The sun., 1900-06-10
COWLES PATENT DECISION.
MANY USERS or THE ELECTRIC
FURNACE AFFECTkD BY 1T.

Burnace-Wtdo EJECT d tno DeSss'o"
Justice Gray Of the Supreme Court OF the
United States. Circuit Court Judge Dallas. and
District Court Judge Bradford. sitting In Phila'
deipha as the Circuit Court OF Appeals, on
May as handed down a decision In favor
OF the Electric Smelling and Aluminium Com
pany OF Cleveland. In its suit against the Car
borundum Company OF Niagara Falls Tor
infringement Of patent rights. The patent
involved Ia one Issued to T.. II. and Alfred II,
Cowles on June 0. 1885. for an Improvement
In processes for smelling ores by the electric
current. Another patent for an improve
ment In electric smelling furnaces was Issued
on the same day to the same applicants, but
the contention that It has also been infringed
Is not allowed in the decision
The suit was begun six years ago before
Circuit Judge Burlington In the Western dis
trict OF Pennsylvania and after long trial
In which i,AoO pages Of evidence. much OF 1t
expert were submitted. II was decided ad-
versely TO the complainant. The case was
appealed and reargued before Judges Gray.
Dallas and Bradley. Before a decision was
handed down Judge Bradley retired from the
bench. and at tho request Of the Court. the
case was again reargued. Judge Bradford.
who succeeded Judge Bradley. writes the de-
cision handed down on May "a Further pro-
ceedings will proba bly, be taken.
II the present decision Is sustained it will
Affect many other concerns besides the de-
fendsnt Some Of the more important OF
the industries OF Niagara Falls and the ada
cent electrical furnace centres will be seriously
threatened, among them the Oldbury Cheml-
cal Company and the Electric Lead Reduc-
ton companies. and II Is believed that several
factories now operating In Niagara Falls couio
be closed by Injunction.
Twenty years ago. tho possibilities OF tho
electric furnace were but dimly foreseen.
even by the most advanced laboratory work.
ers. Sir Humphrey Davy was one OF the first
men TO experiment with electricity for pro-
ducing great heat, and several other physi-
cists made similar experiments. All. how
ever. were handicapped by the low power
of the electric currents they we're able to obtain.
When. after the giant strides made by Edison
and others in the knowledge Of the generation
OF electricity, electric currents OF more power
became available, the only known methods
Of using them for generating heat were arc
furnaces, In which the substance TO be heated
was placed between discharging terminals,
as Of an arc street lamp. and incandescent
furnaces In which 1t was heated from pene-
tratins flament Of carbon or other substance
Of high resistance.
Both these forms of furnace were. OF neces-
sity. very small. and the Cowles brothers, who
undertook to experiment on a large scale
with smelling operations by electrically gene
rated heat, found that they werc not capable
OF being enlarged TO advantage Az length
they broke carbon rod. which had been used
In an incandescent urnaoe. into small pieces
and mixed the pieces with the ore upon which
they were working. The broken carbon of
fered a greater resistance TO the passage OF
an electric current through IT and a greater
degree OF heat was obtained In consequence,
and al the same time the current was diiYused
throughout the entire mass Of mixed ore and
carbon. instead OF being confined TO the i'm
furthermore the carbon acted as q reducer.
being consumed In the presence OF the oxygen
In the ore. which increased the percentage
Of sss snsS sISsmss %s sSNa ss e psSd by
entifc men and at the suggestion OF one Of them
who became Interested an attempt was made
70 fuse common comm ,n, sand sand into rock crystals "A "A
sand. and the current turned on. After an
interval the furnace was opened. and consld-
cradle Quantity 81 fused sand was rem, rem9yed nsi
been the core OF carbon was found small
quantity Of clear CRYSTALS nearly az hard as
diamonds These Alfred Cowles considered
to be crystals OF the element silicon, OF which
common sand Is an oxide Silicon had never
been separated from It's compounds before
but II was known TO be essentially similar TO
crystals did not Weld to attempts at further
analysis, he seemed justified In his conclusion.
At several lectures which Mr.. Cowles gave sub
pure silicon made in his furnace. and sfterward
presented them To the Massachusetts Institute
Of Technology, where they were preserved in
the Cowles brothers turned their attention to
aluminium more or less exclusively, paving
little attention to the other products Of the
electric furnace.
T. q, Acheson, who perfected the process by
which carborundum is, manufactured was a
student In Edison's laboratory az the time
that the Gowlss brothers made Their exneri
plants In Milan, GENOA, Venice and Ams'er-
dam As early yi a. issG ne y, to some
With with the added idea d at producins sp soms
hard substance to be used like emery ac,
ments had shown him that this might be done
and his ilnal problem was to produce such a
material cheaplv and In large quantities He
had no ones previous work TO suggest that the
heat OF an electric furnace might be used to
force chemicals Into combination for the fur
mace had only been used up TO that time for
DESTROYING compounds. but with the idea that
1t might be so used, and conceiving that carbon
In union with CLAW ought TO be yerv hard sub
stance, and that, perhaps, II might separate
out a. a diamond IN cooling he set 70 work.
He fused mi xtire Of coke and clay between
carbon terminals In cruobs, and obtained
small purplish crystals which would scratch
glass. Repeating the experiment on larger
scale, he obtained crystals harder than the dia-
mond and with so much the appearance Of
natural gems that manv biologists and miner
alogists were deceived by them With the idea
ALUMINIUM, Mr.. Acheson named his product
carborundum lie learned later that thew
were Of a chemical composition never We, found
naturally carbide OF silicon, but he retained
his original name.
In the course Of time the Carborundum COM
Falls, a few hundred wards from the river and
near the great dynamo house Of the Power
Company. There are ten furnaces In an OMEN
ended brick she'd, They are built loosely on
nrebricks. are about 10 feet long and feet
high and broad and have electrical connections
each time they are charged as tho frnbricEs
are fused In every operation. They arc charged
with forty parts Of coke an sixty parts OF whita
sand. with little sawdust to keep the mixture
light and some salt az n sort Of f,ix A core ~
powdered coke, about 2i inches In diameter. IL
laid between the electric terminals al the ends
Of the furnace In the centre of the mixture, A
current OF 1900 amperes at 100 volts |, then
passed. through the furnace for thirty-siX hours
A cvllnder OF carborlndum. some four or Ave
feet In diameter, Is then formed
The Carbornndum Company Exhibited its pro-
duct In the various stages of manufacture nj the
Worlds Fair in Chicago In 1902, an Vfred
Cowles there recognized the crude pr hIct as
Identical with the crystals which he had mnda
and thought tn be pure silicon He hunted nm
his specimens and persuaded himself that they
were idanticsl with carborundun and irnmedE
ata knDa ami for i,,fp ,g,I