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By William Sellers

tested without knowing anything of their chemical composition. I had these pieces separately placed upon 10-inch bearings under a 7-gross ton lianlrner, a piece of 2½-inch round iron laid upon them as a fuller, and the hammer allotved to fall from 20 inches above the fuller, which, according to Haswell, gave a ldow of 67.75 gross tons. The pieces were then turned orcr, the fuller placed upon the convex surface, and the harnnler allowed to fall from 13 inches above the fuller, giving a blow of 58.46 gross tons. You will see that the rails do aot show ally bigrls of ruptnre, and their color at the points of torture prove them to have been absolutely cold when the test was made. I thirk these rails ought to be reasonably safe in the track. As you see by this piece of the head of one of these rails, I had it plarred, and then some teeth cut in it by a cold clrisel, and one-half of them pounded down with a hammer. The teeth of my rack did not break off. The analyses of these rails substquently made are: I. 11. Carbon,... 0.110 0.880 Silicon,..0.050 0.058 Phosphorus ,..0.086 0.082 Manganese,.. 0.042 0 840 In conclusion, I will say that Dr. Dudley's paper as a contribu tion to our knowledge of steel rails is valuable and interesting, but I protest against his conclusions king reoeived as manufacturing or comtnercial axioms. From its being presented in the form-of a report to the leading railroad of the country from one of its trusted officers, as well as from the tone of the concluding deductions, it is liable to be so received by railroad men. If any railroad com pany desires rails made under either of Dr. Dudley's formulas, and are willing to pay a price large enough to cover the loss in making them, dl and good; but so long as the rail makers are compelled to gwrrantee the wear of their rails for a given number of years, justice reqnires that. the composition of the steel from which these rails are made should be left to them. WILLIAM SELLERS, PHILADELPHIA: The very interesting paper upon the wear of steel rails that has just been read preseak the record of a series of investigations that are extreniely valuable, and the deduction that bas been drawn from the results noted seems to be unavoidable; the tests, however, to which it is proposed steel rails shall be subjected hereafter, with a view to determine their quality, sllould

Jan 1, 1881

By R. W. Raymond

THE absence of a convenient glossary of terns connected with mining and metallurgy has long been felt by the general public. It is to meet this want, not to furnish a technical manual for experts, that the following glossary has been prepared. It originated in an attempt on my part to revise for publication the manuscript of a compilation prepared from the appendix of Yale's work on Mining Titles and one or two other sources, to serve as an appendix to a new work on mining law, about to be published by Mr. H. N. Copp, of Washington, D. C. This revision soon assumed, contrary to my original intention, the proportions of a reconstruction ; and with the consent of Mr. Copp, and for the purpose of receiving from my fellow-members valuable aid, I presented my still incomplete work as a paper at the Lake Superior meeting of the Institute, inviting from any quarter suggestions of new terms or better definitions to be incorporated in the glossary before its final publication. This invitation was so widely and generously responded to, that I cannot undertake to make in this place' individual acknowledgments to those members of the Institute, and professional colleagues outside of it, who hays favored me with ' assistance and advice. The labor bestowed upon this paper since its presentation, at the Lake Superior meeting has considerably exceeded that of its first preparation, as

Jan 1, 1881

Jan 1, 1881

By Charles F. King

THE only investigations on record of the reactions occurring during the Bessemer blow are of charges containing a large percentage of manganese, with the exception of two partial analyses by Snelus and Barker of the. English method, where a low percentage of manganese was used. They do not give the analysis of the spiegel, nor do they report any graphitic carbon after the first stage of the process. Both report only traces of manganese after the first stage until the addition of spiegel. The slags corresponding to the samples of metal were not analyzed.

Jan 1, 1881

By W. E. C. Coxe

At the meeting of the Institute in Philadelphia, in June, 1876, it was my pleasure to read a paper on the "Manufacture and Endurance of Iron Rails." I then spoke of some trial rails which had been placed in the down track of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, over which passed, in addition to merchandise and passengers, most of the heavy coal traffic of that company. One of these rails, made at the Philadelphia and Reading Rolling Mill in 1870, and then placed in the track, was removed in 1876, after having carried about 55,000,000 gross tons, and was on exhibition at the Centennial Exhibition. A piece of this worn rail, twisted cold, was also shown there. One of the same series of rails was allowed to remain in the track until 1878, and short sections of this rail, as well as one not worn, to show its original shape, are presented for your inspection. A comparison of the two will show that the top of the head or tread has morn down 3/16ths of an inch during its nine years of service. It carried in that time 67,000,000 gross tons of freight, passengers, cars, and engines. This rail was made in the usual way of manufacturing iron rails at the Philadelphia and Reading Rolling Mill. The head was made from puddled iron bars, piled, heated, and rolled into bars, 41/2 and 3 inches wide by 1 inch thick, these bars, breaking joints, were made into a pile in section 9 inches square, heated and rolled into slabs 9 inches wide and 2 inches thick; the balance of the rail-pile was made of 41/2 and 3-inch bars, rolled from two-thirds old rails and one-third puddled iron, the

Jan 1, 1880

By P. H. Mell

The little village, from which this formation receives its name, is situated on a bluff of the Alabama River, 175 feet above water level. This bluff is a portion of high table land that begins in the western portion of Choctaw and extends through Clarke and Monroe counties. We find points on this ridge more than 100 feet higher than Tuscaloosa, and nearly as high as the Tennessee River at Tuscumbia. Through this the Alabama River cuts its way, exposing a beautiful cross-section of the strata, of which the accompanying sketch may give some idea. The fossils are found about 75 feet below the surface and 100 feet above the level of the river. There are seven distinct strata. 1. The lowest, extending from the water's edge up the bluff 80 feet, is a soft calcareous rock containing about 15 per cent. of carbonate of lime, with occasional specks of mica. In this a few Ostrea, Turritellæ, and Flustræ were found, but so friable as to fall to pieces when handled. 2. Next comes a stratum varying from 2 to 8 feet, consisting of

Jan 1, 1880

By W. C. Kerr

A BRIEF sketch only is here intended, with a few illustrations, in order to give a general notion of the character and structure of these veins. I have stated elsewhere, several years ago, that these veins were wrought on a large scale and for many ages by some ancient peoples, most probably the so-called Mound Builders; although they built no mounds here, and have left no signs of any permanent habitation. They opened and worked a great many veins down to or near water-level ; that is, as far as the action of atmospheric chemistry had softened the rock so that it was workable without metal tools, of the use of which no signs are apparent. Many of the largest and most profitable of the mines of the present day are simply the ancient Mound Builders' mines reopened and pushed into the hard undecomposed granite by powder and steel. Blocks of mica have often been found half imbedded in the face of the vein, with the tool-marks about it, showing the exact limit of the efficiency of those prehistoric mechanical appliances. As to the geological relations of these veins, they are found in the gneisses

Jan 1, 1880

By A. L. Holley

THERE is a growing demand for pure and cheap material for fine open-hearth steel ; a material not only very free from phosphorus, but from carbon and silicon; so that it may he rapidly converted into steel. Iron and steel scrap are not trustworthy as to quality, and they are often dear. There are three methods of purifying cheap materials for the open hearth. 1. Mechanical puddling, as done at Creusot, which removes 90' per cent. of the phosphorus from the pig iron. 2. Krupp's washing process (the conduct and results of which I fully described in a former paper*), which eliminates 70 to 80 per cent. of the phosphorus and most of the sulphur and silicon from pig iron. Neither of these processes would sufficiently purify, for very fine steel, those very impure pigs which are cheapest in many parts of the United States: 3. The process of producing directly from the ore an iron which is practically pure chemically, although mechanically mixed with the impurities of the ore. This is the oldest of iron processes ; one form of it, the Catalan forge, employed to produce charcoal blooms, is still in use, but its great cost is rapidly throwing it out of competition. Among the modern attempts to produce iron direct from the one, on a large scale and at a cheap rate, several have been in various respects successful. Dr. Siemens's process of treating a ton and a half or more of ore and the coal to deoxidize it, in a rotating gas furnace, and bringing out, in some four hours, a ball of chemically pure iron so soft that the fluid and impure slag may be squeezed out of it, is the most attractive and the most highly developed of all the modern direct processes. I have watched it, from time to time, since 1874, and have noted a steady improvement. It may now be said to have passed the experimental stage, although, like older processes, it must be adapted by practice to special materials. The cause which has been more potent than all others, including the defects of the best direct processes, to bring these processes into disrepute, is the waste-ful treatment of the direct product. With one or two exceptions (when failure was due to other and obvious causes), the direct product has been made into wrought iron (weld iron). Even Dr. Siemens has, at Towcester, in England, and at Park, Bro. & Co.'s, in Pittsburg, set up his apparatus for this purpose. Is it likely that

Jan 1, 1880

By T. Egleston

FOR several years I have been engaged in studying the behavior of iron' and steel under varying conditions of tension and compression, as well as of shock and abrasion. Some of these observations have been communicated to the Institute at various times. Within the past year I have been looking at the various observations that I have made as a whole, and have been led to the conclusion that there is a regular law of fatigue and refreshment of metals, and that the change which produces either the fatigue or refreshment is a chemical one, which is, however, in almost all cases accompanied by physical and molecular changes at the same time. That metals under conditions that were more or less well understood became worthless, has been known for many years. It has been known to blacksmiths that iron and steel, when improperly treated in their fires, become "burned," as they call it, and could no longer be used, and some of them have had a scrap heap into which such material was thrown. A few of them knew that after a period more or less long the iron or steel recovered some of its original properties and could, with many precautions, again be used, but that these phenomena followed any law has not to my knowledge been announced. My attention was first attracted to the varying conditions under which iron and steel rails break in service. It was not long before I became convinced that there was a general law applicable to all metals which allowed of their being used with safety within certain limits, and caused their rupture when the use extended beyond these limits, and this law I have called the law of fatigue of metals. When we observe the causes of deterioration in iron and steel rails, we find that they are principally shocks, either slight and frequent, like those produced by the passing of a train over a road-bed in good order, which produces a vibration. sensible to the ear laid on the rail, for very long distances, but distinctly audible for only a short one; or from sudden and heavy blows, like the descent of the locomotive and each car successively from a high to a low rail. * Read at the Montreal Meeting, September, 1879.

Jan 1, 1880

By Frederick Prime

In this supplementary list no titles to which an * is prefixed have been seen by the compiler; and he will be most thankfu1 to have any omissions or inaccuracies in the list sent to him to be published as a second supplement in the next volume of the Transactions. The author is indebted to Messrs. Robert Clarke, of Cincinnati; Thomas Macfarland, of Towanda; Professor F. W. Simonds, of Chapel Hill; and Professor J. J. Stevenson, of New York, for valuable assistance. Cedar Point IRON Company, Baltimore, July 31st, 1880. Alabama. Geological Survey of Alabama. Report of Progress for 1877 and 1878; by Eugene A. Smith, State Geologist. Montgomery, 1879. 8vo., 139 pp., and 4 maps.

Jan 1, 1880

By Percival Roberts

It may seem necessary to offer an apology for presenting for consideration a process which is conspicuous by its absence in the literature of the Institute, and which may be thought by some to belong to the past in metallurgy, and to have been already superseded. But the large capital invested in puddling calls for a careful consideration of the question whether the time has certainly arrived when the puddling furnace must be replaced by the converter and open-hearth furnace. May there not still be a place for puddled iron alongside of molten iron and steel, and is not the improvement of the puddling process itself worthy the attention of engineers equally with the Bessemer and open-hearth processes? The changes involved in the conversion of pig iron into wrought iron are well understood and need only be briefly alluded to. The patent of Henry Cort bears the date of 1784. Since that time * the improvements in the process have mainly consisted in the replacement of sand by iron bottoms by Samuel Baldwyn Rogers in 1818, and the still more recent substitution of iron oxide for the refractory materials used for the rides and bridge of the hearth, which distinguishes the wet or boiling process from the dry or pnddling process. Chemically, the process consists in the removal of the metalloids from the pig iron, a result effected mainly by the iron oxide. Silicon is first oxidized, then the phosphorus, and finally the carbon. The silicic and phosphoric acids produced pass into the cinder and the carbonic oxide burns as it escapes from the bath of metal. It is interesting in this connection to note the effect of temperature on the removal of the phosphorus from the iron. As is well known, no phosphorus is eliminated under the oxidizing influences prevailing in the Bessemer converter, while from 70 to 80 per cent. is removed in puddling. But we find, if in working cold short irons

Jan 1, 1880

By Rossiter W. Raymond

I desire to call the attention of the Institute to a novel system of dredging which, it seems to me, may prove applicable, not only to river and harbor improvements, but also to certain varieties at 1east of alluvial and diluvial gold mining; that is, river-mining, barmining, coast-mining, and any other similar operations now carried on by means of coffer-dams or dredging machines. The simple and effective method to which I refer is the invention of General Roy Stone, formerly an officer of volunteers, and at present a civil engineer, engaged under General Newton, of the United States Engineer Corps, upon the government works in New York harbor. General Stone has been, since September, 1878, in charge of operations upon Diamond Reef. This reef, lying between Governor's Island and the Battery, is one of the most dangerous in the harbor. Its position in the highway of navigation, and the fact that it is dangerous only to vessels of considerable draught and at certain stages of the tide, combine to increase the serious nature of the disasters which it has caused. The reef consists partly of rock in place, and partly of deposits of glacial clay, boulders, and pebbles, over all of which lies, or did lie until it was removed, the ordinary silt and rubbish of the harbor. As the purpose of the present paper has nothing to do with the special dimensions and other circamstances of this particular work, I describe those features only which are connected with General Stone's ingenious device. Various attempts have been made to remove the upper portion of Diamond Reef and secure a navigable depth at low tide. Some years ago Maillefert undertook to accomplish this by firing charges of high explosives, simply laid upon the surface. He accomplished some good in the removal of projecting points and ridges; but as soon as the surface of the reef had become approximately level, his method was no longer effective. After the work had been taken up by the Engineer Corps, the well-known drilling-scow invented by General Newton was brought into action; and, SO long as holes could be bored and fired in solid rock, this process was effective enough. In the mixture of hard-pan

Jan 1, 1880

By George W. Maynard

In the course of an examination of some of the California hydraulic mines in November last, I visited the property of the Gold Run Ditch and Mining Company, near Dutch Flat, Placer County. This is one of the most important and extensively worked mines in the district. The gold occurs in the characteristic blue gravel, which averages 175 feet in thickness, the lower 40-60 feet being made rip of cement gravel, which resists the action of water, and can only he loosened by blasting. The specimen which I have the pleasure of laying before the members was presented to me by Mr. I. L. Gould, the intelligent superintendent of the mines, who informs me that he found it in the old river channel, about twelve feet above the bedrock. The flattened water-worn nugget of gold, about the size of a kidney-bean, is imbedded in blue cement gravel, around which quartz has crystallized. When found the projecting portion of the nugget was enveloped in quartz, the core of gravel and gold having only been discovered after breaking the lump of quartz. On the quartz there is a shell of cement. The specimen is a remarkable confirmation of the theory of the deposition of quartz from solution. DISCUSSION. Dr. T. STERRY HUNT, in commenting upon this occurrence, remarked that it is in accordance with what we already know of the recency of some of the quartz of this region, and cited the microscopic

Jan 1, 1880

By Percival Roberts

IT may seem necessary to offer an apology for presenting for consideration a process which is conspicuous by its absence in the literature of the Institute, and which may be thought by some to belong to the past in metallurgy, and to have been already superseded. But the large capital invested in puddling calls for a careful consideration of the question whether the time has certainly arrived when the puddling furnace must be replaced by the converter and open-hearth furnace. May there not still be a place for puddled iron alongside of molten iron and steel, and is not the improvement of the puddling process itself worthy the attention of engineers equally with the Bessemer and open-hearth processes? The changes involved in the conversion of pig iron into wrought iron are well understood and need only be briefly alluded to. The patent of Henry Cort bears the date of 1784. Since that time the improvements in the process have mainly consisted in the replacement of sand by iron bottoms by Samuel Baldwyn Rogers in 1818, and the still more recent substitution of iron oxide for the refractory materials used for the rides and bridge of the hearth, which distinguishes the wet or boiling process from the dry or paddling process. Chemically, the process consists in the removal of the metalloids from the pig iron, a result effected mainly by the iron oxide. Silicon is first oxidized, then the phosphorus, and finally the carbon. The silicic and phosphoric acids produced pass into the cinder and the carbonic oxide burns as it escapes from the bath of metal. It is interesting in this connection to note the effect of temperature on the removal of the phosphorus from the iron. As is well known, no phosphorus is eliminated under the oxidizing influences prevailing in the Bessemer converter, while from 70 to 80 per cent. is removed in puddling. But we find, if in working cold short irons

Jan 1, 1880

By C. R. Boyd

The region to which I have the pleasure of calling your attention, though limited in area, is remarkable for the quantity and purity of its mineral deposits, and in these respects it would be difficult to find its equal anywhere. IRON ORES. The red and brown hematites, pipe ore, and semi-magnetites, from which is made in charcoal furnaces the highest quality of iron for car-wheels, extend through the counties of Giles, Montgomery, Pulaski, Wythe, Smyth, Washington, Bland, Tazewell, Russell, Scott, Lee, Floyd, Carroll, and Grayson, Virginia, and run over into Ashe County, North Carolina. One locality of semi-magnetite, in the centre of the great Giles County basin, has in sight, by actual measurement, 50,000 tons of ore, which, according to Prof. Fesquet, contains 69.74 per cent. of iron and no phosphorus. In the great brown-ore belt, which passes through the counties of Montgomery, Pulaski, Wythe, Smyth, and Washington, there is an extraordinary deposit of more than a million tons. A small section of this very long vein, on Cripple Creek, in the County of Wythe, yields an ore which, analyzed by Mr. James Aumann, gave the following results: Metallic iron,........58.15 Water,.........12 96 Alumina,........2.32 Silica,.........1.09 Phosphorus,.. none. At one point towards the western end of Red Land Mountain, in Pulaski County, New River section, I measured a body of ore in this belt which will yield, to a depth of 150 feet, over 8,000,000 tons, and the deposit extends far below the 150 feet measured at the upper part. Again, at Rich Hill, near the mouth of Reed Island Creek, these veins show extraordinary surface development, giving an ore of very great purity. At numerous places, also, in the counties of Giles, Bland, Tazewell, Russell, Scott, Wise, and Lee, these brown and red iron ores are exposed in such vast quantities as to baffle both description and measurement. That of Chestnut Flat, in Giles County, back or west of the Angel's Rest Mountain, is an easily reducible ore, blood-red when crushed, of which there are fully 300,000 tons in sight. Its analysis is as follows :

Jan 1, 1880

By E. F. Loiseau

In a paper on the manufacture of artificial fuel, read at the Philadelphia meeting of February, 1878, I enumerated the difficulties which I had to overcome before succeeding in the mixing of coal-dust and clay, the compressing of the same mixture, and the water-proofing of the lumps. The drying of the lumps, after leaving the press, was the remaining difficulty, and it mas expected that a plan devised by Dr. Charles N. Cresson, of Philadelphia, would enable us to dry the fuel as rapidly as it was moulded, and that a continuous production could in that way be obtained. The company was reorganized. The works were purchased by the new company at an assignee's sale, and the oven was modified, according to Dr. Cresson's plan. Anticipating a possible failure, I had prepared a plan by which I expected to be able to demonstrate that anthracite coal dust nixed with pitch, could be manufactured with our present machinery slightly modified ; so that after all, if we were compelled to give up the attempt to make fuel for domestic use, there was a possibility of succeeding in the manufacture of a good steam-fuel. The plan suggested by Dr. Cresson for drying the pressed lumps of coal-dust cemented with clay, did not work as well as we expected. It enabled us to dry more fuel than we did before, but it could not be made to dry more than one half of the lumps produced by the press. The plan mas abandoned, and I was authorized to experiment with coal-dust and coal-tar pitch. The cement which is used in Europe to conglomerate coal-dust is usually dry pitch, which is prepared by separating from the tar, at a temperature of 572' Fahrenheit, the volatile matters which it contains. Some manufacturers, however, employ crude tar, others, a rich tar, which has been cleared of 25 per cent. of its volatile substances, by heating it to 392' Fahrenheit. But with common tar very weak fuels are obtained, which do riot burn well, and give out a strong smell and a great deal of smoke ; it is also necessary to subject them to a baking process, in order to solidify them, and to eliminate the more volatile of the materials contained. This operation of course requires a special plant, the cost of which increases sensibly the price of manufacture, without counting the products

Jan 1, 1880

By Thomas MacFarlane

IN smelting copper, lead, and silver ores, it is scarcely possible in every case to make analyses of the various parcels of ore, with the view of combining these and the fluxes so accurately as to yield, in the furnace, slags of exactly the most favorable composition. This is even more difficult with ores which require previous calcination, or with mattes which have been roasted in heaps. Even in cases where the greatest pains have been taken and the most elaborate calculations made beforehand, it frequently happens that variations in the working of the furnace interfere with the result so much desired. Generally, the practical metallurgist must be content with ascertaining the average composition of his ores and fluxes, making a calculation once for all as to the most advantageous mixture, and leaving slight changes in its composition to be taken care of as it is passing through the furnace. The various products then afford him the best material whereon to base his judgment as to the manner in which his smelting mixture is working. Of course the character of the slag is one of his chief guides, but it is not always possible from its outward characters alone to form a correct judgment as to its composition. Neither would it be possible or practicable to apply chemical analysis for this purpose, as it would be impossible to wait for its results while working a furnace. Abich was, I believe, the first to point out the relation existing between the composition of volcanic rocks and their densities, and to show that, the latter being ascertained, very correct conclusions

Jan 1, 1880

By A. L. Holley

There is a growing demand for pure and cheap material for fine open-hearth steel; a material not only very free from phosphorus, but from carbon and silicon; so that it may he rapidly converted into steel. Iron and steel scrap are not trustworthy as to quality, and they are often dear. There are three methods of purifying cheap materials for the open hearth. 1. Mechanical puddling, as done at Creusot, which removes 90' per cent. of the phosphorus from the pig iron. 2. Krupp's washing process (the conduct and results of which 1 fully described in a former paper*), which eliminates 70 to 80 per cent. of the phosphorus and most of the sulphur and silicon from pig iron. Neither of these processes would sufficiently purify, for very fine steel, those very impure pigs which are cheapest in many parts of the United States. 3. The process of producing directly from the ore an iron which is practically pure chemically, although mechanically mixed with the impurities of the ore. This is the oldest of iron processes ; one form of it, the CataIan forge, employed to produce charcoal blooms, is still in use, but its great cost is rapidly throwing it out of competition. Among the modern attempts to produce iron direct from the one, on a large scale and at a cheap rate, several have been in various respects successful. Dr. Siemens's process of treating a ton and a half or more of ore and the coal to deoxidize it, in a rotating gas furnace, and bringing out, in some four hours, a ball of chemically pure iron so soft that the fluid and impure slag may be sqneezed out of it, is the most attractive and the most highly developed of all the modern direct processes. I hare watched it, from time to time, since 1874, and have noted a steady improvement. It may now be said to have passed the experimental stage, although, like older processes, it must be adapted by practice to special materials. The cause which has been more potent than all others, including the defects of the best direct processes, to bring these processes into disrepute, is the wasteful treatment of the direct product. With one or two exceptions (when failure mas due to other and obvious causes), the direct product has been made into wrought iron (weld iron). Even Dr. Siemens has, at Towcester, in England, and at Park, Bro. & Co.'s, in Pittsburg, set up his apparatus for this purpose. Is it likely that

Jan 1, 1880

By Robert H. Richards

VERY little has been published recently on this subject in the mining journals or proceedings of societies. The attention of experts has been diverted perhaps by the demands for pan amalgamation of refractory ores. Yet free milling ores occur in many localities, and it may be interesting to have on record some data as to details of running a small test-mill, especially as details of results do not seem to be accessible to students and investigators. Küstel, in 1863, under battery amalgamation, dismisses the subject by stating that "amalgamation on copper-plated platforms, troughs, and other copper fixings" is " very imperfect, and mostly abandoned." J. Arthur Phillips says, in 1867, under placer mining : A well-amalgamated copper plate is considered as effective for

Jan 1, 1880

By E. F. Loiseau

IN a paper on the manufacture of artificial fuel, read at the Philadelphia meeting of February, 1878, I enumerated the difficulties which I had to overcome before succeeding in the mixing of coal-dust and clay, the compressing of the same mixture, and the water-proofing of the lumps. The drying of the lumps, after leaving the press, was the remaining difficulty, and it was expected that a plan devised by Dr. Charles M. Cresson, of Philadelphia, would enable us to dry the fuel as rapidly as it was moulded, and that a continuous production could in that way be obtained. The company was reorganized. The works were purchased by the new company at an assignee's sale, and the oven was modified, according to Dr. Cresson's plan. Anticipating a possible failure, I had prepared a plan by which I expected to be able to demonstrate that anthracite coal dust mixed with pitch, could be manufactured with our present machinery slightly modified ; so that after all, if we were compelled to give up the attempt to make fuel for domestic use, there was a possibility of succeeding in the manufacture of a good steam-fuel. The plan suggested by Dr. Cresson for drying the pressed lumps of coal-dust cemented with clay, did not work as well as we expected. It enabled us to dry more fuel than we did before, but it could not be made to dry more than one-half of the lumps produced by the press. The plan was abandoned, and I was authorized to experiment with coal-dust and coal-tar pitch. The cement which is used in Europe to conglomerate coal-dust is ,usually dry pitch, which is prepared by separating from the tar, at a temperature of 572° Fahrenheit, the volatile matters which it contains. Some manufacturers, however, employ crude tar, others, a rich tar, which has been cleared of 25 per cent. of its volatile substances, by heating it to 392° Fahrenheit. But with common tar very weak fuels are obtained, which do not burn well, and give out a strong smell and a great deal of smoke ; it is also necessary to subject them to a baking process, in order to solidify them, and to eliminate the more volatile of the materials contained. This operation of course requires a special plant, the cost of which increases sensibly the price of manufacture, without counting the products

Jan 1, 1880