Rod of iron

“ 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. ”

“ We say that the iron made by the ancients was in reality a variety of what we now term wrought iron, for it fulfilled three of the principal requirements for wrought iron, viz., it was not necessarily melted during production, it was a malleable metal, and it contained cinder or slag, but practically no carbon. ”

“ Again, iron which has been excited by a loadstone, * if that iron on account of obstacles should not be able to turn round immediately in accordance with its nature, as happens with a versorium, is laid hold of, when a loadstone approaches, on either side or at either end. Because, just as it can implant, so it can suddenly change the polarity and turn about the formal energies to any part whatever. So variously can iron be transformed when its form is adventitious and has not yet been long resident in the metal. ”

“ Open-hearth iron is practically pure iron, having no constituents or slag inclusions which materially affect its properties.
2. Wrought iron, for all practical purposes, is pure iron 86except for its content of slag. It is the only one of the iron family which does normally contain slag.
3. Neither open-hearth iron nor wrought iron contains carbon in appreciable quantities.
4. The distinguishing and active element of the steel family is carbon. With increase of carbon the hardness of the alloy increases as does its tensile strength, but the ductility (elongation or stretch) decreases. ”

“ It is so highly 75refined that it can hardly be called steel at all but is often called “open-hearth iron” or “ingot iron.” It is probably the purest iron on the market in commercial quantities to-day. While in the chemical laboratory iron of considerably greater purity can be made, for a commercial product this is remarkably pure, seldom containing more than 1⁄4 per cent of elements other than the metal, iron. ”

“ The strength of iron is at its maximum in the smallest mechanical structures.
2. The quality of the metal is improved as it is subjected to greater pressure and condensation.
The extent to which this improvement may be carried has never yet been ascertained; every fresh manipulation improves its quality. The tenacity of wrought iron is best displayed in a wire, drawn out until it is not thicker than a human hair. Large masses of wrought iron are weak and spongy in geometrical progression with the mass, and the crystalline or molecular form increases with the mass. ”

“ The rod of iron with which he rules her never appears in company—it is a private rod, and is always kept upstairs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The toughness of malleable iron renders it applicable to purposes, where great strength is required, while its difficult fusibility, and property of softening by heat, so as to admit of forging and welding, cause it to be easily wrought.
2. Cast iron, from its cheapness, and from the facility with which its form may be changed, is made the material of numerous structures. Steel, which is the most important compound of iron, exceeds all other metals in hardness and tenacity; and hence it is particularly adapted to the fabrication of cutting instruments. ”

“ For the iron is not taken possession of and allured by material effluvia, after the manner of electricks, but only by the immaterial action of its form or an incorporeal progression, which in a piece of iron as its subject acts and is conceived, as it were, in a continuous homogeneous body, and does not need more open ways. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Accordingly native iron which sui generis (as metallurgists term it) , is formed when homogenic parts of the earth grow together into a metallick lode; Loadstone being formed when they are changed into metallick stone, or a lode of the finest iron, or steel: so in other iron lodes the homogenic matter that goes together is somewhat more imperfect; just as many parts of the earth, even the high ground, is homogenic but so much more deformate. Smelted iron is fused and smelted out of homogenic stuffs, and cleaves to the earth more tenaciously than the ores themselves. ”

“ It is remarkable, also, that we are enabled to superpose and obtain the maximum effects on thin strips of iron from 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 millimeter in thickness, while in thicker rods we have far less effect, being masked by the comparatively neutral state of the interior, the exterior molecules then reaching upon those of the interior, allowing them to complete in the interior their circle of attractions. ”

“ That is, as soon as a vessel costing millions of dollars leaves the docks, she enters into active competition for a place on the junk pile."
The greatest improvement that can be imagined in the iron situation will be in the discovery and use of alloys or mixtures of iron with other materials. Steel, the strongest of all forms of iron, is an alloy of iron and carbon, and for various purposes these are further mixed with nickel and silicas. Many other alloys have been discovered within the last few years, and each makes possible new uses for iron requiring greater strength. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The existence of the iron depends on the presence within it of a substantial form, which is the cause of its properties, e.g. brightness, hardness, weight. But, by degrees, the iron becomes converted into a mass of rust, which is dull, and soft, and light, and, in all other respects, is quite different from the iron. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some kinds are broken up to be used as foundation for roads; others are granulated by being run into water, and so made into cement. Over in Germany, where the ores are rich in phosphorus, they grind up the linings of the furnace to make phosphatic fertilizers for the farmers.”
“Then,” said Dr. Crandon, “the making of iron involves the use of chemistry, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does,” answered Mr. Prescott; “from the chemical composition of ores to the finished product. We are learning a great deal just now from the chemists about steel alloys. ”

“ During the melting of the charge the heat is kept as high as possible and the molten iron is “puddled,” i. e., stirred, by the “puddler” or his helper with a “rabbler” or iron bar. In order to take out the phosphorus and sulphur, which for best results should be removed before the carbon is eliminated, the heat of the furnace is lowered somewhat as soon as all of the pig has melted, and some iron oxide is mixed into the “bath” of molten iron and cinder. Most of the phosphorus and sulphur are chemically acted upon and pass into the cinder which covers the iron. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I am not aware that there is in the arts or sciences any other than iron which is not so. Soft iron we do not bring together by fusion, but by a process which is analogous to the one that was followed in the case of platinum, namely, welding ”

“ That, heated by the bricks, is forced into the furnace.
“One of those great pipes up there is where they draw off the slag. It is so much lighter than the iron that it rises to the top, like cream on milk.
“Down here they draw off the iron. Sometimes they keep it hot for the next process; sometimes it is made into pig iron.”
“What,” asked Dr. Crandon, “becomes of the slag?” ”

“ Manufactured irons differ very greatly amongst themselves. For one kind is tenacious in its nature, and this is the best; one is of medium quality: another is brittle, and this is the worst. Sometimes the iron, by reason of the excellency of the ore, is wrought into steel, as to-day in Noricum. From the finest iron, too, well wrought and purged from all dross, or by being plunged in water after heating, there issues what the Greeks call στόμωμα ”