0.75 per cent., and then becomes slower and slower. The influence of silicon is often masked by that of the variables. Sulfur is known to raise the saturation point of cast iron for carbon; by increasing the combined carbon content it lowers the graphite content. It is estimated that the proportion of combined carbon in pig-iron is increased 0.02 per cent. for each 0.01 per cent. increase in sulfur when the iron contains from 1 to 2 per cent. of silicon, and 0.03 per cent. for each 0.01 per cent. of sulfur when the iron contains from 2 to 3 per cent. of silicon.

In well-equipped foundries, the cinder from the cupola is usually crushed in a tumbler and the shot separated from the pulverized cinder. C. H. Putnam further passes the pulverized cinder over a magnetic separator, and thus saves additional iron, recovering daily from the dump of two cupolas 550 pounds of siftings, which give 450 pounds of strongly mottled iron after melting. This iron is to be worked in with the regular cupola charge, in amounts to be found by experiment. The daily saving by the combined crushing and magnetic separation with two cupolas amounts to $3.

By the Giebeler process of hardening steel it is claimed that all sorts of iron can be given strength and hardness double that obtained by the Harvey, Krupp, and Boehler processes, while the cost of production is reduced 50 per cent. Experiments made with it at the Technical High School, Charlottenburg, Prussia, were very satisfactory.

The objections have been made to the new methods of rail production that the rail made by them is so low in carbon and has so soft a head that the wear makes them useless in a much shorter time than the older rails of lighter seetion. It is claimed that these difficulties are obviated in the Coyen process, by which a rail is produced with a hard, tough face and free from scale and strain, showing a finer grain of steel in the head, and having from a third to a half superior durability to the usual rail.

Lieut.-Col. Davis, of the Naval Ordnance Bureau of the United States, has produced an armorplate which, when tested at the proving-grounds at Bethlehem, gave results encouraging the belief that the armor-plate has again overtaken the gun in the struggle for supremacy. This plate is obtained by a novel process, carbon being driven directly into the surface of the hot metal by an

intensely powerful current of electricity, the result being a face as hard as glass and of any thickness desired, supported by a tough back, which, it is claimed, can not be cracked. The depth of the hardening is regulated by the length of time the current plays upon the plate. It is claimed that an average plate can be completely treated electrically in five hours. Moreover, it is asserted that the plate is a third lighter for the same resisting power.

Among the advantages offered by nickel-steel, R. S. Tappender mentions the smaller liability, arising from its greater tension, of fractures when started to extend, than exists in common steel or iron. The elastic limit of nickel-steel is also much higher in proportion to its tensile strength than that of steel or iron.

Not many brands of hard tool steel can be used with advantage and economy for the preparation of the various cutting tools employed in the machinery of modern armor-plates. A steel prepared by Sergius Kern, of St. Petersburg, has the following composition:

The phosphorus and sulfur must be kept down as low as possible, on the average not more than 0.03 per cent. of the combined elements, of which not more than 0.01 per cent. should be sulfur. The steel is, and must be, prepared by the crucible process. Such a self-hardening tool steel is very convenient for the machining of hard metais. A paper on the probable existence of a new carbide of iron, Fe, C, was communicated by Prof. E. D. Campbell and Mr. M. B. Kennedy, of the University of Michigan, to the Iron and Steel Institute at its summer meeting in Düsseldorf.

Titanium.-In illustration of the importance of the metallurgy of titanium, Mr. Augustin J. Rossi, in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, refers to the extent of the deposits of iron ores containing a notable amount of titanic oxid which occur all over the world in immense quantity, especially in the formations of Sweden, Norway, Canada, North Carolina, and other regions, and the Adirondacks. As a rule, these ores are Bessemer ores, usually free from phosphorus and sulfur, though not invariably so. It is obvious that if these ores were to regarded in the same light as other ores equally rich in iron, they might form an excellent stock for blast-furnaces for years to come, as their supply might be called inexhaustible. The objections that have been alleged against the use of these ores are characterized by the author as unreliable, contradictory, and contrary to the facts. Mr. Rossi's own experiments and other evidence are cited to show that instead of the presence of titanic acid in blast-furnace slag rendering it infusible, such slags are worked without difficulty from that cause. An objection based upon relative economy of production is declared not valid, because of the better quality and higher value of the pig produced from the titaniferous ores. A general consensus of opinion is alleged to the effect that the pig smelted from really titaniferous ores, whether smelted alone or in important proportions, with other ores, is strong, wonderfully good," "a splendid iron," "all that can be desired," etc. The addition of from 10 to 15 per cent. of titaniferous pig to a cheap grade of foundry pig raised the tensile and transverse strength, with a deeper chill, and at a cost of several dollars less per ton. VOL. XLII.-25 A

.385

This titaniferous pig does not, however, contain titanium to any important extent. The influence of that element in the smelting seems to be more one of purification, eliminating obnoxious elements, than a direct one. The author has experimented with alloys of titanium and iron, and has found that as the percentage of titanium increases the fusibility diminishes. All the alloys, both with carbon and those free from it, are much lighter than cast iron, their specific gravities varying with the amount of titanium. Added to steel, titanium increased the ductility considerably. It has been suggested that titanium may have an indirect action besides its specific one, when added to steel-acting not only as a deoxidizing agent, but also by remov ing from the steel the nitrogen which is undoubtedly present in it, and which has an unfavorable influence on its strength, titanium burning in nitrogen at 300° C., with incandescence, as iron burns in oxygen. If such be the case, the use of the titanium alloy, even when containing carbon, would be well indicated, since the titaniferous ore could be used as a recarbonizer on account of the high percentage of carbon it contains, as a deoxidizer (with or without ferro-manganese), and perhaps as a denitrogenizer; and since, in the case of smaller converters for steel castings, the heat of formation of titanic acid, which is much higher than that of silica, would prove advantageous in raising the temperature of the bath, even were but a small percentage of titanium to remain ultimately in the finished product, there would seem to be, with suitable adaptations of open-hearth furnaces, a promise of the opening for these titanium alloys of a large field of usefulness and for the titaniferous ores a very important application.

Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Mercury. The oxidized gold ores of the Lydenburg district, Transvaal, are composed of quartz, oxides of iron, and dolomite, and contain, besides the gold, small quantities of manganese, bismuth, silica, and copper.

In the cyanid treatment of these ores, manganese dissolves only when an insufficient amount of lime is used, bismuth presents no difficulties, and 10 per cent. or less of silver is recovered. Copper is present in different forms to the extent of 0.4 per cent., and collects in the metallic form on the amalgamating plates, while a small proportion is dissolved by the cyanid, with formation of potassium cuprocyanid, 3KCyCuCy. The method of removing the copper is to heat the ore with the cyanid solution obtained in ordinary practise, containing cuprocyanid, but no free cyanid. This solution would dissolve the copper, and, after having been freed from it again by the Siemens-Halske electrolytic method of precipitation, could be used over again.

In pyritic smelting or smelting of dry silver ores in connection with pyrites to form a matte, F. R. Carpenter, dealing with ores of the silicious gold belt near Deadwood, S. Dak., successfully followed the general work of Mansfeld, Germany. The matte fall rarely exceeded 5 per cent. Iron sows formed in the operation, and helped to carry down the gold, so that clear slags could be made in the absence of copper, which has heretofore been deemed essential to the production of waste slags free from precious metal. The refining of the matte was at first accomplished by treating with lead ores; then it was found that matte as well as iron sows readily gave up the gold to the lead, while the extraction with silver was not so perfect. In a second method described by the author the matte was smelted for cop