Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 by Various

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[Illustration]

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 388

NEW YORK, June 9, 1883

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XV., No. 388.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.

* * * * *

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. ENGINEERING.--Farcot's Improved Woolf Compound Engine.--4
figures.

The "Swallow," a New Vehicle.

Boring an Oil Well.

A Cement Reservoir.--2 figures.

"Flying."

II. TECHNOLOGY.--Iron and Steel.--By BARNARD SAMUELSON.
The world's production of pig iron.--Wonderful uses and demands
for iron and steel.--Progress of Bessemer steel.--Latest
improvements in iron making.--Honors and rewards to inventors.
--Growth of the Siemens-Martin process.--The future of iron and
steel.--Relations between employers and workmen.

Machine for Grinding Lithographic Inks and Colors.--1 figure.

A new Evaporating apparatus.--2 figures.

Photo Plates.--Wet and Dry.

Gelatino Bromide Emulsion with Bromide of Zinc.

The Removal of Ammonia from Crude Gas.

III. MEDICINE AND HYGIENE.--The Hair, its Uses and its Care.
The Influence of Effective Breathing in Delaying the Physical
Changes Incident to the Decline of Life, and in the Prevention
of Pneumonia. Consumption, and Diseases of Women.--By DAVID
WARK. M.D.--Pneumonia.--The true first stage of Consumption. The
development of tubercular matter in the blood.--The value of
cod-liver oil in the prevention of consumption.--The influence
of normal breathing on the female generative organs--Showing how
the breathing powers may be developed.--The effects of adequate
respiration in special cases.

Vital Discoveries in Obstructed Air and Ventilation.

IV. ELECTRICITY.--The Portrush Electric Railway, Ireland.--By Dr.
EDWARD HOPKINSON.

The Thomson-Houston Electric Lighting System.--4 figures.

A Modification of the Vibrating Bell.--2 figures.

V. CHEMISTRY.--Acetate of Lime.

Reconversion of Nitroglycerine into Glycerine. By C.L. BLOXAM.

Carbonic Acid and Bisulphide of Carbon. By JOHN TYNDALL.

VI. AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE.--Propagation of Maple Trees.

Dioscorea Retusa.--Illustration.

Ravages of a Rare Scolytid Beetle in the Sugar Maples of
Northeastern New York.--Several figures.

The Red Spider. 4 figures.

Japanese Peppermint.

VII. NATURAL HISTORY.--The Recent Eruption of Etna.

The Heloderma Horridum.--Illustration.

The Kangaroo.

VIII. ARCHITECTURE.--Design for a Villa.--Illustration.

IX. BIOGRAPHY.--William Spottiswoode.--Portrait.

X. MISCELLANEOUS.--Physics without Apparatus.--Illustration.

The Travels of the Sun.

FARCOT'S IMPROVED WOOLF COMPOUND ENGINE.

In a preceding article, we have described a ventilator which is in use
at the Decazeville coal mines, and which is capable of furnishing, per
second, 20 cubic meters of air whose pressure must be able to vary
between 30 and 80 millimeters.

In order to actuate such an apparatus, it was necessary to have a
motor that was possessed of great elasticity, and that nevertheless
presented no complications incompatible with the application that was
to be made of it.

In the ventilation of mines it has been demonstrated that the
theoretic power in kilogrammes necessary to displace a certain number
of cubic meters of air, at a pressure expressed in millimeters of
water, is obtained by multiplying one number by the other. Applying
this rule to the case of 20 cubic meters under a hydrostatic pressure
of 30 millimeters, we find:

20 x 30 = 600 kilogrammeters.

In the case of a pressure of 80 millimeters, we have:

20 x 80 = 1,600 kilogrammeters.

If we admit a product of 50 per cent., we shall have in the two cases,
for the power actually necessary:

600
---- = 1,200 kilogrammeters, or 16 H.P.
0.05

1,600
----- = 3,200 kilogrammeters, or 43 H.P.
0.05

Such are the limits within which the power of the motor should be able
to vary.

After successively examining all the different systems of engines now
in existence, and finding none which, in a plain form, was capable of
fulfilling the conditions imposed, Mr. E.D. Farcot decided to study
out one for himself. Almost from the very beginning of his researches
in this direction, he adopted the Woolf system, which is one that
permits of great variation in the expansion, and one in which the
steam under full pressure acts only upon the small piston. There are
many types of this engine in use, all of which present marked defects.
In one of them, the large cylinder is arranged directly over the small
one so as to have but a single rod for the two pistons; and the two
cylinders have then one bottom in common, which is furnished with a
stuffing-box in which the rod moves. With this arrangement we have but
a single connecting rod and a single crank for the shaft; but, the
stuffing-box not being accessible so that it can be kept in a clean
state, there occur after a time both leakages of steam and entrances
of air.

Mr. Farcot has further simplified this last named type by suppressing
the intermediate partition, and consequently the stuffing-box. The
engine thus becomes direct acting, that is to say, the steam acts
first upon the lower surface of the small piston during its ascent,
and afterward expands in the large cylinder and exerts its pressure
upon the upper surface of the large piston during its descent.
Moreover, the expansion may be begun in the small cylinder, thanks to
the use of a slide plate distributing valve, devised by the elder
Farcot and slightly modified by the son.

As the volume comprised between the two pistons varies with the
position of the latter, annoying counter-pressures might result
therefrom had not care been taken to put the chamber in communication
with a reservoir of ten times greater capacity, and which is formed by
the interior of the frame. This brings about an almost constant
counter-pressure.

The type of motor under consideration, which we represent in the
accompanying plate, is possessed of remarkable simplicity. The number
of parts is reduced to the extremest limits; it works at high speed
without perceptible wear; it does not require those frequent repairs
that many other cheap engines do; and the expansion of the steam is
utilized without occasioning violent shocks in the parts which
transmit motion. Finally, the plainness of the whole apparatus is
perfectly in accordance with the uses for which it was devised.

[Illustration: FARCOT'S IMPROVED WOOLF COMPOUND ENGINE.]

_Details of Construction._--Figs. 1 and 2 represent the motor in
vertical section made in the direction of two planes at right angles.
Figs. 3 and 4 are horizontal sections made respectively in the
direction of the lines 1-2 and 3-4.

The frame, which is of cast iron and entirely hollow, consists of two
uprights, B, connected at their upper part by a sort of cap, B¹, which
is cast in a piece with the two cylinders, C and _c_. The whole rests
upon a base, B squared, which is itself bolted to the masonry foundation.

Each of the uprights is provided internally with projecting pieces for
receiving the guides between which slides the cross-head, _g_, of the
piston rod. The slides terminate in two lubricating cups designed for
oiling the surfaces submitted to friction.

The cross-head carries two bearings, _g¹_, to which is jointed the
forked extremity, D, of the connecting rod, whose opposite extremity
receives a strap that embraces the cranked end of the driving shaft,
A. It will be remarked that the crank, A¹, and the bearings, _g¹_,
are very long. The end the inventor had in view in constructing them
thus was to diminish friction.

To the shaft, A, are keyed the coupling disks, Q, which are cast solid
at a portion of their circumference situated at 180 deg. with respect to
the parts, A squared, of the cranked shaft, the object of this being to
balance the latter as well as a portion of the connecting rod, D.

The shaft, A, also receives the eccentric, E, of the slide valve, the
rod, _e_, of which is jointed to the slide valve rod through the
intermedium of a cross-head, _e¹_, analogous to that of the pistons,
and which, like the latter, runs on guides held by the support, b.

The two pistons, _p_ and P, are mounted very simply on the rod, T, as
shown in Fig. 1, and slide in cylinders, _c_ and C, whose diameters
are respectively equal to 270 and 470 millimeters.

The slide valve box, F, is bolted to the cap-piece, B¹, as seen in
Fig. 4. As for the slide valve, _t_, its arrangement may be
distinguished in section in Fig. 2. Its eccentric is keyed at 170 deg. so
as to admit steam into the small cylinder during the entire travel,
which latter is 470 mm.

To permit of the expansion beginning in the small cylinder, Mr. Farcot
has added a sliding plate, _t¹_, which abuts at every stroke against
the stops, _s_. These latter are affixed to the rod, S, whose lower
extremity is threaded, and which may be moved vertically, as slightly
as may be desired, through the medium of the pinions, S¹, when the
hand-wheel, V, is revolved. A datum point, _v_, and a graduated
socket, _v¹_, allow the position of the stops, _s_, and consequently
the degree of expansion, to be known.

Steam is introduced into the small cylinder through the conduit, _i_,
and its passage into the large one is effected through the conduit,
_f_. The escape into the interior of the frame is effected, after
expansion, through the horizontal conduit, _h_. The pipe, H, leads
this exhaust steam to the open air.

The pipe, I, leads steam into the jacket, C¹, of the large cylinder,
this latter being provided in addition with a casing of wood, C squared, so
as to completely prevent chilling.

The regulator, R, is after the Buess pattern, and is set in motion by a
belt which runs over the pulleys, _a_ and _a¹_. It is mounted upon a
distributing box, R¹, to which steam is led from the boiler by the
pipe, _r¹_. After traversing this box, the steam enters the slide
valve box through the pipe, _r squared_, its admission thereto being
regulated by the hand-wheel, R squared, which likewise serves for stopping
the engine.

The cocks, _x_, are fixed at the base of the uprights, B, for drawing
from the frame the condensed water that has accumulated therein.

The lubricating apparatus, V, which communicates, through the tube,
_u_, with the steam port, _r¹_, permits oil to be sent to the large
and small cylinders through the tubes, _u¹_ and _u squared_.

Mr. Farcot has recently adapted this type of motor to the direct
running of electric machines that are required to make 400 revolutions
per minute.--_Publication Industrielle._

* * * * *

IRON AND STEEL.

At the recent meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute, London, the
president-elect (Mr. Bernard Samuelson, M.P.), delivered the following
inaugural address:

THE WORLD'S PRODUCTION OF PIG IRON.

He showed that the world's production of pig iron has increased in
round numbers from 10,500,000 tons in 1869 to 20,500,000 tons in 1882.
The blast furnaces of 1869 produced on the average a little over 180
tons per week, with a temperature of blast scarcely exceeding 800 deg.
Fahr. The consumption of coke per ton of iron varied from 25 to 30
cwt. To-day our blast furnaces produce on the average upward of 300
tons per week.

The Consett Company have reached a production of 3,400 tons in four
weeks, or 850 tons per week, and of 134 tons in one day from a single
furnace.

From the United States we have authentic accounts of an average
production of 1,120 tons per furnace per week having been attained,
and that even this great output has lately been considerably exceeded
there. Both as to consumption of fuel and wear and tear, per ton of
iron produced, these enormous outputs are attended with economy.

HEAT OF THE BLAST.

In the case of the Consett furnace they were obtained although the
heat of the blast was under 1,100 deg. Fahr., while heats of 1,500 deg. to
1,600 deg. are not uncommon at the present day in brick stoves, thanks to
the application of the regenerating principle of ex-president Sir W.
Siemens.

But an economy which promises to be of great importance is now sought
in the recovery and useful application of those constituents of coal
which, in the coking process, have hitherto been lost; or, as an
alternative, in a similar recovery in those cases in which the coal is
charged in a raw state into the blast furnace, as is the practice in
Scotland and elsewhere. This recovery of the hydrocarbons and the
nitrogen contained in the coal, and their collection as tar and
ammoniacal liquors, and subsequent conversion into sulphate of ammonia
as to the latter, and into the various light and heavy paraffin oils
and the residual pitch as to the former, have now been carried on for
a considerable time at two of the Gartsherrie furnaces; and they are
already engaged in applying the necessary apparatus to eight more
furnaces. In the coke oven the recovery of these by-products--if that
name can be properly applied to substances which yield the most
brilliant colors, the purest illuminants, and the flesh-forming
constituents supplied by the vegetable world--would appear at first
sight to be simpler; but it has presented its own peculiar
difficulties; the chief of which was, or was believed to be, a
deterioration in the quality of what has hitherto been the principal,
but what may, perhaps, come to be regarded hereafter as the residual
product, namely, the coke. But the more recent experience of Messrs.
Pease, at Crook, appears not to justify this opinion. You will see on
our table specimens of the coke produced in the Carves-Simon oven,
yielding 75 to 77 per cent. of coke from the Pease's West coal, which
they have now had at work for several months. Twenty-five of these
ovens are at work, and the average yield of ammoniacal liquor per ton
of coal has been 30 gallons of a strength of 7 deg. Twaddell, valued at
1d. per gallon at the ovens; the quantity of tar per ton has been 7
gallons, valued at 3d. per gallon. These products would therefore
realize 4s. 3d. per ton of coal. Of course the profit on the ton of
coke is considerably more, and to this has to be added the value of
the additional weight of coke, which in the ordinary beehive ovens
from coal of the same quality is only 60 per cent. or in beehive ovens
having bottom flues about 66 per cent., while in the Carves ovens it
is, as I have said, upward of 75 per cent. Against these figures there
is a charge of 1s. 4d. per ton of coke for additional labor, including
all the labor in collecting the by-products; the interest on the first
cost of the plant, which is considerable, and probably some outlay for
repairs in excess of that in the case of ordinary ovens, has also to
be charged. Mr. Jameson takes credit for the combustible gas, which is
used up in the Carves ovens, but which remains over in his process,
and is available, though not nearly all consumed, in raising steam for
the various purposes of a colliery, including, no doubt, before long,
the generation of electricity for its illumination. It is right to
state that prior to 1879 Mr. Henry Aitken had applied bottom flues for
taking off the oil and ammoniacal water to beehive ovens at the Almond
Ironworks, near Falkirk. He states that the largest quantity of oil
obtained was eleven gallons, the specific gravity varying from 0.925
to 1.000, and that the water contained a quantity of ammonia fully
equal to 51/2 lb. of sulphate of ammonia to the ton of coal coked. The
residual permanent or non-condensed gases were allowed to issue from
the end of the condenser pipe, and were burnt for light in the
engine-houses, but it was intended to force them into the oven again
above the level of the coke. Owing to the works being closed, nothing
has been done with these ovens for some years. I may mention, by the
way, that it is proposed to apply the principle of Mr. Jameson's
process to the recovery of oil and ammonia from the smouldering waste
heaps at the pit-bank, by the introduction into these of conduits
resembling those which he applies to the bottom of the beehive oven.
There is every reason to expect that one or more of these various
methods of utilizing valuable products which are at present lost will
be carried to perfection, and will tend to cheapen the cost at which
iron can be produced, and still further to increase its consumption
for all the multifarious purposes to which it is applied.

WONDERFUL USES AND DEMAND FOR IRON AND STEEL.

But the world's annual production of 20,000,000 tons of pig iron is
itself sufficiently startling, and without attempting to present to
you the statistics of all its various uses--for which, in fact, we do
not possess the necessary materials--the increased consumption of more
than 9,000,000 tons since 1869 becomes conceivable when we consider
how some of the great works in which it is employed have been
extending during that or even a shorter interval. And of these I need
only speak of the world's railways, of which there were in 1872
155,000 miles, and in 1882 not less than 260,000, but probably more
nearly 265,000 miles. In the United States alone about 60,000 miles
of railway have been built since 1869--the year, I may remind you in
passing, in which the Atlantic and Pacific States of the Union were
first united by a railway; while in our Indian Empire the
communication between Calcutta and Bombay was not completed till the
following year.

The substitution of iron and steel for wood in the construction of
ships, and the enormous increase in the tonnage of the world, in spite
of the economy arising from the employment of steamers in place of
sailing ships, is perhaps the element of increased consumption next in
importance to that of railways. I do not think that the materials are
available for estimating with any accuracy the amount of this
increase, but I believe I am rather understating it if I take the
consumption of iron and steel used last year throughout the world in
shipbuilding as having required considerably more than 1,000,000 tons
of pig iron for its production, and that this is not far short of four
times the quantity used for the same purpose before 1870. And so all
the other great works in which iron and steel are employed have
increased throughout the world. It would be tedious to indicate them
all.

Among those which rank next in importance to the preceding, I will
only name the works for the distribution of water and gas, which in
this country and in the United States have been extended in a ratio
far greater than that of the increase of the population, and which,
since the conclusion of the Franco-German war, and the consolidation
of the German and Italian States, are now to be found in almost every
European town of even secondary importance; and bridges and piers, in
the construction of which iron has almost entirely superseded every
other material.

It is difficult to imagine what would have been the state of the iron
industry in this country if we had been called upon to supply our full
proportion of the enormously increased demand for iron. To meet that
proportion, the British production of pig iron should have been close
on 11,000,000 tons in 1882, a drain on our mineral resources which
cannot be replaced, and which, especially if continued in the same
ratio, would have been anything but desirable. Fortunately, as I am
disposed to think, other countries have contributed more than a
proportionate amount to the increase in the world's demand; and,
paradoxical as it may appear, it is possible that, to this country at
least, the encouragement given by protective duties to the production
of iron abroad may have been a blessing in disguise.

PROGRESS OF BESSEMER STEEL.

To speak of the enormous increase in the production of steel by the
introduction of the Bessemer process has become a commonplace on
occasions like the present, and yet I doubt whether its real
dimensions are generally known or remembered. In 1869 the manufacture
of Bessemer steel had already acquired what was then looked upon as a
considerable development in all the principal centers of metallurgical
industry, except the United States, but including our own country,
Germany, France, and Austria, and the world's production in that year
was 400,000 tons. Last year it was over 5,000,000 tons, and it has
doubled in every steel-producing country during the last four years,
except in France, where, during this latter period, the increase has
not been much more than one-fourth. What is almost as remarkable as
the enormous increase in the production of Bessemer steel is the great
diminution in its cost. In the years preceding 1875, the price of
rails manufactured from Bessemer ingots fluctuated between L10 and L18
per ton, and I remember Lord George Hamilton when he was
Under-Secretary for India of Lord Beaconsfield's administration in
1875 or 1876, congratulating himself on his good fortune in having
been able to secure a quantity of steel rails for the Indian
government at L13 per ton. Within the last three years we have seen
them sold under L4 10s. in this country, and L5 10s. in Germany and
Belgium.

LATEST IMPROVEMENTS IN IRON MAKING.

This great reduction is the cumulative result of a number of
concurrent improvements, partly in the conversion of the iron, and
partly in the subsequent treatment of the ingot steel. In most of the
great steelworks the iron is no longer remelted, but is transferred
direct from the blast furnace to the converter, a practice which
originated at Terre-Noire, and was long considered in this country to
be incompatible with uniformity in the quality of the steel produced.
The turn-out of the converter plant has been gradually increased in
this country to more than four times that of fourteen years ago, while
the practice of the United States is stated by a recent visitor to
have reached such an astounding figure that I am afraid to quote it
without confirmation; but the greatest economy arises no doubt in the
labor and fuel employed in the mill.

Cogging has taken the place of hammering. Even wash-heating will be,
if it is not already, generally dispensed with by the soaking process
of our colleague, Mr. Gjers, which permits of the ingot, as it leaves
the pit, being directly converted into a rail.

STEEL RAILS 150 FEET LONG.

An extract from a letter addressed to me by our colleague, Mr. E.W.
Richards, will describe better than any words of mine the perfection
at which steel rail mills have arrived. He says, "Our cogging rolls
are 48 in. diameter, and the roughing and finishing rolls are 30 in.
diameter. We roll rails 150 feet long as easily as they used to roll
21 feet. Our ingots are 151/2 inches square, and weigh from 25 to 30
cwts. according to the weight of rail we have to roll. These heavy
ingots are all handled by machinery. We convey them by small
locomotives from the Bessemer shop to the heating furnaces, and by the
same means from the heating furnaces to the cogging rolls.

So quickly are these ingots now handled that we have given up second
heating altogether, so that after one heat the ingot is cogged from
151/2 inches square down to 8 inches square, then at once passed on to
the roughing and finishing rolls, and finished in lengths, as I have
said before, of 150 ft., then cut at the hot saws to the lengths given
in the specifications, and varying from 38 ft. to about 21 ft. The 38
ft. lengths are used by the Italian 'Meridionali' Railway Company, and
found to give very satisfactory results." I need scarcely say that in
a mill like this, the expenditure of fuel and labor and the loss by
waste caused by crop ends are reduced to a minimum.

BASIC STEEL.

The enormous production of steel has required the importation of large
quantities of iron ore of pure quality from Spain, Algeria, and
elsewhere, into this country, France, Belgium, Germany, and the United
States; and these supplies have contributed greatly to the reduction
in the price of steel to which I have referred, and what is, perhaps,
of equal importance, they have prevented the great fluctuations of
price which formerly prevailed. In 1869 this trade was in its infancy,
and almost confined to the importation of the Algerian ores of Mokta
el Hadid into France, while in 1882 Bilbao alone exported 3,700,000
tons of hematite ores to various countries to which the exports from
the south of Spain, Algeria, Elba, Greece, and other countries have to
be added. Great Britain alone imported 3,000,000 tons of high class,
including manganiferous iron ores last year.

It is questionable whether the mines of pure iron existing in Europe
would long bear a drain so great and still increasing; but happily the
question no longer presses for an answer, because the problem of
obtaining first-class steel from inferior ores has been solved by the
genius of our colleagues, Mr. Snelus and Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist,
and by the practical skill and indomitable resolution of Mr. Windsor
Richards. It is no part of the duty of the Institute to assign to each
of these gentlemen his precise share in the development of the basic
process. Whatever those shares may be, I feel sure you will agree with
your council as to the propriety of their having awarded a Bessemer
medal to two of these gentlemen--Messrs. Snelus and Thomas--to Mr.
Snelus as the first who made pure steel from impure iron in a Bessemer
converter lined with basic materials; to Mr. Thomas, who solved the
same problem independently, and so clearly demonstrated its
practicability to Mr. Richards by the trials at Blaenavon, as to have
led that gentleman to devote all his energies and the great resources
of the Eston Works to the task of making it what it now is, a great
commercial success. All difficulties connected with the lining of the
converter and in insuring a durability of the bottom, nearly, if not
quite, equal to that in the acid process, appear now to have been
successfully surmounted, and I am informed by Mr. Gilchrist that the
present production of basic steel in this country and on the Continent
is already at the rate of considerably more than 500,000 tons per
annum, and that works are now in course of construction which will
increase this quantity to more than a million tons.

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