Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885

Excerpt

A VISIT TO THE CREUSOT WORKS.

Here we are at the great forge (Fig. 1), that wonderful creation which has not its like in France, that gigantic construction which iron has wholly paid for, and which covers a space of twenty-four acres. We first remark two puddling halls, each of which contains 50 furnaces and 9 steam hammers. It is in these furnaces that the iron is puddled. The ball or bloom thus obtained is afterward taken to the hammer, which crushes it and expels the scoriæ.

The puddler's trade, which is without doubt the most laborious one in metallurgy, will surely soon be lightened through the use of steam. Two rotary furnaces actuated by this agent have been in operation for a few years at Creusot, and each is yielding 20 tons of iron per day.

We have but a court of 130 feet in width to cross in order to reach the rolling mill. At the entrance to this we enjoy one of the most beautiful sights that the immense works can offer. For a length of 1,240 feet we perceive on one side a series of rolling machines, and on the other a row of reverberatory furnaces that occasionally give out a dazzling light. In the intervals are fiery blocks that are being taken to the rolling machines, in order to be given the most diverse forms, according to the requirements of commerce.

The iron obtained by puddling is not as yet in its definite state, but the rolling mill completes what the puddling hall does in the rough. Five hundred and fifty thousand tons of iron, all shaped, are taken from the forge every day. To reach such a result it requires no less than 3,000 workmen and a motive power of 7,000 horses.

But do not be appalled at the cost of the coal, for, thanks to ingenious processes, the heat lost from the furnaces nearly suffices to run the boilers. If we remark that a power of one horse does in one hour the equivalent of a man's labor per day, we conclude that these machines (which run night and day) represent an army of 160,000 men that lends its gratuitous aid to the workmen of the forge. This is what is called progress in industry.

We have just seen that iron is obtained in small masses. These can be welded upon heating them to 1,500 or 2,000 degrees. It is impossible to manufacture a large piece exempt from danger from the weldings. Cast iron always has defects that are inherent to its nature, and these are all the more dangerous in that they are hidden. Steel is exempt from these defects, and, moreover, whatever be the size of the ingot, its homogeneousness is perfect. This is what has given the idea of manufacturing from it enormous marine engines and those gigantic guns that the genius of destruction has long coveted.

Ah, if the good sense of men does not suffice to put a limit to their increasing progress, bridges, viaducts, and tunnels will take it upon themselves, if need be, to bar their passage. But, in order to forge large ingots, it became necessary before all to increase the power of the steam hammer. The Creusot establishment, which endowed metallurgy with this valuable machine, had allowed itself to be eclipsed, not by the number (for it had 57), but by the dimensions of the largest one. In 1875, the Krupp works constructed one of 50 tons, and their example was followed at Perm, St. Petersburg, and Woolwich. It was then that Mr. Henry Schneider put in execution a bold project that he had studied with his father, that of constructing a 100 ton steam hammer, along with the gigantic accessories necessary (Fig....