CHAPTER XIV.

METALLURGY.

The Antiquity of the Art.--The “Lost Arts” Rediscovered.-- The Earliest Forms of Smelting Furnaces.--Ancient Iron and Steel.--India and Africa.--Early Spain and the Catalan Furnace.--The Armour of Don Quixote.--Bell’s History of the Art.--Germany.--Cast Iron Made by Ancients, Disused for 15 Centuries.--Reinvented by Page and Baude in England, 1543.-- German Furnaces.--Dud Dudley, the Oxford Graduate and his Furnace, 1619.--Origin of Coke in England.--Use in United States.--Revival of Cast Iron.--Cast Steel in England, Huntsman, 1740.--Henry Cort and Puddling, 1784, and its Subsequent Wonderful Value.--Steam Engine of Watt and Iron.--Refining of Precious Metals.--Amalgamating Process.--Review of the 18th Century.--Herschel’s Distinction of Empirical and Scientific Art.--The Nineteenth Century, Scientific Metallurgy.--Steam, Chemistry, Electricity.--Rogers’ Iron Floor.--Neilson’s Hot Air Blast, 1828, Patent Sustained.--Anthracite Coal.--Colossal Furnaces.--Gas Producers.--Bunsen’s Experiments.--Constituents of Ores.--Squeezing Process.--Burden’s Method.--Mechanical Puddlers.--Rotary.--Henry Bessemer’s Great Process--1855-1860.-- Steel from Iron.--Holley’s Apparatus.--Effects of and Changes in Bessemer Process.--Old Methods and Means Revived and Improved.-- Eminent Inventors.--New Metals and New Processes Discovered.-- Harveyised Steel.--Irresistible Projectiles and Impenetrable Armour Plate.--Krupp’s Works.--Immense Manufactures in United States.--Treatment of Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, etc.; Mining Operations, Separation, Reduction.--Chemical Methods: Lixiviation or Leaching.--MacArthur.--Forrest.--Sir Humphry Davy.--Scheele.--Chlorine and Cyanide Processes.--Alloys.-- Babbitting.--Metallic Lubricants.--Various Alloys and Uses.-- Reduction of Aluminium and other Metals.--Electro-Metallurgy.-- Diamonds to be Made.--All Arts have Waited on Development of this Art. 218