The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-08-04
THE AGE OF IRON AND STEEL.


The history of iron and civilization run
parallel. Only the Peruvians made any con-
siderable advance without the aid of iron,
and their defeat and ruin by Spain was as
facile as it was barbarous; it was the iron
weapons that destroyed the Incas. Imbued
with martial spirit and passion for conquest
the ancients made iron the symbol of war
and gave it the emblem of Mars. 1t better
society, the triumphs of industry and the vic
tory of mind over matter.
Gold and jewels have been the type OF bar
barrie and empty pomp; "iron that breaketh
in pieces and subdueth all things is the en-
blem of benefcent and intelligent industry
In civilization iron is value; gold is only the
representative of value. mo mattock
plunges a golden edge into the earth, and no
nail drives silver point into the plank"
said they of old, and now, as then, iron
quarries the silver and cuts the gold from the
rock.
But under the alchemy which theint elli-
gence of modern times supplies, iron takes
upon itself noble properties.
Within a decade man has changed SCOT
into diamond; he has reduced the oxygen and
nitrogen of the air to liquid forms, proving
that the law of cohesion is universal in mat
ter, and that there are no permanent gases"
Mighty discoveries have been made in
acoustics and electricity, resulting in the
monograph and telephone. But all these
are subsidiary and Insignificant, save posi-
discoveries of Bessemer Siemens and Martin,
by which crude iron and even the raw ores
are converted into steel in masses, that, I'M
der the old and tedious processes, would
have staggered mems thoughts,
Thus refined and hardened iron as steel
has become the kingliest element by which
man subjugates the earth. In the course of
his address at the opening of the Brooklyn
bridge the Rer DIR. R. s. Storrs said OF steel:
Things dainty and things mighty are
fashioned from it in equal abundance-gun-
carriages and cannon, with the solid castings
on WHICH tiiey reSt-lne largest castings anu
heaviest plates as well as wheel and axle and
rail, as we'll as screw or file or saw. 1t is
shaped into the hulls of ships. 1t is built
alike into column and truss and balcony,
roof and sprnging dome To the loom and
the press, and the boiler from whose fierce
and untring heart their force is supplied it
is equally apt; while, as drawn into delicate
wires, it is coiled into springs, woven into
gauZe, sharpened into needles, twisted into
ropes; it is made to yield music in all our
homes; electric currents are sent upon it
along our streets, around the world it en-
ables us to talk with correspondents afar, or
it is built, as before our eyes, into the new
and noble causeways of pleasure and COM
merce. l hardly think that We yet appre-
ciate the Specification OF this chance which
has passed upon iron. 1t is the industrial
victory of the century not to have heaped
the extracted gold in higher piles, or to have
crowded the bursting vaults with accumu-
lating silver, but TO have conferred, by the
sovereign touch Of scientific invention, fiexi-
bility, grace, variety OF use, and almost
ethereal and spiritual virtue on this stub
bornest of metals. The indications of phys
lcal achievement in the future, thus inaug-
urated, outrun the compass of human
thought"
Mr.. Bessemer not only discovered that
fluid cast-iron could be decarbonized and rem
dered malleahle by blowing air through it at
a high pressure, and then changed into steel
of any quality or temper desired by adding
known quantities Of carbon, but also per-
fected the stupendous machinery by which