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by the following rationale of the operation: When cyanide of potassium, which consists of two atoms of carbon and one each of nitrogen and potassium, is decomposed at a high temperature in contact with iron by reason of the affinity of its carbon for the iron, the nitrogen would be set free, but that in the presence of ignited carbon and an alkaline base it always will combine with these to produce cyanide of this base. In this case, an atom of potassium being released, all the conditions are favorable for this reaction. Thus the charcoal is added to reproduce the cyanide of potassium as fast as it is decomposed; and the action of this salt is as a carrier to convert the charcoal into the proper condition required for its being taken up by the iron. These and other experiments led to the charging of melting pots with bits of malleable iron and a mixture of cyanide salts and powdered charcoal. After melting, the product turned out into ingot moulds was found to be cast steel, which, by the ordinary method, was then drawn into bars. The process proved to be more expeditious and economical than any before applied to the manufacture of steel. In 1851 and 1852 its practicability was demonstrated upon a large scale, first at Rochester and afterward at New York, and its application to the reduction of iron ores and the production of steel direct from the ore tested. At this stage of the history of the process Prof. Eaton disposed of his interest in it to other parties, who directed their attention wholly to attempts to work by means of it the ores of iron. They neglected to patent the process, and some time afterward application was made and obtained for a patent by an individual who, while the demonstrations were made in New York, had an opportunity of obtaining knowledge of the materials employed. Thus the discoverer and original proprietors lost the exclusive control of this method of making steel. Under the patented process another salt (sal ammoniac) has been used, which, however, can have no effect upon the result, as it volatilizes at a temperature much below that at which the other ingredients of the mixture are affected. The manufacture is now carried on in New Jersey and on Staten island by the owners of the patent; and works are about to be started at Pittsburg. The process, however, is incumbered with the objection that it is necessary to employ the choicest kinds of American bar iron, in order to produce cast steel of a uniform good quality; and to the still more serious difficulty arising from the rapid destruction of the costly melting pots in which the malleable iron is fused. These rarely stand more than two or three meltings, and some only one, before they are rendered worthless. The quality of much of the steel produced is fully equal to the best of English manufacture, so that its use has been adopted in several of the important mines of Lake Superior, where the consumption of steel is very great, and also in numerous quarries and machine shops for

the various tools employed.-Processes were afterward invented by Prof. Eaton for converting cast iron into steel, which are particularly applicable to moulded objects, the form of which it is desirable to retain in the condition of steel. The castings adapted to this operation are such as are employed in the ordinary manufacture of malleable iron castings, being prepared from those mixtures of pig iron which produce a silver-white high iron of great hardness, and such fluidity when melted as to take the minutest impressions of the mould. By boiling these in fused carbonate of soda, Prof. Eaton found that the carbon of the cast iron was gradually removed, proceeding from the outside of the articles toward the centre, and that, according to the stage of the operation at which the articles were taken out, they might be obtained in steel of any desired grade of hardness or proportion of carbon, test bars of suitable thickness introduced into the pot with the articles to be converted and taken out from time to time indicating the progress of the operation. Bubbles of carbonic oxide rising through the boiling soda indicate that the process of removing the carbon is still going on. The pot employed is of cast iron, an inch or more thick, and the boiling is kept up for about 70 hours to produce the change throughout a thickness of about an inch. The effect of the carbonate of soda is not merely to combine with and remove the carbon from the iron, but any sulphur, silicon, phosphorus, &c., present are taken up, and the metal is freed from these impurities so detrimental to steel. The process was found well adapted for the rapid production in steel of multiplied copies of the same article, especially of those which by reason of their irregular figures it would be difficult to forge, such as plough points, &c.; while it was also well suited to others, as hoes, shovels, &c., which, being cast in small thick plates and converted, might then be rolled out, the tang properly shaped, and the finish given without the necessity of riveting or welding separate pieces together. Bars of cast iron have also thus been converted into excellent steel and used for cutlery. The forging after converting no doubt has the effect of giving greater diversity to the metal, although the converted steel presents no indications of deficiency in this respect. If necessary, articles cast in the shapes they are to retain may be rendered more dense by compressing them in dies.-Carbonate of soda was found to be much more efficient than the hydrate, and this led to experimenting upon the effect of carbonic acid gas as a decarbonizing agent. In the bottom of a vertical cylindrical retort were placed bits of limestone, above these pieces of cast iron, and from the top proceeded an open tube for the escape of the gases. The retort was so arranged in the fire as to receive the heat chiefly in its middle portion, all that was required at the bottom being enough to slowly expel the carbonic acid from the limestone. When the retort was heated, the gas that

escaped proved to be inflammable, burning with the blue flame of carbonic oxide, and was evidently produced at the expense of the carbon of the cast iron, which furnished an atom to each atom of carbonic acid from the limestone. The diminution of the inflammable gas indicated the removal of most of the carbon, and the process being stopped, the cast iron was found to be converted into good steel. To protect delicate castings from being bent at the high temperature required, they are advantageously packed in some coarsely powdered substance; and oxide of iron, such as is used in the ordinary malleable iron process, is especially well suited to this purpose; for, beside accomplishing this object, it readily gives up oxygen to carbonic oxide at high temperatures, converting this back to carbonic acid in twofold quantity, and this is immediately ready to renew its decarbonizing action upon the castings with multiplied effect. By calculation, the quantity of carbonic acid required to decarbonize any amount of cast iron, the composition of which may be assumed as represented by the formula Fe, C, is as 66 to 690, the latter being the weight of the iron; but if 160 lbs. of peroxide of iron be added, the first effect should be to produce 132 lbs. of carbonic acid, which should decarbonize twice the original amount of cast iron. The following modifications have hence been recommended in the manufacture of steel by the soda process: 1st, the use of the bicarbonate of soda, in place of the simple carbonate; and 2d, the passing of a current of free carbonic acid through or over the bath of melted soda containing the cast iron, in order that the soda may be recarbonated as fast as its carbonic acid is decomposed by the cast iron. Common salt is advantageously added, considerably reducing the balk of soda required. In case of the process having been carried so far as to render the external portion too soft, Prof. Eaton rehardens this portion by immersing the articles for a short time in a bath of fused prussiate of potash. He finds that merely keeping them at a high temperature in a furnace tends to distribute the carbon they contain uniformly throughout the mass. It is recommended to make use of the final product of carbonic oxide generated in this process, as a reducing agent of the native oxides of iron. For this purpose the gas may be led into a second retort charged with these oxides, and there being reconverted into carbonic acid by its reaction upon the oxide, this gas may be returned to the decarbonizing retort to go again the same round. The use of these processes was secured to Prof. Eaton by patent, June 25, 1861.—The great importance of the manufacture of steel in England is shown by the following statement of its condition in 1853. It is there carried on chiefly in Sheffield and its neighborhood, where there were at that time 160 converting furnaces of a capacity of 300 tons of bar steel per annum, and 1,495 melting holes for cast steel capable

of melting, for each furnace of 10 holes, 200 tons. The actual product has been estimated at 40,000 tons of bar steel, producing 23,000 tons of cast steel, 10,000 tons of coach spring steel, and 7,000 tons to be converted into German, fagot, and single and double shear steel. The commercial value of the cast steel varies from £35 to £60 per ton, averaging about £45. The price of the bar steel varies from £28 to £60 per ton, and the rate of £35 per ton, given in the table below, is probably under the average. Coach spring steel is £19 per ton. The whole may then be rated as follows: 28,000 tons of cast steel, all qualities at £45 per ton £1,085,000 7,000 tons of bar steel, including German, fagot, single and double shear steel, average £85 per ton.. 10,000 tons of coach spring steel, £19 per ton..

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Concerning the production in the United States no correct statistics have been collected, and the estimate just named can certainly not be applied to steel of original manufacture. There are many small establishments in Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York, in which scrap steel is remelted, and some cementation steel is produced at a few places in different parts of the country for the use of those who manufacture it; but American cast steel is hardly known in the markets. The Adirondac manufacture noticed in ADIRONDAC MOUNTAINS has ceased, and some others also in New Jersey. Some cast steel is, however, made in the works in Jersey City; and at Rockaway, N. J., it is produced to the extent of about a ton a day. In Connecticut also there is a manufactory of about the same capacity. There is one establishment in operation on Staten island, N. Y., which made about 800 tons of steel in 1861, and has a capacity of production somewhat larger. There is another, also employing the cyanide process, at Pittsburg, Penn., and making 500 tons or more per annum. the total production of cast steel appears not to exceed 2,000 tons; and that of blistered steel, to be used without melting, is probably not much more. The great abundance of ores which we possess, as well adapted for this manufacture as those of Sweden and Norway, must ere long render us independent of all foreign competition in the production of this important article. The importations of steel into the United States, not including cutlery and saws, were as follows for the years ending June 30, 1859, and June 30, 1860:

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-Although England exceeds all other countries in its production of steel, the largest manufactory in the world is probably that of F. Krupp of Essen, in Rhenish Prussia. It is situated in the midst of coal mines, and covers with its buildings and yards a space of 1,600 by 1,800 feet; the roofs of the buildings cover 20 acres. It employs 2,300 to 2,500 men, and consumes more than 200 tons of coal each day, and 49,000 feet of gas for lighting the works. The process employed has not been made public; but the products have attracted great attention in Europe, from their unparalleled size. They consist of steel cannon, steamboat and other shafts, railroad axles and tires, and machinery, rolls for mints, &c. At the Paris exhibition of 1855 there was a mass of steel from these works of 10,000 lbs. weight, and another piece has been produced of 20,000 lbs. weight. A steel shaft for a French steamer was made 30 feet long, at a cost of $6,000. The largest casting made is of 40 tons weight, but the works are competent to make much heavier ones. Of the steel car axles it is reported that Mr. Krupp pledges himself to pay $10,500 if any that he sells breaks within 10 years. The heaviest hammer weighs 40 tons. A steel cannon is to be exhibited in London in 1862 of 10-inch bore, the casting of which requires the labor of 1,250 men in pouring the metal into the mould. Many steel cannon have been produced for the European governments, and three small ones have been sent to this country for the city of Philadelphia. The manufacture of cannon from puddled steel was commenced in New York in 1861 on the plans devised by Mr. Norman Wiard, and the first piece was completed and ready for service on July 1; since which time many more, chiefly 6 and 12-pounders, with some 50-pounders, have been completed, and have done efficient service in the campaigns in the South and West. The steel is puddled at the rolling mills in Troy, N. Y., and Trenton, N. J., the process being stopped at the point when sufficient carbon remains in the metal to give it the steely character. The metal is then hammered into blooms, and is taken to New York, where it is forged in the works of Messrs. Tugnot and Dally; after which the solid

$905,859 164,615 $1,530,897 235,369 $1,193,456 pieces are bored and rifled by Messrs. Plass and CO. The largest gun made up to April, 1861, is of 5.1 inches caliber, and weighs 6,000 lbs. Pieces found defective on trial tests are only about one to the hundred. The tensile strength of the steel is said to be equal to a strain of from 107,000 to 118,000 lbs. to the square inch. -Many of the applications of steel to useful purposes have been incidentally alluded to in the course of the present article. These are very numerous, and are constantly increasing, as the methods of manufacture are improved. When produced in a small way by imperfect and difficult processes, its use was confined to cutting tools and important instruments that required great hardness, strength, or elasticity. In many its use was economized by making only the part subjected to wear of steel, and welding this to iron; and the practice is still retained to some extent, as in axes and other heavy tools; while in others, as the drills and hammers which consume immense quantities of steel in mining and various manufacturing operations, it has been found more advantageous, at least in the United States, to use cast steel exclusively. Its applications to cutlery are quite as successfully conducted in this country as in any part of the world. But for the material itself we are chiefly dependent upon Great Britain; also for the plates used for saws and steel pens, as noticed in the articles on these subjects. Plates for engraving require an excellent variety of steel specially prepared for this purpose. Springs of all sizes, from the hair springs of watches to the heaviest used upon steam carriages (see SPRING), consume it in large quantities. Steel wire is made to some extent for springs, musical instruments, needles, &c. Having about three times the strength of iron wire of the same size, it is advantageously employed for making ropes for special purposes. The application of steel to cannon is of great importance from the large saving in weight over cast or wrought iron compatible with the same strength. This branch is yet in its infancy, and is carried on to any extent only at the works of Mr. Krupp at Essen. The same may be said of car axles, shafts for steamboats, &c. The sonorousness of steel

renders it a suitable material for bells; some of large size have been made in England, one of which is in use at San Francisco, California. For the effect of tungsten in combination with steel, see TUNGSTEN.

STEEL ENGRAVING. See ENGRAVING. STEELE, a S. E. co. of Minnesota, drained by the Lester river and branches of Cannon river; area, 432 sq. m.; pop. in 1860, 2,863. The surface is undulating, diversified by prairie and strips of forest, and the soil fertile. There are 3 or 4 small lakes and a number of fine streams of water. In 1859 there were 32 schools. It is on the line of the projected Transit railroad. Capital, Owatonia.

STEELE, SIR RICHARD, a British author born in Dublin in 1675, died at Llangunnor near Caermarthen, Wales, Sept. 1, 1729. His father was secretary to the duke of Ormond, lord lieutenant of Ireland, and through the influence of that nobleman young Steele received his early education at the Charterhouse, where his intimacy with Joseph Addison was formed. In 1692 he entered Merton college, Oxford, but left at the expiration of 3 years without taking a degree, in the hope of obtaining a commission in the army. His friends discountenanced the idea, and a relative in Ireland, who had named him heir to a large estate, threatened to disinherit him if he carried it into effect; but Steele, having made up his mind to be a soldier, enlisted as a private in the horse guards, and was accordingly disinherited. His genial humor and ceaseless flow of animal spirits made him a general favorite, and he was promoted to a cornetcy, and subsequently to a captaincy in Lucas's fusileers, the latter appointment being due to his colonel, Lord Cutts, to whom he had dedicated "The Christian Hero" (1701), a little book written when the author was "deep in debt, in drink, and in all the follies of the town," to strengthen his mind in habits of religion and virtue. In odd contrast to this work appeared in the succeeding year his comedy of "The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode," which had great success, and was followed by "The Tender Husband" and "The Lying Lover." The latter, as Steele some years later informed the house of commons, was "damned for its piety;" but the author, who had by this time become a fashionable man upon town, readily turned his talents into other channels, and for many years wrote nothing more for the stage. He took his place among the wits of Queen Anne's reign, was appointed gazetteer and gentleman usher to Prince George of Denmark, and, with ample means derived from two marriages, the second of which took place in 1707, he lived constantly beyond his income, was often in pressing need of money, and never free from fear of the bailiffs. Amid the most reckless dissipation, he was invariably good-natured and amiable, and his follies were usually succeeded by severe contrition, which however would not prevent him from transgressing as deeply the next day.

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His life, in fact, as he has himself expressed it, was passed in "sinning and repenting." Availing himself of the hint afforded by Defoe's triweekly paper, the "Review," he commenced in 1709 the "Tatler," for which Addison furnished many of the leading papers, though by no means so many as Steele, whom he now assisted to the appointment of a commissioner of the stamp office. With the overthrow of the whigs in 1710 he lost his office of gazetteer, and with it the means of supplying the items of official news which at first formed an important feature in the "Tatler." This paper was accordingly succeeded in 1711 by the "Spectator," written chiefly by Steele and Addison, and subsequently by the "Guardian," begun and ended in 1713, and a variety of similar periodicals, some of which enjoyed but a brief existence. In 1713 Steele was led, through dissatisfaction with ministerial measures, to resign his office, and was returned to parliament from the borough of Stockbridge, in Hampshire; but having been arraigned before the bar of the house of commons for writing articles in the "Crisis" and the "Englishman,' maliciously insinuating that the Protestant succession in the house of Hanover was in danger under her majesty's administration," he was adjudged to be guilty of a scandalous libel, and was expelled by a vote of 245 to 152 the whole proceeding being, according to Lord Mahon, "a most fierce and unwarrantable stretch of party violence." His pen, however, continued to be actively employed in the whig interest, and upon the accession of George I. he received several profitable appointments, including that of governor of the royal company of comedians, was knighted by the king, and elected to parliament from Boroughbridge. No accession of means however seemed to better his fortunes, and while holding half a dozen offices, and commanding the admiration of the town by his talents, he was frequently reduced to the most pitiable pecuniary shifts. Having opposed the court measure for fixing permanently the number of peers, he was deprived by the lord chamberlain of his license for acting plays, whereby, according to his own account, he sustained a loss of nearly £10,000. In 1721 he was reinstated in his office, and produced in the succeeding year his last and best comedy, "The Conscious Lovers," which proved completely successful, and brought him in ample receipts. He was nevertheless reduced soon after to the necessity of selling his share in the playhouse in Drury Lane, the proceeds of which were speedily consumed by extravagance and an unsuccessful lawsuit with the managers. At this juncture a paralytic attack rendered him incapable of further literary labor, and he retired to a small estate near Caermarthen in Wales, left him by his second wife, where he died almost forgotten by his contemporaries, having "outlived his places, his schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and almost every thing but his kind heart." Although the fame of Steele

as an essayist is somewhat overshadowed by that of his literary coadjutor, Addison, he possessed perhaps the more fertile imagination of the two, and is entitled to the credit of having first conceived the characters of Sir Roger de Coverley, Will Honeycomb, and others of the Spectator club, which received their finishing touches from the hand of Addison. He was distinguished by a chivalric admiration of women, and his letters to his wife, about 400 in number, form one of the most singular correspondences ever published. There is an elaborate treatise on the character and genius of Steele in Forster's "Historical and Biographical Essays" (2 vols., London, 1858); and Thackeray, in his "Lectures on the English Humorists,' has treated the same subject at length. The writings of Steele have never been collected. STEELYARD. See BALANCE. STEEN, JAN, a Dutch painter, born in Leyden in 1636, died in 1689. He early rose into great reputation as a humorous painter, throughout life was addicted to good living, and is even said to have opened a public tavern. His pic tures represent merrymakings, card parties, tavern interiors, alchemists' laboratories, schools, sick rooms, &c. According to Kugler he was almost the only artist of the Netherlands who brought into full play all the elements of genuine low comedy. Fine-specimens of his powers are to be found in private collections in England, but the greatest number of his works are in the museums of the Hague and Amsterdam. That of the Hague contains the well known picture entitled a "Representation of Human Life." He painted in all about 300 pictures.

STEERING APPARATUS, the appliances by which vessels are guided through the water. The earliest method was by a long oar passed out of the stern. Sometimes more than one were used for this purpose, as is seen in the drawings of some of the ships of the ancient Egyptians. An oar is a very efficient means of steering boats, and is still employed on such as often require sudden turning or the exertion of considerable force to bring the boat round, as on some canal boats, whale boats, rafts, &c. The principle of the rudder is explained in the acticle SHIP, vol. xiv. p. 601. The head of the rudder, projecting above the deck, is furnished with a horizontal handle or lever called the tiller, by which the rudder is turned. The term helm is often applied to this, as also to the rudder and tiller together. As by reason of the motion of a vessel through the water a powerful force is exerted to keep the rudder on a line with the keel, and as by the shock of the waves the rudder is sometimes violently thrust to one side or the other, it becomes necessary on small vessels to steady the tiller by a rope made fast to the weather side of the vessel, and one end held with a turn around the tiller. A block and tackle are required for vessels of larger size, replaced upon still larger ones by "the wheel." This is a wheel and axle set upon the tiller, the rope of which,

making several turns round the axle, is carried toward each side of the ship, so that the turning of the axle draws the tiller toward that side the rope of which is being wound up. The handles for working the wheel appear as spokes extended beyond the periphery. About the year 1802 boats were used on the Forth and Clyde canal with the steering wheel fixed forward and connected with the rudder by ropes, chains, or rods. _Though this plan did not continue in use in Europe, it necessarily followed the construction in the United States of the long river steamers, the decks of which are obstructed with cabins and machinery, and the wheel has been set in these in the most conspicuous place forward, in a sort of tower called the pilot house. In consequence of serious disasters having occurred from the ropes leading to the rudder being burned in case of fire, it is now made a law that chains or iron rods shall be used for this purpose. Large vessels require several men at the wheel in rough weather; and the very largest appear to have fallen short of due efficiency in their steering apparatus, and of the necessary power for working it. Steam engines specially devoted to this work may yet be found indispensable. By the use of 2 screw propellers, one each side the rudder, it is found by Mr. Edwin A. Stevens of Hoboken, N. J., that when these are worked in opposite directions the vessel may be turned on its centre as a pivot, and he has adopted this plan, which is the most efficient steering apparatus known, for the "Stevens battery." (See BATTERY, and SHIP.)

STEEVENS, GEORGE, an English author and Shakespearian editor, born at Stepney in 1736, died at Hampstead in Jan. 1800. He was educated at Eton and at King's college, Cambridge. His first publication, a reprint of "Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare, being the whole Number printed in Quarto during his Lifetime" (4 vols. 8vo., 1766), contained, in addition to a faithful reprint of the original text, a variety of readings from other quarto editions, given in the foot notes; and the reputation which he thereby acquired led to his association with Johnson in the preparation of the edition of Shakespeare which was published in 1773 with their joint names. Their 2d edition appeared in 1778, and two years later Malone, who had rendered Johnson and Steevens some assistance in its preparation, published a supplement containing the doubtful plays and the poems. Steevens, who regarded this almost in the light of a challenge, immediately set to work upon a new edition of Shakespeare, which occupied him, in conjunction with Isaac Reed, incessantly during the next 12 years. Disregarding the principles which had guided his former labors, he aimed at preparing a text which, "instead of a timid and servile adherence to ancient copies," should be distinguished by the "expulsion of useless and supernumerary syllables, and an occasional supply of such as might fortuitously have been

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