MANUFACTURE OF FERRO-MANGANESE AND CUPRO-MANGANESE, AND THE COMBINATIONS OR ALLOYS THEREOF WITH OTHER METALS.
Year: 1864

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Oscar Eugen Prieger, of Bonn, in the Kingdom of
Prussia, at present residing in the City of Manchester, Doctor of
Medicine, for the Invention of the "MANUFACTURE OF FERRO-MANGANESE
AND CUPRO-MANGANESE, AND THE COMBINATIONS OR ALLOYS THEREOF WITH
OTHER METALS.
Sealed the 15th November 1864, and dated the 2nd June 1864.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Oscar Eugen Priegerat the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
2nd June 1864.
I, OSCAR EUGEN PRIEGER, of Bonn, in the Kingdom of Prussia, at present
residing in the City of Manchester, Doctor of Medicine, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for the "MANUFACTURE OF FERRO-MANGANESE
AND CUPRO-MANGANESE, AND THE COMBINATIONS OR ALLOYS THEREOF WITH OTHER
METALS," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in the production and manufacture of ferro-man-
ganese, that is to say, the combination of manganese or alloys of manganese
with iron or steel in various proportions, and of cupro-manganese, that is to
say, the combination of manganese or alloys of manganese with copper in
various proportions, and of combinations or alloys of the aforesaid ferro-
manganese and cupro-manganese with other metals. The said ferro-man-
ganese and cupro-manganese I obtain by a single metallurgic process directly,
either from manganese ores or from residues of manganese ores used for
chemical or other purposes, or from other substances containing manganese,
together with iron or copper in the following manner :-
For producing ferro-manganese the aforesaid ores or residues of manganese
or substances containingmanganese are first reduced to powder and dried, after
Price 8d.1

page_text: which this powder is well mixed with powdered charcoal or any other reducing
carbonaceous substance, and this mixture is intimately combined with the
determined quantity of iron or steel. The iron may be cast iron, wrought iron,
or steel of any kind reduced into small particles, such as granulations, filings,
borings, turnings, wire, or scrap sheet iron or steel, or in any other small
form. These three substances, that is to say, the manganese, the charcoal, and
the iron or steel are then placed into crucibles or melting pots or other suitable
vessels of any size, which are well covered in with a layer of charcoal, fluor
spar, common salt, or any other substance suitable to prevent oxidation from
the oxygen of the air, and so placed in a furnace or stove in which they are
exposed to a white heat during several hours, by which the ferro-manganese
settles down at the bottom of the vessel in a fluid state, and from which it is
poured out. In this manner ferro-manganese can be produced of different
proportions of manganese and iron or steel according to the various purposes
for which it is intended to be employed. Ferro-manganese is a metal hitherto
unknown,and it is applicable to various purposes in the arts and manufactures.
All sorts of ferro-manganese,and all combinations or alloys offerro-manganese
with iron or steel, are exceedingly hard, and most of them are sufficiently hard
to cut glass and hardened steel; they are easier to melt than pure iron or pure
metallic manganese, from which latter they differ by not oxidysing in the
atmosphere, whilst the latter crumbles under the same condition in a few days
into useless powder. The ferro-manganese contains only metallic manganese
and iron or steel with traces of carbon. The addition of a very small quantity
of ferro-manganese to iron and steel increases their hardness without altering
their other good qualities.
The manner of producing cupro-manganese is similar to that for producing
ferro-manganese copper or alloys of copper being used instead of iron or steel
with the manganese ores or other substances containing manganese.
My invention consists also in combining cupro-manganese with zinc,tin and
zinc, zinc and nickel, and other metals for producing various metallic alloys
or compounds.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the couditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Oscar Eugen Prieger in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
18th November 1864.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, OSCAR 3
EUGEN PRIEGER, of Bonn, in the Kingdom of Prussia, at present residing in
the City of Manchester, Doctor of Medicine, send greeting.

page_text: WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Second day of June, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, in the twenty-seventh year
of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant
unto me the said Oscar Eugen Prieger, Her special license that I, the said
Oscar Eugen Prieger, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Oscar Eugen Prieger, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all
times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention
for the "MANUFACTURE OF FERRO-MANGANESE AND CUPRO-MANGANESE, AND THE
COMBINATIONS OR ALLOYS THEREOF WITH OTHER METALS," upon the condition
(amongst others) that I, the said Oscar Eugen Prieger, my executors or
administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of
their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed,
and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters
Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Oscar Eugen Prieger,do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
My Inventionconsistsintheproduction and manufacture offerro-manganese,
that is to say, the combination of metallic manganese with iron in various
proportions, and of cupro-manganese, that is to say, the combination of
inetallic manganese with copper in various proportions, and of combinations
or alloys of the aforesaid ferro-manganese and
with other
cupro-manganese
metals. The said ferro-manganese and cupro-manganese I obtain by a single
metallurgic process directly, either from manganese ores or from residues of
manganese ores used for chemical or other purposes, or from other substances
containing manganese, together with iron or copper in the following manner:―
First, for producing ferro-manganese.-The aforesaid inanganese ores or
residues of manganese ores, or substances containing manganese, are crushed
to powder and dried if they contain water, and this powder is well mixed with
powdered charcoal sufficient in quantity for the reduction; or any other
reducing carbonaceous substance may be employed instead of charcoal. This
mixture is intimately combined with the determined quantity of metallic iron

page_text: or steel, which may be cast or wrought iron or steel of any kind reduced in
small particles, such as granulations, filings, borings, turnings, wire, or scraps
of sheet iron or steel, or in any other small form, and in quantity differing
according to the different sorts of ferro-mangenese intended to be made. The
mixture of these three substances, that is to say, the manganese ores, the
charcoal, and the iron or steel is put into crucibles, of which I prefer those of
graphite, holding from thirty to fifty pounds, and is well covered in with a layer
of coal, or of fluor spar, or of common salt, or of any other substance suitable
to prevent oxydation from the air. The crucible is then placed in a furnace or
stove and exposed to a white heat during several hours; by this the manga-
nese becomes reduced into metal, combines with the melting iron, and this
combination, the ferro-manganese, settles down at the bottom of the vesselin
a fluid state as a perfectly molten regulus under a greenish slag. The
crucibles are removed from the furnace, and the ferro-manganese is poured out
or taken out when cold. At the same time another series of crucibles
charged in the same way is put into the hot furnace, and thus the manufac
ture of ferro-manganese is carried on continually. In this manufacture the
addition of metallic iron or steel is absolutely necessary for the full success of
the process and the cheapness of the production of the ferrc-manganese. The
single particles of the iron take up, while melting, the next small particles of
the reduced manganese metal, which latter are difficult to melt, and would
not gather together without the presence of the metallic iron. Without the
presence of the iron, the manganese metal would only in part melt down in a
metallic regulus by a very high degree of heat, while its greater part would
partially become oxydised again and silicated by the slags, and partially
remain distributed in the slags, and by exposure to the air would become
oxydised and decomposed into powder in a few minutes. Without this
addition of metallic iron, the production of metallic manganese is consequently
so very expensive that its use for industrial purposes is impossible. The ferro-
manganese produced in the aforesaid manner is a thoroughly homogeneous
substance, composed equally in all its parts of manganese metal and iron. It
is very hard, harder than quartz and hardened steel of any sort, it is brittle
and susceptible of polish, has a grey colour varying from steel grey to silver
grey with metallic lustre, it melts at red heat and fuses with sharp edges;
it remains unaltered by exposure to the air for years and does not oxydise,
while, by exposure to water, it oxydises only on the surface and does not
decompose. By this property it differs greatly from the pure manganese
metal, which oxydises by exposure to the air in a short time, decomposing into
powder, and which oxydises by exposure to the water in the same way, with a

page_text: vivid evolution of hydrogen. I have produced ferro-manganese in many
different weight proportions and different atomic compositions of both metals,
the manganese and the iron, and I have found the most preferable the two
combinations indicated by the following formulæ :-Mu³, Fe, and Mn, Fe,
that is say, the alloy of two atoms of manganese metal with one atom of iron,
or in one hundred parts of ferro-manganese containing sixty-six three parts of
manganese metal and thirty-three six parts of iron, and the other combination
of four atoms of manganese metal with one atom of iron, or in one hundred
parts of ferro manganese containing seventy-nine seven parts of manganese
metal and twenty-three parts of iron. Both these combinations have a tendency
to be crystalline; they shew when fractured in the middle of the regulus a
perfectly crystalline structure, and towards the margins of the regulus, where
the refrigeration has been quicker, a granular structure. A very important
fact is the thoroughly homogeneous composition of the regulus in all its parts;
itsstructure may be crystalline or granular; the weight-proportions of the man-
ganese metal and the iron are always the same in all parts of the regulus. Thus
the quantity of the manganese metal can be regulated in the ferro-manganese
in any required proportion, and I have it in my power to add with the ferro.
manganese any desired quantity of manganese metal to iron or steel with
mathematical exactness, which, as will appear hereafter is, of the utmost
importance.
Ferro-manganese is a perfectly metallic substance, hitherto unknown, and
containing solely manganese metal and iron with traces of carbon. There are
certainly several sorts of pig iron, especially the spiegel eisen, which contain
a small proportion of manganese metal, but in all these sorts of pig iron the
proportion of manganese metal is too small and too uncertain in quantity, and
they cannot be compared with the ferro-manganese, in which the manganese
metal forms always the prevailing typical part. The ferro-manganese is
applicable to various purposes in the arts and manufactures.
In the manufacture of iron and steel the addition of a few per cent. of
manganese metal, which I do in the form of ferro-manganese from one-tenth
to five per cent., increases greatly the hardness and strength of these metals,
without altering in the least their other good qualities, such as ductility,
tenacity, malleability, and welding properties. The steel becomes by the
addition of manganese metal more malleable, so that it is malleable in the
greatest red heat without getting cracks or faults, which with other steel, for
example cast steel, is not the case, that being malleable ouly with a dull red
heat; in a like manner the steel becomes better to weld. By addition of
a small quantity of manganese metal in the form of ferro-mangauese, say

page_text: from one-tenth to two per cent., to the usual charge of the crucibles in the
manufacture of cast steel, it becomes harder and stronger to a certain extent, in
proportion to the increased quantity of the added ferro-manganese. By adding
a small quantity of manganese metal, from one-tenth to three per cent., in the
form of ferro-manganese to the pig iron in the manufacture of puddled steel,
I produce a steel whose tensile strength is from fifteen to thirty per cent.
superior to that of the steel manufactured in the same way without this
addition. By adding from one to three per cent. of ferro-manganese to the
pig iron in the steel puddling process, I obtain a steel from which chisels and
other hard-cutting tools of superior quality have been manufactured.
The aforesaid effects of the addition of ferro-manganese to iron and to steel
have been proved by a long series of trials, and a great many tools have been
manufactured from such steels. The absolute strength of the puddled steel
made with the addition of one-half per cent. to three per cent. of manganese
metal to scotch pig iron has been determined by a series of experiments on
the tensile strength of bars and plates made from it. In these experiments
the breaking weight of the plates per square inch varied only from fifty to
fifty-four tons (ou the average fifty-two tons), whilst the puddled steel made
from the same pig iron without the addition of manganese metal had in its
plates only a mean breaking weight of forty tons. I have produced already
many tons of ferro-manganese with sixty and eighty per cent. of manganese
metal, while hitherto the manganese metal has been produced only in pieces
of some drachms weight, and at a cost almost equal to its weight in gold.
Invention the cost of the manganese metal is about the same as that
of copper, and its production may be increased to any amount.
By my
Secondly, for producing cupro-manganese.-The manganese ores or sub-
stances containing manganese are prepared in the same way and mixed with
the same required quantity of charcoal as has been described for the produc-
tion of ferro-manganese. To this mixture metallic copper is added, or alloys
of copper with zinc or tin may be added in small particles when it is intended
to make afterwardsalloys of cupro-manganese with these metals, and the entire
mixture is reduced and melted down into a metallic regulus in the manner
described for the production of ferro-manganese. The cupro-manganese is an
easily fusible, hard, tensile, strong, ductile metal; it can be rolled to very
thin plates and drawn out to very thin wire without breaking or tearing.
The cupro-manganese has been hitherto quite unknown, likewise its alloyswith
zinc, with tin and zinc, and with zinc and nickel, of which I have produced
a long series of different compositions, many of which have proved useful for
industrial and artistic purposes. Of these I note especially the alloys of

page_text: cupro-manganese with zinc, which are fusible, tough, casily to be worked, and
in colour and lustre approaching fine silver, and the alloys of cupro-man-
ganese with tin and zinc, which are fusible, hard, and in colour and lustre
approaching silver.
The cost of the manufacture of cupro-manganese is about equal to that of
brass, to which it is preferable for many purposes, especially by its greater
toughness and hardness. I have produced cupro-manganese and the men-
tioned and other alloys from it in large quantities, and by experiments on
a large scale I have proved their aforesaid superior qualities; they are
applicable to many industrial and commercial purposes.
Having thus described my Invention, and the manner in which the same
may be carried into effect, I desire it to be understood that I do not confine
myself to the precise details herein set forth, so long as the peculiar feature
of the several parts of my said Invention are retained; and I claim,―
First, the metallurgical production of ferro-manganese asaperfectly metallic
substance molten down in regulis.
Secondly, I claim the use and the addition of this metallic ferro-manganese
in the manufacture of cast steel.
Thirdly, I claim the use and the addition of this metallic ferro-manganese
in the manufacture of puddled steel.
Fourthly, I claim the use and the addition of this metallic ferro-mauganese
to any sort of iron or steel and in every manner of manufacture.
Fifthly, 1 claim the metallurgical production of cupro-manganese as a
perfectly metallic substance molten down in regulis.
Sixthly, I claim the use and the combination of this metallic cupro-man-
ganese with zinc, tin and zinc, zinc and nickel, and with other metals or
alloys of metals.
In witness whereof, I, the said Oscar Eugen Prieger, have hereto set
my hand and seal, this Seventh day of November, One thousand eight
hundred and sixty-four.
OSCAR E. PRIEGER. (L.S.)