Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1886-06-30
ALUMINIUM.
How and When IRONS Great Rival
May be Made Available.
IOArr-c

From Power1
We have no authentic history of the grad
ual introduction of iron into the uses of civ
ilized man; but given the rough brown or
gray stone that we have in our ores, it is evi-
dent that the whole was not transformed in
an hour a day into the exquisite temper
of the Damascus blade. 1t is also probable
that while it was still rare and expensive
metal, available only to those who were high
in wealth and rank, that the possibilities of
its varied structure were we'll known. But
to bring oil of these varied hues to which it
has attained within the grasp of the ordina-
ry man has taken untold centuries of pains
and labor, and discovery upon discovery has
been required to develop it.
Now new metal is coming upon the field
| which some claim will soon be all its own,
\ and iron, the meta: heretofore without
| peer and the greatest factor of human prog
| ress, must step down and out. Aluminium
/ they say can be hardened till the diamond
| is it's only rival; it be drawn into q
1 wire so fine or hammered into sheets SC
| thin that the gold-beater alone can do the
| work; the tensile strength of its wire rises
| to one hundred thousand pounds to the
| square inch of section; water and the at
mosphere cannot corrode it; it will burnish
| like polished silver, blows cannot crystalline
it and its conductivity of heat surpasses
that of copper. Then its alloys make an
| anti-frietion metal that goes beyond the
Before such qualities as these iron pales
| into the merest insigni6cance. But before
we throw away our hammer and chisel or
break our locomotives up let look at
what has made iron the metal of the world.
| 1t is easily summed up in two words, s"its
cheapness." With crude iron at one cent
| pound all things seem possible for it to
accomplish, but multiply it by ten and all of
| our commonest conveniences will vanish like
| breath.
Sixty years ago a drop Of aluminium was
produced in German laboratory after re-
| search of fifty years with the best appliances
of the time, and twenty years more were
necessary to produce larger bead Then in
ten years more the metal was on the market
at thirty-two dollars per pound.
| Since then chemistry has been struggling
with the task and by its constant efforts the
price has dropped to fifteen dollars for q
pound, ana now new discoverer tells us
| that it can be put upon the market at four
| dollars to the pound. We know the metal
| well and the chemist has tried it in his labo-
| ratory; he has hammered AMI drawn, and
melted and hardened until every quality is
known, but still the price must make it rare.
| It costs one-eighth the price of thirty years
| ago and still il is four hundred times the
| cost of iron. So it matters little that it
stands third in quantity of all the substan-
| ces of which the earth is formed, that it lies
| about us in every bed of clay or shale, and
| that nearly every rock is but an ore bed with
| wondrous possibilities; so long as nature
holds the secret key by which it can be un
| locked and freed from the combinations II
| which we find it it cannot take the place OF
| iron. That this may come in time is not be
| yond the range of what can be regarded as
| possibility, but it must come by slow ano
| labored steps; meanwhile our iron will holC
its own and be used as heretofore, while
aluminium must be laboratory metal fcf
while and get occasional application In tn
| more expensive implements OF science