New Britain herald., 1922-12-01

0elvnuixfng and other forms of
 xinc coating were discussed nt
 length by ". |. Robinson Of Wii-.
 COX. Crittendqn d Co. of Middle
 town, at the first of series of
 educational talks given recently
 e tho Y. M. c. A. At that time
 The Herald was unable to print
 the addrcss in full but takes this
 opportunity to do so believing
 that the romantic story of this
 commonplace substance Is of in-
 tercGt to . great many New Brit
 ain metal workers.
 BY ". ]. ROBINSON.
 Galvanizing has always been shrouded in more or less mystery For despite the fact that gnlvanizing has now been practiced for so many years, and is applied very commonly to the purposes of every day life, we doubt 1T there is any other manufacturing preceM (that has passed the patented of secret staee) upon which so little accurate information is readily avail able. Encyclopedias pass over the subject very briefly. and comparative ly little has ever been written upon it.
 Possibly this condition i5 due to kearly attempts to keep the galvanizing process a secret Then too, the work itself is hard and the picking pro- cess is of a disagrecable nature so that the type of men who engage in l1t were not given to writing.
 Galvanizing is the term commonly used In the hardware and iron trades to describe the process by which iron and steel are coated with zinc to pro- fect them from rust. The word gal vaniked" Is derived from the name Of Dr.. Luigi Galvani. a distinguished Italian scientist who made important l discoveries in connection with elec- Ifrical currents. In following up Gal vanis work. other scientists gradually learned that one metal could be de- posted upon another by means of an lelectric current as in electroplating. Metal so coated was said to be gal vanized" no matter what metal was used to form the coating. In some way or other when the hot process Of galvanizing was actually invented this term was fastened upon it all though no electric current was used or eyer has been in connection with hot dipped galvanizing. So properly speaking the term ''galvanizing' is a misnomer when applied to the hot process
 Something About Zinc.
 Before attempting a brief descrip- tionS of the various methods of zinc t,, tn , little something about zinc. II is a peculiar metal, and was the last of the seven common metals to be ex- xracted from it's ore. When heated it becomes volatile, and undoubtedly this Characteristic accounts for the delay in it's extraction as a metal. For, as soon as the ore was sufficiently heated 1t passed off in the form of va DOT, and in this way escaped the notice of early experimenters.
 Strange to say. however. men had been using zinc in connection with copper to produce brass during prac- tically the entire recorded portion of European history and a fascinating storE which would dji1lustrate splendid ly the trials and persistency of thej early metallurEists might be written . bo1f 1t, but we ian only touch upon 1t brfefy in a talk Of, this nature.
 Zinc, is absolutely essential to the pro4pction of brass and although tho andiant Greeks wsrc making brass as carly as 800 B. C., apparently little vas 5.known Of it's actual nature. In view of the fact that they bad not succeeded in extracting zinc from it's ore ct that time, and did not even know that there was such metal 1t is 60ubtful if they recognized brass d an alloy, but on the other hand probably supposed that they had dis covered way of hardening copper.
 Aristotlc's Peculiar Earth"
 The great Aristotle, who lived in the fourth century E. C., refers to brass as '.rnossinoecian copper" and states that 1t was made by melting copper with certain peculiar earth found on the shores of the Black Sea. Just how the early brass foundry men dis covered that copper melted with this "peculiar earth" would produce brass b, of course unknown to us. It may have been accidental or the discovery of some forgotten genius, who doubt less did his best to keep his superior secret, and so died unher- alded and unsung like many another human benefactor.
 Probably this peculiar earth" men, doned by Aristotle was what we now | know as calamine. one of the most | common of the ores from which zinc