Baltimore Paper - A List of Minerals Containing at Least One Per Cent. of Phosphoric Acid

The occurrence and distribution of phosphorus is one of the most important questions with which the steel-maker has to do. Large sums are invested in processes for the removal of this element from ores before they come to the blast-furnace, and much greater sums in freeing the pig-iron from it. Mechanical engineers are becoming more and more critical of the amount of total phosphorus left in structural steel, the tendency being to require that it be reduced to the lowest possible figure. The old maximum of 0.1 per cent. is now considered much too high for first-class structural steel, and demands for 0.03 to 0.01 per cent. are by no means unheard of. The first to speak, in a scientific way, of the harmful effect of phosphorus on iron and steel appears to have been Meyer, who, in 1781, made mention of what we now term "cold-shortness," ascribing it to the presence of this metalloid, but not suggesting any remedy. It is, however, doubtful if a clear idea of this subject was possessed by the scientific world until after the invention of the pneumatic or Bessemer process, in 1855-56. One of the chief obstacles in the way of this renowned metallurgist,—one, indeed, the removal of which was the sine qua non of success,—was the phosphorus in the iron blown. The effect of the phosphorus does not seem to have been apprehended until many and costly experiments had been made, and then the required minimum percentage of it in the iron was secured only by the use of low-phosphorus ores. It was not until '1879-80 that practical success was reached, by the Thomas process, in the actual removal of the phosphorus from the iron. We now know something of the effect of the total amount of phosphorus on iron and steel, but very little as to the effect of the condition of the phosphorus. The state of combination in which