Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/87

72 for smoothness of surface and beauty of fracture. Our own observation, as well as that of the workmen employed to make from it various articles of cutlery, was, that this alloy, though not so hard as the former, had considerably more toughness: this property will render it valuable for every purpose where tenacity, as well as hardness, is required; neither will the expense of platinum exclude it from a pretty general application in the arts; its excellence will much more than repay the extra cost.

The alloys of steel with rhodium have also been made in the large way, and are perhaps the most valuable of all; but these, however desirable, can never, owing to the scarcity of the metal, be brought into very general use. The compound of steel, iridium, and osmium, made in the large way, is also of great value; but the same cause, namely the scarcity and difficulty of procuring the metals, will operate against its very general introduction. A sufficient quantity of these metals may, perhaps, be obtained to combine with steel for the purpose of making some delicate instruments, and also as an article of luxury, when manufactured into razors. In the meantime, we have been enabled, repeatedly, to make all these alloys (that with palladium excepted) in masses of from 8 to 20 lbs. each; with such liberality were we furnished with the metals from the source already named.

A point of great importance in experiments of this kind was, to ascertain whether the products obtained were exactly such as we wished to produce. For this purpose, a part of each product was analysed, and in some cases the quantity ascertained; but it was not considered necessary in every case to verify the quantity by analysis, because, in all the experiments made in the laboratory, the button produced after fusion was weighed, and if it fell short of the weight of both metals put into the crucible, it was rejected as imperfect, and put aside. When the button gave the weight, and on analysis gave proofs of containing the metal put in to form the alloy, and also, on being forged into a bar and acted on by acids, presented a uniform surface, we considered the evidence of its composition as sufficiently satisfactory. The processes of analysis, though simple, we shall briefly state: the information may be desirable to others who may be engaged on similar