Arizona republican., 1911-01-29
MODERN ALCHEMY.
Making Steel Is Worth More to the
 World Than Making Gold.

In the days of the mediaeval al chemists it was believed that it was possible by means of some undis- covered laboratory operation to con- vert the baser metals into gold With the development of modern chem istry this belief was shown to be baseless, al least in the sense in which the older workers held it.
 At the same time there has been evolved as result of the work of the more recent chemists and metal lurgists transmutation in the prop critics of that most widely used ma terial steel which is of far more real value to the world than any formula for making gold could ever be.
 The discovery that iron containing q certain proportion of carbon con stituted steel transformed society and created modern civilization; without steel We should relapse into barbar-
 ism. Today it is known that in ad- dition to carbon there are other ele- ments the addition of which will i'm part to steel certain properties in- creasing immensely it's value as d material of construction and of op- eration.
 Among the substances which were formerly classed as the rare" ele- ments there are several which were rare only because there was not suf- ficient use for them to provide an incentive to discover natural sources of supply.
 Thus vanadium, known as an ele- ment for a hundred years. estimated as having value many times that of gold and used solely for a few ar tistic purposes in coloring fabrics. has within few years risen immensely in importance because of the knowl- edge which has been acquired of the valuable properties which it imparts to steel. while at the same time it has fallen in cost to d point about one-half that of silver because the very demand has revealed hitherto unknown deposits.
 The influence of vanadium upon steel may we'll be regarded as a tri- umph of modern metallurgy. and va nadium steel has become one of the most import of the so-called alloy steels. The other steels, now known broadly as carbon steels in dis tinction to the various alloy steels. had certain fairly we'll ascertained properties together with determinate limitations
 They could be made ductile within certain limits of strength or strong within certain approach to brittleness, but when both strength and tough ness were demanded it was realized that something else in addition to carbon was essential That some thing has been shown to be vana- dium.
 The influence of the addition of small proportions of vanadium to steel is twofold; it acts as a scaven- ger, removing oxides. nitrates. etc. in a form easily carried away to the slag. and it also tOughens the steel directly. by it's solid solution. under normal conditions, in the carbonless portion. known as ferrite. In addition it forms complex carbides of such a nature as greatly to strengthen the steel statically. 9
 The result is. a product so vastly superior to the ordinary carbon steel as to render it practically a new ma terial of construction. especially for situations in which shocks must be met and resisted. The combination of high strength and great toughness makes it the material above all oth- CTS for automobile parts as well as for railway axles and engine frames. for springs. for the important parts of vessels and for bridges and similar structures.
 For the latest types of engineering work. such as flying machines. sub fx nd S.fr flnr the possession of a material of high resistance to stresses of all kinds en- ables some oI the most difficult ele- ments of the work to be solved.