Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1876 — Watching the Bessemer Process. [ARTICLE]

Watching the Bessemer Process.

A CORRESPONDENT of the lf eW Tfl&j World thus describes the methq<k staircase on. a level with the Todndry cupola furnaces, into whose fieiy smaws workmen continually toss big woodep bowlfuls of coal, coke, iron and lfmestohe These cupolas are circular, about ax feet in diameter, with six tuyeres of an aggregate area of 200 square inches! The method of charging them is this : The bed of the charge Is formed of.some 5,400 tons of fuel, upon which is laid some three and a half tons of pig iron. A second bed of 1,400 pounds of fuel is then laid and three more tons of pig .iroa added. These alternate charges of fuel and pig iron continue until the cupola is filled, and it is kept thus filled teethe charging door continually. A small quantity of limestone is added occasionally, acting as a flux. The cupolas will melt 100,000 pounds of iron in nine earn secutive hours, and will bold five tons during the first few charges, but as the hearth becomes filled with slag the capacity is decreased and the furnaces require to he oftener tapped. In the cupolas, then, the first stage of the Bessemer process—the decarbonization of the pig iron—is accomplished. Emptied- now* from the cupolas into enormous ladles of several tons capacity, the liquefied inass is from them poured into trenches which lead to the mouth of the huge converters: (each holding five tons), which swing-like kettles on axes just above their centers. Brilliant pyrotechnics appear. Gaseous explosions from the hot streams toss showers of sparks high among the bean&pand pillars.: The hissing of these molten rivulets is louder than that of a thousand serpents. Decarbonized, the iron is useless. The next step in the process iB to recarbonize it to an exact degree, thus making steel of it For this purpose some smaller spiegeleisen furnaces have been charged with highly-carbonized irop imported from Belgium, and certain.proportions of their con tents.are now emptied into each of the converters, Almost instantaneously the commingling of the elements takes place and a blast of air from the fan completes the fusion as the converters are turned upright with their mouths under the projections of neighboring chimneys. The flame and din which issue from these nozzles for a. few minutes are hideous enough for hells. Suddenly the blast ceases. The fusion is complete. The steel-broth is made. Each condenser turns down its open nozzle and pours out a Vesuvian flood into ladles waiting below, over wlfht are called the ingot-beds. These bed# are sunken circles in the earth. Around their rims are set rows of molds, shaped tike long tin pails, each intended to hold just about the quantity of steel needed to make a rati. The ladles, affixed to the ends of powerful cranes, swing around these circles, depositing in each mold its portion. Cool: ing, the several portions form the steel ingots, which are transported^to the roll-ing-mill hard by, reheated white and' passed between rollers after rollers until, I elongated and shaped, they become rails.