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way Company, in competition with Belgian works, has been productive of some mild excitement on the Brussels Metal Bourse. Trade in I ranee remains quiet, but rates are generally steady. The French production of crude and finished iron and steel during the first half of the present year exhibits respective augmentations of 45,739 tons, 27,374 tons, and 37,872 tons, in comparison with the corresponding six months of 1891. The German iron market has shown no material change since last weed. In Westphalia, the demand continues uniformly ^unaltered, and prices are firm with a rising tendency. In Silesia, rolling-mills remain more briskly engaged; but this circumstance does not seem to have as yet exercised a favourable influence on the crude-iron trade in that district. An English firm has made the comparatively lowest offer for an important Dresden steel-rail contract: while the Bromberg railway authorities are reported to be prescribing stricter conditions on the rails supplied to them, with the view of excluding foreign competition. With respect to Spanish iron-ore, business in Bilbao is duller, and rates are a trifle weaker ; but trade in Southern Spain has shown no noteworthy change of late. The Swedish iron market has altered but little since our last report. The exports of iron and steel from Sweden in the first seven months of 1892 totalled 135,607 tons, compared with 132,834 tons in the equivalent period of the previous year. The Continental coal trade remains generally depressed. The American iron market is quiet; but values generally are upheld. Metal quotations, how-ever, are weaker.#«iwioual juntas.WHY THERE ARE MORE IRON THAN STONE METEORITES.AN addition to our present knowledge of meteorites has been presented by Mr. J. R. Eastman, who furnishes a list of iron aerolites, together with a table of their weights, and remarks as to the relative occurrences of iron and stony meteorites. According to this gentleman the ratio of weight of the former to the latter is as 1 to 12*23; and the aggregate weight of aerolitic iron which lias been observed and discovered up to date on the American continent is about 153 tons. “If the above ratio he true in all cases,” he says, “there should have been a fall of about 1,880 tons of lithic meteorites, or in all over 2,000 tons of aerolitic matter precipitated upon the earth.” Mr. Eastman offers the following theory to account for the apparent excess of iron over stony meteoritesWhen a stony meteorite falls to the earth it generally breaks into many fragments, and the ruptured surfaces plainly indicate the nature of the catastrophe. No case is on record where an iron aerolite showed any indication of having been twisted, broken, or torn from another mass of the same material. The true type of meteorite which reaches the earth from outer space is probably similar to that which fell in Ipwa County, Iowa, on February 12,1875. This celestial visitor is composed almost wholly of lithic matter, hut scattered through the mass are small grains of aickeluferous iron. This iron may exist in the stony matrix in all forms andsizes, from the microscopic nodule to the mass weighing several tons. When the lithic mass comes in contact with the earth’s atmosphere the impact breaks up the matrix, sets free the iron bodies, and they reach the earth in the same condition, so far as mass and figure are concerned, as they exist in the original formation. In such cases it is probable that the stony portion of the original body is rent into such small fragments by the explosion that these would not reach the earth in any appreciable size. The larger the masses of iron the more complete would be the destruction of the original body, and the larger lithic meteorites would be those containing the smaller granules of iron.” We may here revertto the auriferous aerolite which is reported . * hai j fal ia few days ago at Idaho. So far as we are aware, precious metals have never yet been found in substances of meteoric origin. Should, therefore, the telegraphic news which has been received in England of an apparently-remark-able discovery be in due course confirmed in every detail, scientists will find themselves confronted with another knotty problem, How to account for the presence of pure gold in the aerolite ? Up to the present the principal known constituent parts of meteoric iron are, in addition to “the most common and useful of metals and nickel, numerous compounds, such as ferrous su -phide' (troilite), sulphide of chromium (daubteelite) calcium sulphide (oldhamite), and phosphide of iron and nickel (schreibersite), which are not known as terrestrial minerals, besides magnetic pyrites, chromic iron, magnetite, pyroxene, olivine, and anorthite, which are ordi-| nary components of volcanic rocks.a new miner’s electric lamp.THE desirability of superseding in collieries the ordinary miner’s safety oil-lamp by an electric lamp, which becomes extinguished the instant the light is exposed to the naked air, has led to numerous endeavours to adapt electricity to this purpose. Secondary or storage batteries have been for the most part employed, although attempts have been made to press primary batteries into the service. The latest attempt in this connection is that of Colonel Engledue late R.E., of Byfleet, Surrey, who appears to have eliminated from his lamp all the objections to which previous lamps of this nature have for the most part been open. These are—excessive first cost and heavy cost of maintenance as compared with oil-lamps ; inability to burn the necessary number of hours; great weight, and the necessity for skilled labour to adjust them. The Engledue battery is of very simple construction, consisting of a wooden case 64 inches by 5 inches by 3 inches, having a partition forming two cells. These cells are lined with lead, to which are attached four carbon plates in each, thus bringing the carbons andlead into electrical circuit. The top of the battery is hermetically sealed by an indiarubber washer, over which an ebonite cover is tightly screwed into the wooden case. Two ebonite plugs are _ screwed into and through the ebonite cover, each of which holds a cylindrical zinc element, all being made tight by rubber washers to prevent leakage when the battery is reversed. Contacts with a glow lamp are made in the usual manner, the lamp being protected by a small lantern with a reflector. The battery is charged to within about an inch of its top with Colonel Engledue’s electrolytic fluid, and after working for four hours, when
Newspaper Details
Iron
London, Middlesex, GB
Fri, Sep 09, 1892
Page 6
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USA 09 Sep 2023
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