Grappling iron

“ If the iron has too much or too little carbon it cannot be hardened at all; if there is too little it is very soft and malleable and is called “wrought iron”. If there is too much carbon it is harder than mild steel, but is very brittle indeed ”

“ Pig-iron contains silicon, sulphur and phosphorus, and these impurities make it brittle so that a cast iron teakettle will break at a blow, like a china cup. Armor of this kind would have been no good for our iron-clad ancestors. When a knight in iron clothes tried to whip a leather-clad peasant, the peasant could have cracked him with a stone and his clothes would have fallen off like plaster from the ceiling. So those early iron workers learned to puddle forge iron and make it into wrought iron which is tough and leathery and can not be broken by a blow. ”

“ Ordinary cast iron, while strong and hard enough for many purposes, still is brittle by reason of the large proportion of carbon and other impurities which it contains. These impurities may be burned out in the puddling process, and the nearly pure iron thus obtained, called malleable or wrought iron, has a toughness enabling it to resist far greater strains than cast iron can stand. Intermediate between the two irons, and containing one per cent of carbon, more or less, is still another product, steel, which may be made even more tenacious than wrought iron, or even harder than cast iron. ”

“ If enemies stand around in groups, they make the iron easy to break.
“When we want steel for chisels, for example, we invite Tungsten to come in; when we want certain parts for automobiles we call in some Vanadium pygmies.”
“So,” said Mr. Prescott, “while we need the giants to make the pig iron, the real value of the iron and steel depends on the pygmies.”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Mr. Farnsworth.
“Anything the trouble with you, young chap?” asked Dr. Crandon. “You haven’t spoken for ten minutes. Feel bad anywhere?”
“No,” answered Billy. ”

“ Their antipathy to the metal furnishes men with a weapon which may be turned against the spirits when occasion serves. As their dislike of iron is supposed to be so great that they will not approach persons and things protected by the obnoxious metal, iron may obviously be employed as a charm for banning ghosts and other dangerous spirits. And often it is so used. Thus in the Highlands of Scotland the great safeguard against the elfin race is iron, or, better yet, steel. The metal in any form, whether as a sword, a knife, a gun-barrel, or what not, is all-powerful for this purpose. ”

“ According to the same author, iron has valuable attributes as a preservative against harmful witchcrafts and sorceries, and may thus be used with advantage both by adults and children. For this purpose it was only necessary to trace a circle about one’s self with a piece of the metal, or thrice to swing a sword around one’s body. ”

“ Iron is used not only in hand to hand fighting, but also to form the winged missiles of war, sometimes for hurling engines, sometimes for lances, sometimes even for arrows. I look upon it as the most deadly fruit of human ingenuity. For to bring Death to men more quickly we have given wings to iron and taught it to fly. ”

“ Crandon.
“He roars!” added John Bradford.
“And,” said Mr. Prescott, “even if he could be moved, he’s rather too valuable for a circus manager to buy, for he cost a million dollars. I really think he’s the most fearful thing ever made by man. The Germans, though, did a great thing for iron when they evolved the blast furnace.”
“Makes our cupola,” said John Bradford, as they stopped before the tall iron stack, “look very small.”
“Ours,” said Mr. Prescott, “is only a dwarf, but he does something like the same work; only here they put in iron ore instead of pig iron. Blast furnaces make pig iron.” ”

“ There was a period when the steel works were quite unable to cope with the demands for steel, yet the iron foundries were crying out for work. This question then arose in many minds, Why not make cast iron shells? The answer is that cast iron is too weak: it would blow into fragments too soon.
Just think what a shell is and what it has to do. It is a metal case filled with explosive. It is thrown from a gun and is intended to blow itself to pieces on arrival at its destination. It is that self-destruction [Pg 147] which carries destruction to all around as well. ”

“ Though created by the elasticity of the iron itself, this must be deducted from the effect produced, and hence arises the great advantage the lead possesses. We are aware that iron driven with a slight velocity rebounds less; true, and less is its real effect; for under the very same circumstances would the great advantages of the lead predominate. It may be objected, that lead is too easily misshaped; “pure it is, but with alloys not so.” ”

“ Smiths render iron sheets tougher with certain liquids, and by blows of the hammer, and from them make shields and breastplates that defy the blows of battle-axes. Iron becomes harder through skill and proper tempering, but also by skill turns out in a softer condition and as pliable as lead. ”

“ With such a volume of weakening constituents and particularly with the graphite flakes cutting through and separating the iron grains as the photomicrographs show, can one wonder that cast iron is fragile—more so than steel or wrought iron? ”

“ There are numerous instruments and contrivances in constant use in the construction of which the toughness of iron combined with the hardness of steel, communicated by the process about to be described, is taken advantage of. Gun furniture, fish-hooks, and handcuffs are examples, the latter most remarkedly so, as, were they composed of ordinary iron, nothing would be more easy than to file or saw them through; if of steel, a blow with a stone, or any other heavy substance, would break them as though made of earthenware. ”

“ While I write, iron is doubtless flowing from blast furnaces in England, Wales, and Scotland; while I write, ingots of white-hot Bessemer steel are being dealt with under the steam-hammer or in the rolling-mills; while I write, horse-shoes are being forged, and, at each moment, in one way or another, pieces of iron of every temperature could be found, from those which are as cold as the iron apparatus used by Sir James Dewar in his experiments in the liquefaction of air, up to the glittering melted steel which is poured from the tilted converter. ”

“ This iron we term wrought, and its attraction by the loadstone is manifest to all. But we, by more carefully trying everything, have found out that iron merely, by itself alone, not excited by any loadstone, not charged by any alien forces, attracts other iron; though it does not so eagerly snatch and suddenly pluck at it as would a fairly strong loadstone ”

“ Wrought iron is softer than cast iron, and, being pure iron, is more liable to be corroded by the action of the atmosphere and products of combustion of the powder; it possesses also considerable ductility. The tensile strength of wrought iron, which under the most favorable circumstances is double that of the best cast iron, depends on the character of the crystalline structure, and the manner of applying the tensile force, or in other words, wrought iron offers the greatest resistance to a force of extension when the structure is fibrous, and the force acts in the direction of the fibres. ”

“ Billy looked at him questioningly.
“That was rather technical, wasn’t it, Billy? You see, I was talking to a technical man. Just between you and me, meteoric iron comes down from the sky, from what we call shooting stars. Sometimes large pieces are found. I suppose that much of it falls into the sea. It is the purest iron that has ever been found.”
“What about magnetic iron?” asked Dr. Crandon. “Where does that come from?”
“At the present time,” answered Mr. Prescott, “most of it comes from Sweden and Norway. It makes the best kind of steel. ”

“ Thus, when combined with carbon, in varying proportions, substances are produced, so different, but each so valuable, that they might almost be regarded in the light of distinct metals,—such, for example, as cast-iron, and cast and bar steel; the various qualities of iron enabling it to be used for purposes so opposite as a steel pen and a railroad, the needle of a mariner's compass and an Armstrong gun, a surgeon's lancet and a steam engine, the mainspring of a watch and an iron ship, a pair of scissors and a Nasmyth hammer, a lady's earrings and a tubular bridge. ”

“ Iron, above all, has excessive resistance, very valuable to us.
“Shovels, tongs, grates, stoves, are iron. These various objects, always in contact with the fire, do not melt, however; do not even soften. To soften iron, so as to shape it easily on the anvil by blows from the hammer, the smith needs all the heat of his forge. In vain would he blow and put on coal; he would never succeed in melting it. Iron, however, can be melted, but you must use the most intense heat that human skill can produce.”
CHAPTER XIII
METAL PLATING IN the morning some wandering coppersmiths were passing. ”

“ The great ladle swung forward, for a moment, on its tilting gear, and the men bore away their ladles filled with iron that the great dragon had changed from its own dull gray to the brilliant yellow of gold.
The molds, as they were filled, smoked from all their venting places, till, to his picture, Billy added a place for a battle-field.
By the time that the last molds were filled, some of the men began to take off the wooden frames, and there the iron was, gray again, but, this time, shaped for the use of man.
“See,” said Uncle John, coming to the window, “there are our corn cutters. ”

“ It was only after the next great advance that we found man utilizing iron for his purposes of civilization. This metal, which with us is so common, was in those days very expensive, so much so that it could be used only for purposes of war and as the gifts of kings.
But the world was traveling fast and it was not long before the iron-carbon alloy, steel, was produced. Even so, many hundreds of years elapsed before the present wonderful age was ushered in through the great inventions of Henry Bessemer and the Siemens brothers. ”

“ It is so, and that is one of its worst properties. Every liquor, and even a moist air corrode it. But the rust of iron is not pernicious: on the contrary, it is a very useful medicine.
Geo. I have heard of steel drops and steel filings given for medicine.
Tut. Yes; iron is given in a variety of forms, and the property of them all is to strengthen the constitution. Many springs are made medicinal by the iron that they dissolve in the bowels of the earth. These are called chalybeate waters, and they may be known by their inky taste, and the rust-coloured sediment they leave in their course. ”

“ For as the one imparts and stirs, so the other conceives, and being stirred remains in virtue, and pours back the forces also by its own activity. But since iron is more like iron than loadstone, and the virtue in both pieces of iron is exalted by the proximity of the loadstone, so in the loadstone itself, in case of equal strength, likeness of substance prevails, and iron gives itself up rather to iron, and they are united by their very similar homogenic powers. ”

“ Crandon, “from fishing ore with tongs.”
“We’ve moved along a great way since that time,” said John Bradford, “and most of our progress has been due to iron.”
“Giants don’t do all the work even now,” said Mr. Prescott. “They make short work of iron mountains and surface deposits, but most of them are too large to work underground; though we mustn’t forget that Giant Electricity works down there with the men.
“Giant Gravity helps too, for, when they work below the deposit, he caves the ore down. ”

“ It is a custom for every visitor to bring with him some pieces of iron, to throw against the rocks: the appearance is very strange; old horse-shoes, forks, knives, bars of iron, nails, and barrels of pistols, are hanging from the projecting stones, the nails standing upright, as if they were growing. These pieces of iron have themselves become very powerfully magnetic. ”

“ Naber and Bérard, unlike Cauer and Helbig, give the obvious explanation that when iron came in, but its manufacture and the sharpening of it were ill understood, men would make heavy axes and other rural implements of iron, but would not trust their lives to iron weapons which were brittle or which "doubled up." ”

“ One has no difficulty in realizing that these flakes, which cut in every direction through the metal, make it structurally weak, especially toward a sudden blow.
No. 1d shows a typical section of wrought iron cut lengthwise of the rolled bar. It will be noted that, as in photomicrograph No. 99b, there are no graphite flakes.
In the process of wrought iron manufacture practically all of the carbon of the original pig iron is burned out, leaving little besides the iron itself and some viscous cinder or slag. ”

“ When this ignition has overcome the acquired polarity, and it has been now completely subdued and not awakened again, that iron is left unsettled and utterly incapable of direction. But we must further inquire how iron remains affected by verticity. It is manifest that it strongly affects and changes the nature of the iron, because the presence of a loadstone attracts the iron to itself with an altogether wonderful readiness. ”

“ Prescott. “Heat expands iron. If we didn’t keep it cool, the screw wouldn’t be the right size when it is done.
“Cold naturally works the other way. Ever hear about the iron bridge where the parts wouldn’t quite come together, so they put ice on to do the job?” he asked, but he kept right on, without waiting for Billy to answer.
Billy saw other machines boring holes and rounding corners. It seemed as if iron could cut iron into any shape that anybody wanted. ”