Year: 1870

| To tie Editor Of The Fress:


SIR: My attention has been called to two mr.
three items in Maine papers during the past
few weeks relating to newprocess for making
| steel, and beg leave to ask your attention TO
| one or two facts which should be known to
those who are called upon to invest in any
| new plan of the sort.


Let me say here that have learned and
know absolutely nothing of the process In
question and can only remark upon Il in a
general way.


Some of the editors of papers in Mains
must be ignorant of the nature of at least two
Of the modern methods of making steel or
they would not allow any new steel processto to
be compared in their columns, even in an ad-
vertlsement or an amusing eI-pdrte state
ment, only with the old, well-approved ce-
mentation process.


The two methods to which | refer are the
Siemens-Martin process, (English-French,j
and the Dessemer, (English,) both of which
are commercially established in this country
the latter for several years, and both are ex-
tending; and 1 fear that some of your wealthy
citizens are more ignorant now than they
will he five years hence of what has been and
can be done in the steel manufactures and
really they ought to have been better advised,
than to incur so serious risks as must be run
in putting up works that, on a commercial
scale, must use coal, and good deal OF it, so
far from the mines and especially on a river
that is at any time, ice bound.


The concentration process which, so far as
know, is the only one that has been compar-
ell in your Maine papers with the new CT
Sherman process, is correctly stated to be te-
dious and costly, and ii might have been
stated with equal correctness that 1t Is enc
which no novice, with any chemicals, can
supplant TOR fine grades of steel, for which
used, without first passing through and de-
irving incalculable benefit from an experience
more tedious and costly than even the cemen-
tation process itself.


In the Bessemer process air is blown for
about 20 minutes by an engine of suitable pow.
er through the melted pig iron in the con-
verter" until by the oxidzing action of the
air the carbon chemically combined with
the pig metal is entirely burned out, and the
small per centage of carbon needed to produce
the required grade or temper of steel is then
added by pouring into the molten converted
metal certain quantity of spiegeleisen, which
is a compound of iron, carbon and manga
nese. The steel is. now poured by means OF a
suitable ladle into iron moulds of any re-
quired shape or size and may be at once re-
heated and rolled into rails or hammered and
rolled into any size of merchant bar.


In the Martin process certain quantity of
pig iron is melted on the open hearth of
Lieman's furnace, and from time to time for
about three hours pieces of puddled iron, or
of wrought iron scrap, containing no carbon,
are added until the percentage of carbon in
the melted mass is reduced to the desired
point. As in the first case the steel is then
run into molds to be afterwards reheated and
worked to any desired form.


These two are the only methods aside
from the cementation process with which the
new one must compete. Not that there are
not enough other so-called processes in ex-
istence, but when quarter of million dol
lars has been sunk on each of them it will be
time enough for Mr. Sherman to look upon
them as rivals.


1 would like to add a question or two for
those interested in the arithmetic of the new
process which is after all, its vital point.


What will it cost for iron, ior Goa, for labor,
and for repairs to make at the Bucksport
works or elsewhere ton of lngots for rails?


What will it cost per pound to make by
hammering or rolling steel of sizes suited to
the general demand of the trade?


What will be the capacity per twenty-four
hours works on the new plan that can be
erected for $225,OOO


What will it cost to put up works that will
make so tons of ingots per twenty-four hours?


In case any one should think that am in
terested in some other steel process, would
only say that those who have felt the burden
some and costly load of establishing manu-
facture are generally best able to warn Others
OF the risk to be run in any similar venture


In conclusion let me say that 1 write sim
ply for your own information and i hope for
that Of others interested in such manufac-
lures in general, and not at the suggestion
of any person or persons in or out of Maine.


1 am truly yours,


P. BARNES, Jr.


Troy, NEW YORK, 1869.