which was previously absolutely a waste product.  The method of making open-hearth steel castings might be varied greatly.  The ordinary method generally practiced in this country was a modification of the Terre Noire process.  The moulds employed were only of secondary importance to the making of the steel itself.  Unless the mould was good, no matter how good the steel was, the casing was spoiled.  The best composition which had been found for moulds was that of a large firm in Sheffield, but unfortunately it was rather expensive.  A good steel casting ought to contain about 0.3 per cent. carbon and 0.3 per cent. of silicon and from 0.6 to 1 per cent. of manganese.  Such a casting, if free from other impurities, would have a strength of between 30 and 40 tons, and on an 8 inch specimen would give an elongation of 20 per cent. or even more.  It was possible by the Terre Noire process to produce by casting as good a piece of steel as could be made by any amount of rolling and hammering.

The chairman said that, as they had so high an authority as Mr. McCallem present, Staffordshire men would like to know his opinion upon the open hearth basic system, in which they were greatly interested.

Mr. McCallem said that he believed that the basic process would be worked successfully in this country in the open-hearth furnace before it would be in the converter.  At the Brymbo Works, in Wales, he had seen the basic process worked very successfully in the open-hearth furnace; and he was recently informed by the manager that he was producing ingots at the remarkably low sum of 65s. per ton.

The chairman said that some samples which had been sent into Staffordshire from Brymbo for rolling into sheets had behaved admirably.  He thought that the Patent Shaft and Axletree Company, at Wednesbury, were at the present moment putting down an open-hearth furnace on the basic process.

The discussion was continued with considerable vigor by Messrs. H. Fisher (vice-president), James Rigby, J. Tibbs, M. Millard, Walker, W. Yeomans (secretary), and others.  Several of these gave it as their experience that the best castings contained the most blowholes, and Mr. McCallem accepted the pronouncement, with some slight qualification.

* * * * *

SCIENCE IN DIMINISHING CASUALTIES AT SEA.

At the recent meeting of the British Association, Don Arturo de Marcoartu read a paper on the above subject.

He stated that he wished to draw special attention to increasing the safety of navigation against storms, fogs, fire, and collisions with wrecks, icebergs, or vessels, and recommending the development of maritime telegraphy.  He urged that vessels should be supplied with apparatus to communicate with and telegraph to each other and to the nearest coast the weather and sea passed over by them, and that reports given by vessels should be used as “warnings” more extensively.  He wished the mid-Atlantic stations connected by telegraph for the same purpose.