Chapter 9

The economy claimed for this process, over the blast furnace and puddling practice for the production of wrought iron, is that nearly all the fuel used in the puddling operation is saved, and that with about the same amount of fuel used in the blast furnace to produce a ton of pig iron, a ton of wrought iron blooms can be made. I had no opportunity of weighing the charges of ore and coal used, but I saw the process in actual operation at Rockaway, N.J. The iron produced was hammered up into good solid blooms, containing but little cinder. The muck-bar made from the blooms was fibrous in fracture, and showed every appearance of good iron. I am informed by the manager of the Sanderson Brothers' steel works, at Syracuse, N.Y., that they purchased blooms made by the Wilson process in 1881-1882, that _none_ of them showed red-shortness, and that they discontinued their use only on account of the injurious action of the titanium they contained on the melting pots. These blooms were made from magnetic sands from the Long Island and Connecticut coasts.

The drawing given shows the construction of the furnace employed. I quote from the published description:

"The upper part, or deoxidizer, is supported on a strong mantel plate resting on four cast iron columns.

"The retorts and flues are made entirely of fire-brick, from special patterns. The outside is protected by a wrought iron jacket made of No. 14 iron. The puddling furnace is of the ordinary construction, except in the working bottom, which is made longer to accommodate two charges of ore, and thus utilize more of the waste heat in reducing the ore to metallic iron.

"The operation of the furnace is as follows: The pulverized ore is mixed with 20 per cent. of pulverized charcoal or coke, and is fed into an elevator which discharges into the hopper on the deoxidizer leading into the retorts marked C. These retorts are proportioned so that they will hold ore enough to run the puddling furnace 24 hours, the time required for perfect deoxidation. After the retorts are filled, a fire is started in the furnace, and the products of combustion pass up through the main flue, or well, B, where they are deflected by the arch, and pass out through suitable openings, as indicated by arrows, into the down-takes marked E, and out through an annular flue, where they are passed under a boiler.

"It will be noticed that the ore is exposed to the waste heat on three sides of the retorts, and owing to the great surface so exposed, the ore is very thoroughly deoxidized, and reduced in the retorts before it is introduced into the puddling furnace for final reduction. The curved cast iron pipes marked D are provided with slides, and are for the purpose of introducing the deoxidized ore into the second bottom of the furnace. As before stated, the furnace is intended to accommodate two charges of ore, and as fast as it is balled up and taken out of the working bottom, the charge remaining in the second bottom is worked up in the place occupied by the first charge, and a _new_ charge is introduced. As fast as the ore is drawn out from the retorts the elevator supplies a new lot, so that the retorts are always filled, thus making the process continuous."

The temperature of the charge in the deoxidizer is from 800° to 1,000° F.--_Amer. Engineer._

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SOME REMARKS ON THE DETERMINATION OF HARDNESS IN WATERS.

By HERBERT JACKSON.

Having had occasion some short time ago to examine a hard water which owed half its hardness to salts of magnesium, I noticed that the soap test, applied in the usual way, gave a result which differed very much from that obtained by the quantitative estimation of calcium and magnesium. A perfectly normal lather was obtained when soap had been added in quantities sufficient to neutralize 14° of hardness, whereas the water contained salts of calcium and magnesium equivalent, on Clark's scale, to a hardness of 27°.

Although I was aware that similar observations had been made before, I thought that it might be useful to determine the conditions under which the soap test could not be depended upon for reliable results.

I found with waters containing calcium or magnesium alone that, whenever salts of either of these metals were in solution in quantities sufficient to give 23° of hardness on Clark's scale, no dependence could be placed upon the results given by the soap test. In the case of waters containing salts of both calcium and magnesium, I found that if the salts of the latter metal were in solution in quantities sufficient to give more than 10° of hardness, no evidence could be obtained of their presence so long as the salts of calcium in the same water exceeded 6°; in such a case a perfect and permanent lather was produced when soap had been added equivalent to 7° of hardness.

If any water be diluted so as to reduce the proportions of the salts of calcium and magnesium below those stated above, perfectly reliable results will of course be obtained.

Instead of dilution I found that heating the water to about 70° C. was sufficient to cause a complete reaction between the soap and the salts of calcium and magnesium, even if these were present in far larger quantities than any given here.

The experiments so far had all been made with a solution of Castile soap of the strength suggested by Mr. Wanklyn in his book on "Water Analysis." My attention was next directed to the use of any one of the compounds of which such a soap is composed. I commenced with sodium oleate, and found that by employing this substance in a moderately pure condition, perfectly reliable results could be obtained in very hard waters without the trouble of either diluting or heating. I was unable to try sodium stearate directly because of the slight solubility of this substance in cold water or dilute alcohol; but I found that a mixture of sodium oleate and stearate behaved in exactly the same manner as the Castile soap.

I am not prepared at present to state the exact reaction which takes place between salts of calcium and magnesium and a compound soap containing sodium oleate and stearate. I publish these results because I have not noticed anywhere the fact that some waters show a greater hardness with soap when their temperatures approach the boiling point than they do at the average temperature of the air, it being, I believe, the ordinary impression that cold water wastes more soap than hot water before a good and useful lather can be obtained, whereas with very many waters the case is quite the reverse. Neither am I aware at present whether it is well known that the use of sodium oleate unmixed with sodium stearate dispenses with the process of dilution even in very hard waters.--_Chem. News._

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THE DENSITY AND PRESSURE OF DETONATING GAS MIXTURES.

MM. Berthelot and Vielle have recently been studying the influence of the density of detonating gaseous mixtures upon the pressure developed. The measure of pressure developed by the same gaseous system, taken under two initial states of different density to which the same quantity of heat is communicated, is an important matter in thermodynamics. If the pressures vary in the same ratio as the densities, we may conclude, independently of all special hypotheses on the laws of gases, first, that the specific heat of the system is independent of its density (that is to say, of its initial pressure), and depends only on the absolute temperature, whatever that may mean; and secondly, that the relative variation of the pressure at constant volume, produced by the introduction of a determinate quantity of heat, is also independent of the pressure, and a function only of the temperature. Lastly, the pressure itself will vary proportionally with the absolute temperature, as defined by the theory of a perfect gas, and will serve to determine it. MM. Berthelot and Vielle operated with a bomb, at first kept at ordinary temperatures in the air, and afterward heated in an oil bath to 153 deg. Cent. They also employed isomeric mixtures of the gases; methylic ether, cyanogen, hydrogen, acetylene, and other gases were experimented upon, and the general conclusions are as follows: 1. The same quantity of heat being furnished to a gaseous system, the pressure of the system varies proportionally to the density of the system. 2. The specific heat of the gas is sensibly independent of the density as well toward very high temperatures as about deg. Cent. This is all true for densities near to those that the gas possesses cold under normal pressure, and which varied in the experiment to double the original value. 3. The pressure increases with the quantity of heat furnished to the same system. 4. The apparent specific heat increases parallel with this quantity of heat. These conclusions are independent of all hypotheses on the nature and laws of gases, and were simply drawn from the experiments in question.

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TURKISH BATHS FOR HORSES.

The Turkish bath has become an established institution in this country; men of all classes now use it for sanitary as well as remedial purposes. Athletes of various descriptions find it invaluable in "training," and all the distinguished jockeys and light weights keep themselves in condition by its use.

It was thought probable that what was good for man might also be good for the horse, and the fact has been proved. Messrs. Pickford, the eminent carriers, in their hospital for horses at Finchley, have had a bath in operation over eleven years, and find the horses derive great benefit from its use. The bath is put in operation three days a week, and is administered to over twenty horses in this time. The value of the bath having been thus proved, it is rather strange that it has not been more generally adopted by the large carrying firms. However, the Great Northern Railway Company at their new hospital for horses at Totteridge, are erecting a very complete Turkish bath. It consists of three rooms. First, a large wash room or grooming room, from which is entered the first hot room, or tepidarium, from 140° to 150° Fahr.; from this room, the horse, after being thoroughly acclimated, can, if necessary, pass to the hottest room, or calidarium, from 160° to 170° Fahr., and without any turning round can pass on into the grooming and washing room again. This last room is slightly heated from the two other rooms, and in each are stocks in which the animal can he fastened if required. The heating is done most economically by Constantine's convoluted stove, and thorough ventilation is secured from the large volume of hot air constantly supplied, which passes through the baths, and as it becomes vitiated is drawn off by specially designed outlets. The wash room is supplied with hot and cold water, which can, of course, be mixed to any required temperature.--_Building News._

|| |+-------------------------------------------------------+ |+-------------------++---__-------____------------__---+| || ||FOUL AIR FOUL AIR FOUL AIR|| || || || || || || || || ============== || || / / || || / / 1ST HOT ROOM || || / / || || / / ============== || || || || / =======+ || || / || || CURTAIN|| WASHING ROOM|| |+=========================== =|| \ || || || \ =======+ || || || || || || \ \ ============== || || \ \ || || \ \ 2ND HOT ROOM || FRESH || \ \ || / AIR || || ============== ||== || || +======|| | || || | WARM || | || ||FOUL AIR FOUL AIR| AIR || | |+-------------------++---__--+===+---------__----------+|== |+----------------------------|_|_|---------------------+| || | ||||| | || || | ||||| | || || |============ S T O K E R Y || || || || || || || || |+-----------------------------------|| +-------------------------------------+

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MIRYACHIT, A NEWLY DESCRIBED DISEASE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND ITS ANALOGUES.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read before the New York Neurological Society, February 5, 1884.]

By WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M.D., Surgeon-General, U.S. Army (Retired List); Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital.

In a very interesting account of a journey from the Pacific Ocean through Asia to the United States, by Lieutenant B.H. Buckingham and Ensigns George C. Foulk and Walter McLean,[2] United States navy, I find an affection of the nervous system described which, on account of its remarkable characteristics, as well as by reason of certain known analogies, I think should be brought to the special notice of the medical profession. I quote from the work referred to, the following account of this disease. The party is on the Ussuri River not far from its junction with the Amur in Eastern Siberia: "While we were walking on the bank here we observed our messmate, the captain of the general staff (of the Russian army), approach the steward of the boat suddenly, and, without any apparent reason or remark, clap his hands before his face; instantly the steward clapped _his_ hands in the same manner, put on an angry look, and passed on. The incident was somewhat curious, as it involved a degree of familiarity with the steward hardly to have been expected. After this we observed a number of queer performances of the steward, and finally comprehended the situation. It seemed that he was afflicted with a peculiar mental or nervous disease, which forced him to imitate everything suddenly presented to his senses. Thus, when the captain slapped the paddle-box suddenly in the presence of the steward, the latter instantly gave it a similar thump; or, if any noise were made suddenly, he seemed compelled against his will to imitate it instantly, and with remarkable accuracy. To annoy him, some of the passengers imitated pigs grunting, or called out absurd names; others clapped their hands and shouted, jumped, or threw their hats on the deck suddenly, and the poor steward, suddenly startled, would echo them all precisely, and sometimes several consecutively. Frequently he would expostulate, begging people not to startle him, and again would grow furiously angry, but even in the midst of his passion he would helplessly imitate some ridiculous shout or motion directed at him by his pitiless tormenters. Frequently he shut himself up in his pantry, which was without windows, and locked the door, but even there he could be heard answering the grunts, shouts, or pounds on the bulkhead outside. He was a man of middle age, fair physique, rather intelligent in facial expression, and without the slightest indication in appearance of his disability. As we descended the bank to go on board the steamer, some one gave a loud shout and threw his cap on the ground; looking about for the steward, for the shout was evidently made for his benefit, we saw him violently throw his cap, with a shout, into a chicken-coop, into which he was about to put the result of his foraging expedition among the houses of the stanitza.

[Footnote 2: "Observations upon the Korean Coast, Japanese-Korean Ports, and Siberia, made during a journey from the Asiatic Station to the United States, through Siberia to Europe, June 3 to September 8, 1882." Published by the United States Navy Department, Washington, 1883, pp. 51.]

"We afterward witnessed an incident which illustrated the extent of his disability. The captain of the steamer, running up to him, suddenly clapping his hands at the same time, accidentally slipped and fell hard on the deck; without having been touched by the captain, the steward instantly clapped his bands and shouted, and then, in powerless imitation, he too fell as hard and almost precisely in the same manner and position as the captain. In speaking of the steward's disorder, the captain of the general staff stated that it was not uncommon in Siberia; that he had seen a number of cases of it, and that it was commonest about Yakutsk, where the winter cold is extreme. Both sexes were subject to it, but men much less than women. It was known to Russians by the name of 'miryachit'".

So far as I am aware--and I have looked carefully through several books of travel in Siberia--no account of this curious disease has been hitherto published.

The description given by the naval officers at once, however, brings to mind the remarks made by the late Dr. George M. Beard, before the meeting of the American Neurological Association in 1880, relative to the "Jumpers" or "Jumping Frenchmen" of Maine and northern New Hampshire.[3]

[Footnote 3: "Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases," vol. vii., 1880, p. 487.]

In June, 1880, Dr. Beard visited Moosehead Lake, found the "Jumpers," and experimented with them. He ascertained that whatever order was given them was at once obeyed. Thus, one of the jumpers who was sitting in a chair with a knife in his hand was told to throw it, and he threw it quickly, so that it stuck in a beam opposite; at the same time he repeated the order to throw it with a cry of alarm not unlike that of hysteria or epilepsy. He also threw away his pipe, which he was filling with tobacco, when he was slapped upon the shoulder. Two jumpers standing near each other were told to strike, and they struck each other very forcibly. One jumper, when standing by a window, was suddenly commanded by a person on the other side of the window to jump, and he jumped up half a foot from the floor, repeating the order. When the commands are uttered in a quick, loud voice, the jumper repeats the order. When told to strike he strikes, when told to throw he throws whatever he may happen to have in his hand. Dr. Beard tried this power of repetition with the first part of the first line of Virgil's "Æneid" and the first part of the first line of Homer's "Iliad," and out-of-the-way words of the English language with which the jumper could not be familiar, and he repeated or echoed the sound of the word as it came to him in a quick, sharp voice, at the same time he jumped, or struck, or threw, or raised his shoulders, or made some other violent muscular motion. They could not help repeating the word or sound that came from the person that ordered them, any more than they could help striking, dropping, throwing, jumping, or starting; all of these phenomena were indeed but parts of the general condition known as jumping. It was not necessary that the sound should come from a human being; any sudden or unexpected noise, as the explosion of a gun or pistol, the falling of a window, or the slamming of a door--provided it was unexpected and loud enough--would cause these jumpers to exhibit some one or all of these phenomena. One of these jumpers came very near cutting his throat, while shaving, on hearing a door slam. They had been known to strike their fists against a red-hot stove, to jump into the fire and into water. They could not help striking their best friend if near them when ordered. The noise of a steam whistle was especially obnoxious to them. One of these jumpers, when taking some bromide of sodium in a tumbler, was told to throw it, and he dashed the tumbler upon the floor. It was dangerous to startle them in any way when they had an ax or an knife in their hands. All of the jumpers agreed that it tired them to be jumped, and they dreaded it, but they were constantly annoyed by their companions.

From this description it will at once, I think, be perceived that there are striking analogies between "miryachit" and this disorder of the "Jumping Frenchmen" of Maine. Indeed, it appears to me that, if the two affections were carefully studied, it would be found that they were identical, or that, at any rate, the phenomena of the one could readily be developed into those of the others. It is not stated that the subjects of miryachit do what they are told to do. They require an example to reach their brains through the sense of sight or that of hearing, whereas the "Jumpers" do not apparently perform an act which is executed before them, but they require a command. It seems, however, that a "Jumper" starts whenever any sudden noise reaches his ears.

In both classes of cases a suggestion of some kind is required, and then the act takes place independently of the will. There is another analogous condition known by the Germans as _Schlaftrunkenheit_, and to English and American neurologists as somnolentia, or sleep-drunkenness. In this state an individual, on being suddenly awakened, commits some incongruous act of violence, ofttimes a murder. Sometimes this appears to be excited by a dream, but in others no such cause could be discovered.

Thus, a sentry fell asleep during his watch, and, being suddenly aroused by the officer in command, attacked the latter with his sword, and would have killed him but for the interposition of the bystanders. The result of the medical examination was that the act was involuntary, being the result of a violent confusion of mind consequent upon the sudden awaking from a profound sleep. Other cases are cited by Wharton and Stille in their work on medical jurisprudence, by Hoffbauer, and by myself in "Sleep and its Derangements."

The following cases among others have occurred in my own experience:

A gentleman was roused one night by his wife, who heard the street-door bell ring. He got up, and, without paying attention to what she said, dragged the sheets off of the bed, tore them hurriedly into strips, and proceeded to tie the pieces together. She finally succeeded in bringing him to himself, when he said he had thought the house was on fire, and he was providing means for their escape. He did not recollect having had any dream of the kind, but was under the impression that the idea had occurred to him at the instant of his awaking.

Another was suddenly aroused from a sound sleep by the slamming of a window-shutter by the wind. He sprang instantly from his bed, and, seizing a chair that was near, hurled it with all his strength against the window. The noise of the breaking of glass fully awakened him. He explained that he imagined some one was trying to get into the room and had let his pistol fall on the floor, thereby producing the noise which had startled him.