Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1888-09-25

cast iron ana nfCy 6nOu6an0 POUNDS fOT
| wrought iron. This is comparing it by q
ing the greatest length of bar in feet able
to support its own weight, we have for the
cast iron Eve thousand three hundred and
hfty-one feet, for steel and aluminium each
twentY-three thousand and forty feet. So
that taking the strength of aluminium in re-
latien to it weight it has about the mechani-
cal value of steel having thirty-fve tons
tensile strength per square inch.
In working aluminium the metal has to be
treated by shop methods which are peculiar
to itself, but which differ no more than do
the methods of working steel and brass.
1t melting point is one hundred degrees
centigrade higher than was mentioned, and
1t can be soldered readily if the shop meth
DDS are understood by the workmen
But think where the article in question ia
most misleading is in its want of considers
ton Of the fact that the chief use of alumi-
mum in the arts to-day is not in its pure
state, but in its alloys with copper and iron.
There are certain definite compounds which
aluminium makes with copper and iron
which give to these metals properties of the
utmost value in the arts, and furnish raw
material of a quality and price not reached
by any other methods. Tt is not necessary
to more than mention the aluminium bronzes.
The best of these bronzes have a beautiful
gold color, take high polish, are very mall
leable, extremely hard and have tenacity of
the best steel. The aluminium brasses are
easily made to double the mechanical quali-
ties of the ordinary brasses. For instance,
the companies furnishing aluminium brass
sell it in ingots with tensile strength up to
and exceeding sixty thousand pounds per
square inch, and furnishing the aluminum
bronzes up to and exceeding ninety thousand
pounds per square inch. If we take cast
brass at twentyAthree Thousand pounds and
gun bronze at thirty-nine thousand pounds
(Trantwine's Engineers Pocketbook" for
1880 We get clear indication of the effect
of aluminium on brasses and bronzes.
think this question is one of marked impor-
tance to the Naugatuck valley brass and cop-
per mills. Those interested should consult
in proof of this the official letter Of William
81. Harris, the chief engineer of the United
States navy, giving the impartial compari-
sons of the ordinary bronzes with some
alaminum bronzes and brasses regularly
made and sold by the Cowles company in the
United States.
The percentages of aluminium added to
copper have ranged from one and one-feurth
per cent. to ten per cent, and If we take the
market price even as high as three dollars
per pound for the contained aluminium, and
as this is higher than large consumers
are now obliged to pay, it will be seen
that the additional cost ranges between
four and one-half and twenty-eight cents
per pound above the price of copper. This
latter alloy is higly ornamental one, and
the difference in price can often be well
afforded. When we come to the action of
aluminium on iron the results are even
more remarkable. A recent number of the
Iron Age contains an exhaustive paper on
this subject, read at the last meeting of
the American Association for the Advance
ment of Science, held at Cleveland. This
| paper, which has been widely copied both
here and in Europe, shows that, az re-
suit of an exhaustive series of foundry ex-
periments conducted at the Michigan stove
works, Detroit, even percentages of alumi~
mum as small as one-twentieth of one per
cent have marked affect upon iron cast
| ings for the better. The castings are practi-
cally free from blow holes, have closer
grain, greater strength, and in general the
additional cost of say onesixth of one cent
| per pound is a most profitable one for the
| iron founder to incur. I doubt whether
1 there is single large iron or steel casting
l establishment in the United States which is
not now considering the use of aluminium In
l iron already using it.
For most commercial uses the addition OF
| the small percentage of silicon to the alumi-
mum is decided advantage, and the market
for commercial aluminium at two dollars &
pound could not but be very large one
The commercial value of aluminium is sG
great, and the technical difficulties of its
| production SO hard to surmount, that there
| have been, as the writer of the article re
| ferred to says, a number of impostures in
| the field. But the amount of imposture is
| no greater than average human nature war
rants, or than crops up in technical eleetrici-
| ty, or at the beginning of any distinct ad-
| vance in the industrial arts when accurate
knowledge is confined to the few. On the
| cost of production and selling price the
| writer of the article referred to is much mis-
| informed. Commercially pure aluminium
can be bought in the London market al
twenty shillings per pound, and for use in
| copper, brass or iron it can be bought in the
United States in it's appropriate alloy at con-
| siderably less than this sum.
The largest aluminium works in the world
| are now being erected in England, and as to
1 the cost of production can only say that II
is already less than the two dollars pound
referred to as the lowest price at which ii
can be produced. LEONARD WALDO.
| Puritan Kisses Discussed.
From the London Daily News.I
| The Puritans of New England were harsh
and hard enough, as Miss Cslhoun's recent
| touching performance in the part of Hester
| Prynne has served to remind us; but they
| did not make it unlawful for a mother tc
kiss her child on a Sunday, and yet the
world will persist in saying that they did
John Barleycorn himself was not slain an6
/
nor was the result more eonspicuously in
operative Our grave contemporary, the
| Spectator having lately repeated this fable,
in casual way, apropos of the attack OF
| the reredos at ST. Paul's, G. G. Starbucl
of Andover, Mass, has once more written
| to explain that this is one Of the distortioni
of Connecticut history, equally conical an6
| malicious, contained in the book OF Rev
Samuel Peters, an Episeopalian clergyman
of the last century, who, not being as highly
regarded by his fellow colonists as he though
that his merits demanded, took a direfu
revenge by publishing book on the blue law
which contains this fiction, which contains
plenty of the same complexion. This MIR
Peters, it appears, is the same gentleman
who gravely assured the wondering Englisl
that the waters of the Connecticut were 81
compressed between the rocks at Below
Falls as to make it impossible to thrust
| crowbar into them.