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 the joint, regaining its complete form. Special manufactures have in some cases arisen based upon the use of electric welding.

The welding clamps, and the mechanical devices connected with them, vary widely in accordance with the work they have to do. A machine for forming metal wheels is so constructed that the hubs are made in two sections, which when brought together in the welder are caused to embrace the radiating iron or steel spokes of the wheel. The two sections are then welded, and hold the spokes in solid union with themselves. Another machine, designed for the manufacture of wire fences, makes several welds automatically and simultaneously Galvanized iron wires are fed into the machine from reels in several parallel lines about a foot apart, and at intervals are crossed at right angles by wire sections cut automatically from another reel of wire. As the wire passes, electric welds are formed between the transverse and the parallel lines. The machine delivers a continuous web of wire fencing, which is wound upon a drum and removed from time to time in large rolls. In the United States, street railway rails are welded into a continuous metal structure. A huge welding transformer is suspended upon a crane, which is borne upon a car arranged to run upon the track as it is laid. The joint between the ends of two contiguous rails is made by welding lateral strap pieces, covering the joint at each side and taking the place of the ordinary fish-plates and bolts. The exertion of a greatly increased pressure at the finish of the welding seems to be decidedly favourable to the permanence and strength of the joints. When properly made, the joint is strong enough to resist the strains of extension and compression during temperature changes. For electric railways the welded joint obviates all necessity for “bonding” the rails together with copper wires to convert them into continuous lines of return conductors for the railway current. In railway welding the source of energy is usually a current delivered from the trolley line itself to a rotary converter mounted on the welding car, whereby an alternating current is obtained for feeding the primary circuit of the welding transformer. Power from a distant station is thus made to produce the heat required for track welding, and at exactly the place where it is to be utilized. In this instance the work is stationary while the welding apparatus is moved from one joint to the next. Welding transformers are sometimes used to heat metal for annealing, for forging, bending, or shaping, for tempering, or for hard soldering. Under special conditions they are well adapted to these purposes, on account of the perfect control of the heating or energy delivery, and the rapidity and cleanliness of the operation.

Divested of its welding clamps, the welding transformer has found a unique application in the armour-annealing process of Lemp, by means of which spots or lines are locally annealed in hard-faced ship’s armour, so that it can be drilled or cut as desired. Before the introduction of this process, it was practically impossible to render any portion of the hardened face of such armour workable by cutting tools without detriment to the hardness of the rest. A very heavy electric current is passed through the spot or area which it is desired to soften, so that, notwithstanding the rapid conduction of heat into the body of the plate, the metal is brought to a low red heat. In order that the spot shall not reharden, it is requisite that the rate of cooling shall be slower than when the heating current is cut off suddenly, the current therefore undergoes gradual diminution, under control of the operator. The welding transformer has for its secondary terminals simply two copper blocks fixed in position, and mounted at a distance of an inch or more apart. These are placed firmly against the face of the armour plate, with the spot to be annealed bridging the contacts, or situated between them. As in track welding, the transformer is made movable, so that it can be brought into any position desired. When the annealing is to be done along a line, the secondary terminals, with the transformer, are slowly and steadily slid over the face of the plate, new portions of the plate being thus continually brought between the terminals, while those which had reached the proper heat are slowly removed from the terminals and cool gradually.

 WELDON, WALTER (1832–1885), English technical chemist, was born at Loughborough on the 31st of October 1832. In 1854 he began to work as a journalist in London in connexion with the Dial, which was afterwards incorporated in the Morning Star, and in 1860 he started a monthly magazine, Weldon’s Register of Facts and Occurrences relating to Literature, the Sciences and the Arts, which was discontinued after about three years' existence. Though he was without practical knowledge of the science, Weldon turned to industrial chemistry, and in the course of a few years took out the patents which led to his “manganese-regeneration” process (see ). This was put into operation about 1869, and by 1875 it was being used by almost every chlorine manufacturer of importance throughout Europe. He continued to work at the production of chlorine in connexion with the processes of (q.v.), and became a leading authority on the subject, but none of his later proposals—not even the Weldon-Pechiney magnesia process,

which was established on a commercial scale only a year or two before his death—met with equal success. He died at Burstow, Surrey, on the 20th of September 1885. He professed Swedenborgian principles and was a believer in spiritualism.

His son, (1860–1906), was appointed in 1899 Linacre professor of comparative anatomy at Oxford.  WELF or GUELPH, a princely family of Germany, descended from Count Warin of Altorf (8th century), whose son Isenbrand is said to have named his family Welfen, i.e. whelps. From his son Welf I. (d. 824) were descended the kings of Upper Burgundy and the elder German line of Welf. Welf III. (d. 1055) obtained the duchy of Carinthia and the March of Verona. With him the elder line became extinct, but his grandson in the female line, Welf IV. (as duke, Welf I.), founded the younger line, and became duke of Bavaria in 1070. Henry the Black (d. 1126), by his marriage with a daughter of Magnus, duke of Saxony, obtained half of the latter’s hereditary possessions, including Lüneburg, and his son (q.v.) inherited by marriage the emperor Lothair’s lands in Brunswick, &c., and received the duchy of Saxony. The power which the family thus acquired, and the consequent rivalry with the house of Hohenstaufen, occasioned the strife of (q.v.) in Italy. Henry the Lion lost the duchies of Bavaria and Saxony by his rebellion in 1180, and Welf VI. (d. 1191) left his hereditary lands in Swabia and his Italian possessions to the emperor Henry VI. Thus, although one of the Welfs reigned as the emperor Otto IV., there remained to the family nothing but the lands inherited from the emperor Lothair, which were made into the duchy of Brunswick in 1235. Of the many branches of the house of Brunswick that of Wolfenbüttel became extinct in 1884, and that of Lüneburg received the electoral dignity of Hanover in 1692, and founded the Hanoverian dynasty of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714. For its further history see . The Hanoverian legitimists in the German Reichstag are known as Welfen.

See Sir A. Halliday, History of the House of Guelph (1821); R. D. Lloyd, Origin of the Guelphs; F. Schmidt, Die Anfänge des welfischen Geschlechts (Hanover, 1900).

 WELHAVEN, JOHANN SEBASTIAN CAMMERMEYER (1807–1873), Norwegian poet and critic, was born at Bergen, the son of a pastor, in 1807. He first studied theology, but from 1828 onwards devoted himself to literature. In 1840 he became reader and subsequently professor of philosophy at Christiania, and delivered a series of impressive lectures on literary subjects. In 1836 he visited France and Germany; and in 1858 he went to Italy to study archaeology. His influence was extended by his appointment as director of the Society of Arts. He died at Christiania on the 21st of October 1873. Welhaven made his name as the representative of conservatism in Norwegian literature. In a violent attack on Wergeland’s poetry he opposed the theories of the extreme nationalists. He desired to see Norwegian culture brought into line with that of other European countries, and he himself followed the romantic tradition, being, most closely influenced by J. L. Heiberg. He represented clearness and moderation against the extravagances of Wergeland. He gave an admirable practical exposition of his aesthetic creed in the sonnet cycle Norges Daemring (1834). He published a volume of Digte in 1839; and in 1845 Nyere Digte. The collections of old Norse poetry made by Asbjörnsen and Moe influenced his talent, and he first showed his full powers as a poet in Nyere Digte. His descriptive poetry is admirable, but his best work was inspired by his poems on old Norse subjects, in which he gives himself unreservedly to patriotic enthusiasm. Other poems followed in 1848, 1851 and 1859.

His critical work includes Ewald og de norske Digtere (1863), On Ludwig Holberg (1854). Welhaven’s Samlede Skrifter were published in 8 vols. at Copenhagen (1867–1869).

 WELL, the name given to an artificial boring in the earth through which water can be obtained. Two classes may be distinguished: shallow or ordinary wells, sunk through a permeable stratum until an impermeable stratum is reached; and deep and (q.v.), the latter named from Artois