" A Prussian gentleman, M. Preiger, has been also successful in manufacturing a new alloy, which he calls ferro manganese, consisting of sixty to eighty per cent. of metallic manganese. It is extremely useful in making malleable iron by the Bessemer process, in which spiegeleisen cannot be employed on account of the large proportion of carbon it contains.
" 'It is supposed that there is not one spot on any railway in Europe where the amount of traffic equals that at the Chalk-farm bridge at Camden Town. At this spot there is a narrow throat in the line, from which converges the whole system of rails employed in the London termini of this great railway.* Here all passengers, goods, and coal-traffic have to pass; here, also, the making-up of trains and shunting of carriages is con tinually going on. At this particular spot two steel rails were fixed on May 2, 1862, on one side of the line, and two new iron rails were on the same day placed precisely oppo site to them, so that no engine or carriage could pass over the iron rails without passing over the steel ones also. When the iron rails became too much worn to be any longer safe for the passage of trains, they were turned the other way upwards, and when the second side of the iron rails was worn as far as the safety of the traffic would allow, the worn-out rail was replaced by a new iron one,—the same process being repeated as often as was found necessary. Thus we find, at the date of the last report on March 1, 1865, that seven rails had been entirely worn out on both faces. Since then, another rail has been worn out up to July.
" 'In conclusion, it may be remarked that cast steel is now being used as a substitute for iron to a great and rapidly increasing extent.
" 'The jury reports of the International Exhibition of 1851 show that the entire pro duction of steel of all kinds in Sheffield was, at that period, 35,000 tons annually, of which about 18,000 tons were cast steel,--equal to 346 tons per week ; the few other small cast-steel works in the country would probably bring up this quantity to 400 tons per week as the entire production of cast steel in Great Britain. The jury report also
states that an ingot of steel, called the "monster ingot," weighing 24 cwt, was ex hibited by Messrs. Turton, and was supposed to be the largest mass of steel manu factured in England. Since that date a great change has been made; for the largest Bessemer apparatus at present erected at Sheffield, at the works of Messrs. John Brown & Co., is capable of producing with ease every four hours a mass of cast steel weighing 24 tons, being twenty times larger than the " monster ingot" of 1851.t " 'There are now seventeen extensive Bessemer steel-works in Great Britain. At the works of the Barrow Steel Company 1200 tons per week of finished steel can easily be turned out, and when their new converting-house, containing twelve more five-ton converters, is completed, these magnificent works will be capable of producing weekly from 2000 to 2400 tons of cast steel. There are at present erected and in course of erection in England no less than sixty converting-vessels, each capable of producing from three to ten tons at a single charge. When in regular operation, these vessels are capable of producing fully 6000 tons of steel weekly, or equal to fifteen times the entire production of cast steel in Great Britain before the introduction of the Bessemer process. The average selling price of this steel is at least £20 per ton below the average price at which cast steel was sold at the period mentioned. With the present means of production, there fore, a saving of no less than £6,240,000 per annum may be effected in Great Britain alone, even in this infant state of the Bessemer steel Engineer, September 15.