Base metal

“ The Coming Metal.—It is predicted that aluminum is the coming metal, which is destined to supersede iron. It is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust, and is not exceeded in usefulness. It is the metallic base of mica, feldspar, slate, and clay. ”

“ Other metals employed are copper, brass, tin, zinc, phosphor-bronze, lead, antimony, bismuth, pewter, Muntz metal, aluminium, sodium, potassium, platinum, gold, silver, nickel, and a great variety of the bronzes, which are valuable compounds varying in tenacity and hardness from the hardest steel to that of soft copper. Most of the above are manufactured into wire, sheets, tubes, rods, &c., and can in addition be cast into any form from a crucible. Copper can be forged but not welded; joints in it are generally brazed or soldered. ”

“ As you know, most of the metals have chums or affinities with other substances, just as gold has with mercury. These chums of the metals were also in that molten ocean, but not always in the same proportions, nor yet distributed regularly. So metallic compounds were formed at different times and in diverse places. These compounds had varying densities, with the result that in later ages they behaved in a way quite different from the pure metal. You see, Jim, long before the crust of the earth was even formed, gold was scattered far and wide, and already was in different forms. ”

“ Returning to the eleven well-known true metals, viz., aluminum, copper, gold, iron, lead, mercury, nickel, platinum, silver, tin and zinc, wonderful progress has been made during recent years in the matter of their production. Few of us appreciate the extent to which we are absolutely dependent on some of these substances which, a generation ago, were so rare. It is quite impossible now to conceive of a metal-less civilization, or one in which they were so costly as to be practically unavailable for the ordinary affairs and circumstances of life. ”

“ Gold may be separated by fusion, from every addition of Copper, Tin, Iron, Lead, Orpiment, Antimony, Arsenick or the like, and be purifyed without Cupels, each being kept apart; profitable for Metallurgists and the like, from the shortness of the time, smallness of the charge and labour, and much gain.
Every imperfect metal without the mixture of other metals, may be ripened by this secret alone in the fire, in the space of an hour, so that it will yield Gold and Silver, but without gain. ”

“ The metallic alloy should also be occasionally stirred up with a rod of pottery ware.
The most direct evidence of a chemical change having been effected in alloys is, when the compound melts at a lower temperature than the mean of its ingredients. Iron, which is nearly infusible, acquires almost the fusibility of gold when alloyed with this precious metal. The analogy is here strong with the increase of solubility which salts acquire by mixture, as is exemplified in the difficulty of crystallising residuums of saline solutions, or mother waters, as they are called. ”

“ A third group of metals have coloured rusts, e.g., silver, copper, and iron. A fourth group never rust, such as gold and platinum, which occur as metals in the gangue, not as ore from which the metal is produced. In the case of the other metals it is an advantage that they are found in the rust or ore condition, as they can be manufactured much more easily than native metal. ”

“ These local accumulations of ores first made it possible for men to obtain the rarer metals in masses and apply them to use. The metallic sulphurets nearer to the surface have been changed by atmospheric action partly into the simple metals, partly into oxides. This was a fact of great importance in the beginnings of metallurgic art; for the oxides are much easier to reduce to the condition of pure metal than the sulphurets. The unmixed metals—the precious metals and copper—are, of course, immediately available, and can be brought into any form that may be desired by hammering or casting. ”

“ The exciting arch may be constructed with two or three metals, or even one metal only; with alloys, amalgams, or other metallic or mineral combinations, carbonated substances, &c. It is observed, that metals, which are in general the most powerful exciters, induce contractions so much the more as they have an extent of surface. Metals are all more or less excitants; and it has been noticed that zinc, gold, silver, and pewter, are of the highest rank; then copper, lead, nickel, antimony, &c. ”

“ Acetic acid precipitates the red lake of lichen.
ORES (Mines, Fr.; Erze, Germ.) ; are the mineral bodies which contain so much metal as to be worth the smelting, or being reduced by fire to the metallic state. The substances naturally combined with metals, which mask their metallic characters, are chiefly oxygen, chlorine, sulphur, phosphorus, selenium, arsenic, water, and several acids, of which the carbonic is the most common. Some metals, as gold, silver, platinum, often occur in the metallic state, either alone, or combined with other metals, constituting what are called native alloys. ”

“ Very few metals are used alone in the various arts and manufactures. For every purpose some combination has been found which makes the product better. Even coins are so alloyed. Silver and gold in the form of money would be entirely too soft, unless alloyed with some hardening metal. Some substances, like arsenic, antimony and bismuth, are too brittle to be used alone. The only metals which can be used alone are aluminum, zinc, iron, tin, copper, lead, mercury, silver, gold and platinum."
"What is bronze, of which all the ancient guns were made?" ”

“ MOCK GOLD Fuse together 16 parts of copper, 7 of platinum, and 1 of zinc. When steel is alloyed with 1/500 part of platinum, or with 1/500 part of silver, it is rendered much harder, more malleable, and better adapted for all kinds of cutting instruments. Note.—In making alloys, care must be taken to have the more infusible metals melted first, and afterwards add the others.
151. BRITANNIA METAL Take 4 parts of brass, and 4 parts of tin; when fused add 4 parts of metallic bismuth, and 4 parts of metallic antimony. ”

“ There is little doubt that at some time or other every known metal was tried experimentally in the mixture; but, from the earliest days of letter-casting, lead and tin have always been recognised as the staple ingredients of the alloy; the hard substance being usually either iron, bismuth, or antimony.
Turning now from type-casting appliances to the early types themselves, we are enabled, thanks to one or two recent discoveries, to form a tolerably good idea as to their appearance and peculiarities. ”

“ If the metal on cooling remains perfectly clear and bright, then it may be assumed that the tin is of good quality and commercially pure. A crystallised or frosted appearance of the metal indicates the presence of some alloy, say of iron, copper, zinc, lead, antimony, &c. The assayer who has had much practice can readily distinguish the metal or metals that are associated with the ore by noting the appearance of the tin on cooling ”

“ When two metals come together in a molten state, they often form, not a mixture of the two, part copper and part tin, for example, but a new compound, different from either, called an alloy. Copper is, so to speak, a sociable metal, and readily unites with many different metals—amongst others with tin, when it forms bronze, the article that marks a new state in the history of primitive culture. It seems to us strange that an alloy, a combination of two different metals, should have been the first used by man, and not a simple metal like iron. ”

“ In olden times only the upper horizon of copper deposits were worked in all districts. In these, as we know, the ores are mostly oxides (with native copper) . Such ores are easily worked and yield largely.
3. In regard to the mixing of metals, the metallurgists everywhere must have soon learned by experience that the metal remained soft and red when too little tin was added, while too much tin made it light colored and lustrous, but, at the same time, very brittle. Hence, we find that among all peoples the alloys used for weapons contain from 6 to 16, or, more closely, 8 to 12 per cent. ”

“ That compound minerals consist of stone and metal is sufficiently proved by their hardness; that some are made of ’ earth ’ and metal is proved from brass, which is composed of copper and calamine; and also proved from white brass, which is coloured by artificial white arsenic. Sometimes the heat bakes some of them to such an extent that they appear to have flowed out of blazing furnaces, which we may see in the case of cadmia and pyrites. A metallic substance is produced out of ’ earth ’ when a metallic juice impregnating the ’ earth ’ solidifies with cold, the ’ earth ’ not being changed. ”

“ Power Presses in Metal Working.
From glass let us now turn to metals. It is their tenacity that chiefly gives them value; this tenacity is usually accompanied by a hardness which disposes us to regard nickel, for example, as of a solidity quite unyielding. But the coins in our pockets prove that under the pressure of minting machinery they are as impressible as wax. In molds and dies, each the counterpart of the other, brass, bronze, iron, steel, and tin-plate take desired forms as readily as if paste. Solid though these metals appear they yield under severe stress with a semi-fluid quality. ”

“ The metals thus united may be either the same or dissimilar; but the uniting metal must always have an affinity for both. Solders must be, therefore, selected in reference to their appropriate metals. Thus tin-plates are soldered with an alloy consisting of from 1 to 2 parts of tin, with 1 of lead; pewter is soldered with a more fusible alloy, containing a certain proportion of bismuth added to the lead and tin; iron, copper, and brass are soldered with spelter, an alloy of zinc and copper, in nearly equal parts ”

“ Castings in bell metal are all more or less brittle; and, when recent, have a color varying from a dark ash-gray to grayish-white, which is darkest in the more cuprous varieties, in which it turns somewhat on the yellowish-red or bluish-red. The larger the proportion of copper in the alloy, the deeper and graver the tone of the bells formed of it. The addition of tin, iron, or zinc, causes them to give out their tones sharper. Bismuth and lead are also often used to modify the tone, which each metal affects differently. ”

“ Metallurgy is almost wholly a group of chemical processes; every metal is extracted from its ores by methods which rest on chemical foundations; analyses of fuel, flux, and product go on side by side with the smelting. The cyanide and chlorination processes for gold, the Bessemer process for steel, are apt illustrations of the advances in chemical metallurgy; but before these come into play the dynamite of the miner, another chemical invention, must have done its work underground. For rare minerals, the mere curiosities of twenty years ago, uses have been found ”

“ II.—An invention, patented in Germany, covers a metallic alloy, to take the place of gold, which, even if exposed for some time to the action of ammoniacal and acid vapors, does not oxidize or lose its gold color. It can be rolled and worked like gold and has the appearance of genuine gold without containing the slightest admixture of that metal. The alloy consists of copper and antimony in the approximate ratio of 100 to 6, and is produced by adding to molten copper, as soon as it has reached a certain degree of heat, the said percentage of antimony. ”

“ Though many trials have been made in working extra-terrestrial metal, all have hitherto failed; the phosphorus, nickel and its alter ego, cobalt, render the forgings, in our present state of technology, too brittle for use. Terrestrial or telluric iron is again divided into two classes—the nearly pure ore and the native steel. According to the schedule of Rosset:
100
Iron is a metal not cast and malleable. ”

“ It is not more difficult for the mineralogist to define a metal, than for the critic to define a classic. No attribute or property of metal can be mentioned,—hardness, brittleness, malleability, magnetism, lustre,—but some acknowledged metal can be found which lacks it. ”

“ The fluid metal may, by the use of suitable moulds, be cast at once to the{70} shape required, or the casting may be treated merely as the starting-point for a whole series of operations—forging, rolling, chipping, chasing, wire-drawing, and many more. Another property of the metals which must be noticed is, that not only can separate masses of metals be melted down and fused into one, but it is possible, under various conditions, of which the one invariably necessary is perfectly clean surfaces of contact, to unite separate portions of the same or different metals without fusion of the mass. ”

“ Most lead when first smelted from its ore, contains a greater or less amount of silver in it, sometimes enough so that the lead ore is better worth working for the silver than for the lead.
Lead is used in making pipes, gutters, bullets, etc., and in its oxide forms in the manufacture of paints and glass. Eighty-three parts of lead with 17 parts of antimony make type metal. Lead and tin alloy to make solder. Lead and tin with small amounts of copper, zinc and antimony make pewter. The United States produce about 20% of the world’s supply of this metal. ”