Huntsville gazette., 1890-12-20
NICKEL SUPPLY,
A Matter in Which Uncle Sam
is Greatly Interested.
Canada Bids Fair to Be EQUAL to
All Demands.

Sudbury Can Produce 5000 Tons Anpu-
ally Further Information Concerning
the Recent Experiments With AlI-SteeI
and Nickel Steel Armor Plates at the
Annapolis Te,ting Grounds.
New YORK, Dec 19.-The Sun has
the following from Washington:
Although congress just before the
close OF the last session appropriated
81 900, 900 for the purchase of nickel ore
and nickel matte, the navy department
has hitherto limited itself to buying
$4,000 worth, because it regards the
use OF nickel steel as still within the
domain of experiment. The armor
trial at Annapolis was the first test of
large nickel steel plates ever made
under the attack of powerful guns.
There had been some experiments in
Europe with small plates, but there was
the first public competitive trial under
the usual conditions and no other coun-
try has repeated it. The final test with
the eight-inch gun which demonstrated
the superiority of the nickel alloy to the
all-steel plate, was fired by the express
order of the navy department and
against the express wishes of the repre-
sentatives Of the armor makers. Ac-
cordingly the department feels some
what in the position of sponsor for
nickel steel
Another important consideration is
that the nickel alloy can evidently be
applied to steel used in other parts of
the war vessel as well as in its outer
armor, its protective decks and its gun
shields. The good qualities of nickel
steel may be turned to account in the
guns themselves, in proiectiles and in
parts of the engines and other ma
chinery. Fence it becomes important
to determine what alloy is best, as the
percentage of nickel used in the Sep
tember competitive trial may or may
not be the most desirable.
The matter of expense in alloys must
also be studied There is good ground
for believing that the addition of nickel
will by its c,.pability of receiving pol
ishing finish, help resist cOrrosion, in
which case its nse in the hulls of future
steel vessels will be highly important,
since our cruisers are built without
sheathing.
An example of the exhaustive charac-
ter of the experiments now going on
was furnished last month, when the
original nickel steel plate was frozen by
a mixture of steel and salt to tempera-
ture of % degrees Fahrenheit and then
fired at, with the result of showing that
no important brittleness had been
caused by the freezing.
While these two shots cracked the
nickel steel plates, the second one
breaking off large triangular piece,
yet neither went through the target,
so that it now has the remarkable
record of keeping out six six-inch
Holtzer projectiles and one eight-inch
F'irming projectile.
The new Indian Head naval proving
grounds will witness next year tests Of
American made nickel steel plates.
Meanwhile the question of the supply
of nickel becomes the more important as
the variety of its prospective uses in
creases. Discovered about 175 years ago,
its large development, as seen to-day,
is mainly an affair of the present gener-
alton.
The opening Of the mines in the
French colony of New Caledonia great
ly increased the annual produc ion of
nickel. and its price after time fell off
to one-ffth or more of what it had been.
But the Sudbury region in Canada is
evidently to be a great source of supply
for the future and American as well as
British CAPITALISTS are interested in it.
An official report to the government
of the province of Ontario recently de-
clared that with ten blast furnaces 5000
tons of nickel year could be produced
at Sudbury, and that with proportion
ately larger facilities possibly ten times
that output could be expected.
A realization of the part which nickel
may yet play in many branches of steel
construction, induced the Ontario gov
ernment to announce ON the 1st of this
month the withdrawal from sale of all
the unpurcnased nickel producing area
in the province thus far known.
The effect will perhaps be to stimu-
late investigation of the nickel produc-
ing possibilities of land not SO with
drawn Last week delegation of gov
ernment officers, railway representa-
tives and others from Toronto visited
the Sudbury mines with view to
studying the question of establishing
nickel steel works in Canada.
The government is asked to aid this
project. which involves millions of
dollars, in view of its Importance to
domestic manufacturers. A few weeks
ago it was announced that nickel de-
posits had been discovered in Queens
county, Nova Scotia. Altogether it
seems probable that with the increasing
demand for this metal there will be an
increasing supply, and that our navy
can procure at reasonable terms all it