Road metal

“ When, however, he has occasion to spread road metal in greater quantities he takes a high hand with the public, and procuring large boulders he arranges them on alternate sides of the road, so as to compel passing vehicles to drive over the fresh stone ”

“ As the rock drill made a revolution in blasting and tunnelling, so the Blake crusher revolutionised the art of road making. “Road metal,” as the supply of broken stones for roads is now called, is the fruit of the crusher. Hundreds of tons of stone per day can be crushed to just the size desired, and the machine may be moved from place to place where most convenient to use. ”

“ Economy of construction, as a considerable quantity of metalling is saved; only 3 inches of properly broken stone and a little binding material being necessary, the foundation of the roadway (which really carries the traffic) may be made of a quality of stone unsuitable for road metal, or even of bricks or stones from old buildings that are being pulled down. ”

“ As a result of long trial on roads in England and on the Continent, it is found that the stone best suited for road metal must possess toughness and cementing qualities and as great a resistance to abrasion as is possible in a stone having the first two properties. ”

“ The “metal” on the new location is not more than three and a half inches, and every wagon that passes over it, when the road is wet, cuts entirely through the stone, and turns up the clay. I am advised that there is a part of the road, fourteen miles west of Cumberland, which has had but three and a half inches of metal put on it over the original pavement. I am gratified to have it in my power to state that, from observation, and the best information I have been able to collect, the last appropriation for the road has been most judiciously expended. ”

“ Any good dry stone not liable to disintegrate can be used as metal for foundation for either telford or macadam construction. For the surface it is necessary to have the best stone obtainable. Like the edge of a tool, it does the service and must take the wear. As in the tool it pays to have the best of steel, so on the road, which is subject to the wear and tear of steel horseshoes and heavy iron tires, it is found the cheapest to have the best of stone. ”

“ In support of which, see the sample of metal taken from the road through Uniontown, where the under strata have not worn or crushed an iota, presenting angles as sharp as the day they were first placed there. Were the metal placed upon an unyielding rock, it would doubtless soon grind to dust; but placing it upon a pavement laid in sand or gravel, preserves the elasticity so necessary for this kind of road. Second: That large stone, placed under Macadam metal, will work to the surface. ”

“ The engine alone shone at the end with its copper; the well-greased steel cables moved like ribbons soaked in ink, and the pulleys above, the enormous scaffold which supported them, the cages, the trams, all this prodigality of metal made the hall look sombre with their hard grey tones of old iron. Without ceasing, the rumbling of the wheels shook the metal floor; while from the coal thus put in motion there arose a fine charcoal powder which powdered black the soil, the walls, even the joists of the steeple. ”

“ A workman's steel tools were treasures, and a good jackknife was a valuable article. Railroads were using iron rails. They soon wore out, but at the suggestion to use steel, the presidents of the roads would have exclaimed, "Steel, indeed! We might as well use silver!" Trains needed to be longer and heavier, but iron rails and bridges could not stand the strain. Land in cities was becoming more valuable; higher buildings were needed, but stone was too expensive. Everywhere there was a call for a metal that should be strong and cheap. Iron was plentiful, but steel was dear. ”

“ Of the forging and the rolling of the steel a whole book might be written. It is enough now to say that of the 50,000,000 pounds of steel, every pound was made on honor. The railroad had its inspectors everywhere, but the rolling-mill men held to their formulas for perfect steel, and perfect steel was the result. A slight flaw in the metal, and possibly at some unexpected day, a great catastrophe. The safety of human life was upon the men who forged the steel, and they forged honor into every great girder, into every rod and bolt and plate. ”

“ There may be miles of underground pipes bringing gas for fuel. Amid these scenes flit strong men, naked to the waist, unharmed in the red pandemonium, guiding every process, superintending every result; like other men, yet leading a life so strange that it is apparently impossible. The glowing rivers they escape; corruscating showers of flying white-hot metal do not fall upon them; the leaping, roaring, hungry, annihilating flames do not touch them; the gurgling streams of melted steel are their familiar playthings; yet they are but men. ”

“ For many years the price of coal and every form of liquid fuel had been clambering to levels that made even the revival of the draft horse seem a practicable possibility, and now with the abrupt relaxation of this stringency, the change in appearance of the traffic upon the world’s roads was instantaneous. In three years the frightful armoured monsters that had hooted and smoked and thundered about the world for four awful decades were swept away to the dealers in old metal, and the highways thronged with light and clean and shimmering shapes of silvered steel. ”

“ The hardening of copper has been rediscovered, and for twenty-five or more years this [61] metal has been tempered and worked just as steel was in the century preceding.
The manufacture of anti-friction metals has been so far advanced that the use of lubricants is rendered unnecessary.
Transportation of the person and of goods, large and small, is as greatly advanced as that of ideas and images.
Steam is a crudity of the past century. Pneumatic and electric railways carry people and freight with swiftness and safety, in all directions and at trifling rates. ”

“ But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road—there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. ”

“ To preserve the ironwork and steelwork of carriages from rusting, it is either painted or plated with some metal on which the oxygen of the air does not act. When it is wished to make it ornamental, carriage ironwork is plated, in which case it is first covered with a coat of tin laid on by means of a soldering iron, with rosin and a small portion of sal-ammoniac in order to promote union between the two metals. ”

“ But future historians may well be tempted to substitute the word steel for iron, for it is an undoubted fact that improved processes of manufacture, and the resulting easy and cheap production, are causing steel to be widely substituted for its parent metal. In railways, steel rails are now almost entirely replacing iron ones, and that modification of the metal known as ‘mild steel’ is finding great favour just now among shipbuilders. ”

“ Babbitt metals may be of various compositions and proportions and many contain lead, but those which have been found to give the best results for use on the crank shafts of automobile motors are composed only of tin, antimony, and copper. If lead is used at all for this purpose, it should not appear in proportions above one per cent of the total composition. Inasmuch as a babbitt metal will fuse at a comparatively low temperature and is much softer than steel, it is obvious that such a material will not withstand heavy pressures unless reinforced and is unsuited for structural purposes. ”

“ The cast steel frame in locomotive tender construction and passenger car trucks has been widely used and is in favor. The use of cast steel has many advantages. The most economic distribution of metal is made possible, and greatest strength with least weight is the result. In a built-up frame there is always some weak point which is usually where the parts are bolted together. Bolts become loose and nuts are lost. A comparison of the Skookum Chief with any other truck cannot fail to show clearly its advantages in this respect. ”

“ Mark, we say the best of pigments, for many pigments are the reverse of protective, and are really destructive to both the vehicles and the material which they are supposed to protect. For example, coal tar and all its products, whether called dead oil, asphalt, rubber, etc., are of the class just described, and their use at any price, especially for covering sheet-metals, is a wanton waste of money. Extended experiments have demonstrated that there is no better pigment for metal than a good iron ore ground to an impalpable powder. ”

“ Miners timber drifts in the same way as tunnels. These do not, however, require sill-pieces, or drains; for the broken rock is not hauled very far, nor does the water have far to flow. If the vein above is metal-bearing, as it sometimes is for a distance of several fathoms, then from the upper part of tunnels or even drifts that have already been driven, other drifts are driven again and again until that part of the vein is reached which does not yield metal. ”

“ Accordingly when another car came rumbling out of the tunnel, with its load of cracked rock, they all accompanied it into an adjoining apartment, where it was cast into a metallic shute, through which, they were informed, it reached the furnace.
“While it is melting,” explained Dr. Syx, “certain elements, the nature of which I must beg to keep secret, are mixed with the ore, causing chemical action which results in the extraction of the metal. Now let me show you pure artemisium issuing from the furnace.” ”

“ As is usual in a severe frost, we have recently heard of many severe accidents consequent upon the fracture of the tires of the wheels of railway carriages. The common-sense explanation of these accidents is, that the ground being harder than usual, the metal with which it is brought into contact is more severely tried than in ordinary circumstances. In order apparently to excuse certain railway companies, a pretence has been set up that iron and steel become brittle at a low temperature. ”

“ It is worthy of remark, that the ruder the method employed for the reduction of the ore, the better the quality of the iron usually is. Where the art is little advanced, only the most tractable ores are selected; and as charcoal is the only fuel used, the quality of the metal is almost invariably excellent. The ore being long exposed to the charcoal fire, and the quantity made small, the result is a metal having many of the qualities of steel, capable of being used for weapons or tools after a comparatively small amount of forging. ”

“ Plunging it suddenly in cold water is apt to render the metal brittle. In the purchase of all iron fittings for either waggon work or horse equipment, about which we shall have more to say as our work proceeds, insist on seeing it, without paint or varnish, bare from the forge, as you can then see that there are no hollows, cracks, or defects in it. It is wonderful what a number of shortcomings a good thick coat of coal-tar will cover when laid on over the hot metal. Avoid malleable cast iron as you would a broken limb. It cannot be bent without the danger of nipping off short. ”

“ It is possible that this freedom from rust may be obtained by a process similar to that which is employed in the manufacture of geological hammers, namely, that while the metal is hot, it is plunged into oil, and then hammered. The excellence of the blade is partially owing to the fact that the fire in which the metal is smelted, and afterward heated for the forge, is made of charcoal, so as to convert the iron into a kind of steel. ”

“ Aluminum, considered as material, has very poor claims, and it will be very difficult, by any practical lining and buffing, to break the persistent habit of metal chain guards to rattle when going over rough places ”

“ The hot metal train had long since pulled away over the bridge, on its way to the mills, where the ingots would either be rolled in their crude state or placed in the open-hearth furnaces to be transformed into ingots of steel.
"I guess I can keep out of the way, now that I know what to keep out of the way of."
"I'll put you on the dolly to-morrow, and make a monkey-man of you. If you don't get incinerated we'll make a real man of you." ”

“ Some are spinning round swiftly, others sluggishly, some edgewise, some flatwise; but all are in motion, and all seem to be deliriously devouring great cakes of red-hot metal, with which they are being fed by some forty or fifty grimy workmen. Close to us are two great iron rollers revolving one over the other, and on either side of them are half-a-dozen workmen, who are passing and repassing an immense sheet of red-hot metal from one to the other through the wheels. The moment the metal is through, bang! ”

“ This trade, however, is prosecuted in town by the street-buyers more largely than in the country, and so differs from the rag business. The carriage of old iron bolts and bars is exceedingly cumbersome; nor can metal be packed or stowed away like old clothes or rags. This makes the street-buyer indifferent as to the collecting of what I heard one of them call “country iron.” By “metal” the street-folk often mean copper (most especially) , brass, or pewter, in contradistinction to the cheaper substances of iron or lead. In the country they are most anxious to buy “metal;” ”

“ Monstrous throats gasp for a draught of white-hot metal and take it at a gulp. Glowing masses are trundled to and fro. There are mountains of ore, disappearing in a night, and ever renewed. There is a railway system, and the huge masses are conveyed from place to place by locomotive engines. ”

“ But abroad the circumstances of cost and durability are different, and there the rolled iron or steel sleepers, which will outlive two or three sets of wooden ones, must claim advantages which cannot be overlooked. The difficulty will be in the fastenings, the mode of attaching the rails to the sleepers. The constant hammering of metal upon metal, resulting from the vibrations of every passing load, will quickly wear or loosen bolts, rivets, or wedges, and the fastenings which will prove the most efficient will be those that are the simplest and most readily adjusted. ”