Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1884-12-26
a Comparative ILLUSTRATION Of the suns
EmerRN.

Perhaps the highest temperature we can
get on a large scale in the arts is that Of molt-
en- steel in the Bessemer converter. As many
may be as ignorant of what this is as l was
before tried the experiment, l will try to
describe il.
The converter" is an enormous iron pot
lined with fire-brick and capable of holding
thirty or forty thousand pounds of melted
metal and it is swung on trunnions, so that
it can be raised by an engine to vertical po-
sition, or lowered by machinery so as to pour
it's contents out into a caldron. First the
empty converter is inclined, and fifteen thou
sand pounds of fluid iron streams down into
the mouth from an adjacent furnace where it
has been melted. Then the engine lifts the
converter into an erect position, while an air.
blast from a blowing engine is forced in at
the bottom and through the liquid iron, which
has combined with it nearly half ton of sill
icon and carbon-materials which, with the
oxygen of the blast, create a heat which leaves
that of the already molten iron far behind
After some time the converter is tipped for
ward, and fifteen hundred pounds more of
melted iron is added to that already in it..
What the temperature of this last is, may be
Judged from the fact that though stream of
ordinary melted iron is dazzlingly bright, the
melted metal in the converter is 80 much
brown by comparison, presenting a contrast
like that of chocolate poured into white cup.
The contents are now no longer iron, but
liquid steel, ready for pouring into the cal
dron and, looking from the front down into
the inclined vessel, we see the almost blind
ingly bright interior dripping with the drain
age of the metal running down its side, 30
that the circular mouth, which is twenty four
inches in diameter, presents the effect OF
disk of molten metal of that size (were it pos.
sible to maintain such q disk in a vertical po'
sition). In addition we have the actual stream
of falling metal, which continues nearly q
minute and presents an area OF some square
feet. The shower of scinlillations from this
cataract of what seems at first ''sunlike" bril-
liancy, and the area whence such intense heal
and light are for brief time radiated, make
the spectacle most striking one.
The "pour" is preceded by shower oi
sparks, consisting of little particles of molteI
steel which are projected fully hundred fee
in the direction of the open mouth Of the
converter. In the line OF this my apparatus
was stationed in an open window, at a poin
where lis view could be directed down int
the converter on one side and up at the SUI
on the other. This apparatus consisted OF
long pbotometer box with porte-lumiere a
one end. The mirror of this reflected th,
suns rays through the box and then on To th
pouring metal, tracing their way to it by
beam visible in the dusty air. In the path o
this beam was placed the measuring appara
tus, both for heat and light. As the bes
point of observation was in the line Of tn
blast, a shower Of sparks was driven over the
instrument and observer at every "pour"
and the rain OF wet SCOT from ehimneys with
out, the bombaFdment from within, aud IN
moving masses of red hot iron around, mad
the experiment an altogether peculiar one
The apparatus was arranged in such wa
that the effect Except for the absorption o
its beams on the way was independent of tn
size or distance Of the sun, and depended o.
the absolute radiation there, and was equivf
lent, in fact, to taking a sample piece OF tn
] sums face of eQuaL size with the hnid meta