The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1917-08-08

it from the munition plants, elimi-
nate it from the locomotive works,
car f%oundries, and machine shops of
the country and you would paralyze
the nations whole industrial system
And that would have happened ere
now had not Niaiyara's artificial
abrasives stepped in to save the day
when the war shut out our natural
supply of emery and corundum from
Asia Minor.
There is not a bearing in your
automobile but is ground on Niagara
made grindstones; ;rankshafts are
roughened and finished with them,
pistons and cylinders are made true,
camshafts likewise and a hundred
critical parts of every car, whether
of the cheapest or the most expen-
sive make. 1t would be impossible to
build anything of tool steel on a
commercial basis without Niagara's
abrasives.
No shell goes to Europe whose
nose has not bene ground into shape
on Niagara-made g%rindstones. Like
wise it is Niagara's abrasives that
have done more than any n other
thing to master the "hot box" that
Ibete noire' of the American rail-
road man and the worst enemy of
schedule time train transportations
the world around.
"While the processes Of carborun-
ium manufacture were being perfect
ed another lesson was learned.
Quartz, you remember, is the geo.
logist's thermometer, for it is formed
between narrow ranges of tempera-
ture. If the materials from which
nature makes it are subjected to
more than so much heat, they take on
an entirely different character from
quartz. The same is true if they
are subjected to less thar a certain
amount of heat.
$50, also, it is with carorundum.
In it's manufacture a large quantity
of a mixture of coke and sand, with
a touch. of sawdust, and a dash of
salt, is put into an electric furnace.
A heavy current of electricity is
passed through this for 48 hours,
heating it to 1850 degrees cent?
grade.
eff it is properly heated, there
forms around the central core of
coke a great array of crystals, large
and small, almost as hard as 'dia-
monds. If too much heat is applied,
instead of forming into crystals, the
material breaks up into fine particles
of black dust and you have graphite.
Therefore, largely by the same
process, the electric furnace pro-
duces from the same materials the
near-diamond of the artificial grind,
stone and the microscopic dust thai
becomes lead for a pencil, color fol-
ink, base for lubricants, electrodes
for furnaces and death chairs, or 6
thousand other things, under the
manipulations of industrial science
but Niagara's bit in behalf Of
American arms does not end with
the story of abrasives; indeed, il
only we'll begins. The story of fer
ro-silicon is another illustration Of
how beauty under the alchemy Of
science is transmitted into grim-vis
aged war.
"Last year this country made more
steel than the whole world produced
when William Mckinley became pres
ident of the United States. Near
ly three-fourths Of that steel wa
made by the open-hearth process, AM
fero-silicon was used as a deoxidiz
er to purify it by driving out tn
oxygen. Furthermore, in the max
ing of big steel castings that alloy i
practically indispensable in the eli
mination of blow-outs.
"The entire ferro-silicon industr,
practically, is cengered at Niagara
which thus gives pure steel an
sound castings as another part o
Americas contribution to the caus'
: Of allied victory. Every contract TO
shell steel that has been made il
two years calls for a content of fer
ro-silicon.
"There is another alloy of irol
indispensable in war, and well-nigl
so in twentieth century peace-ferro
chronomium. This is the alloy which
J gives that peculiar hardness to stee
which makes it resistant almost be
yond human conception. 1t has BEEF
estimated that a modern IA incl
shell, such as our navy is ever hold