THE PYGMIES
“Shall we need glasses, Prescott, in order to see your
pygmies?” asked Dr. Crandon, the next morning, while they were waiting
for the car.
“I will agree to furnish all the glasses needed,” answered Mr. Prescott.
Much as Billy wanted to know what Mr. Prescott was going to show them,
he had made up his mind to trust to his eyes to find out.
John Bradford was learning so many things that he had long wanted to
know that he was simply enjoying things as they came along, and being
thankful.
“To the office of the steel works, Joseph,” said Mr. Prescott.
On past the great yard of the blast furnace they went, then along by
some high brick walls until they stopped in front of a two-story cement
building.
Then they followed Mr. Prescott till he stopped at the head of the
stairs, and knocked at a door.
“Come in,” shouted somebody in a cordial voice.
“Hullo, Harry, old fellow!” said the owner of the voice, still more
cordially, as he came forward with outstretched hand.
“This,” said Mr. Prescott, “is my classmate, Mr. Farnsworth, who is at
the head of the laboratory.”
After he had introduced John Bradford and Dr. Crandon, he added, “And
this is Billy Bradford.”
Then he said, “I’ve brought these friends of mine to see your show.
We’ve been to see some of the giants in the iron industry. Now I want
them to have a look at your pygmies.”
“Pygmies they shall see,” said Mr. Farnsworth, with an appreciative
smile. “Hardly a technical term, but a good way, Harry, to get hold of
the facts. Pygmies they shall be.
“Sit down, all of you,” he said, pointing to chairs by his low, broad
table.
Pushing back the sliding door of a case behind the table, he took out a
tray containing small round pieces of iron and steel.
“Shall I tell you about these specimens, or will you ask me?”
“Just give us a general idea, Jack,” answered Mr. Prescott; “we might
ask the wrong questions.”
“Then, Billy Bradford,” said Mr. Farnsworth, smiling at Billy, “I’ll
explain to you, and the others may listen.
“You see we chemists analyze the ores before they are smelted; so we
know something about what kind of pig iron we shall have. But when we
want to know what kind of finished iron or steel we have from a given
process, we can’t tell much by analyzing it, so we have to depend on
our microscopes.
“Metals crystallize, if they have just the right conditions. Each metal
has its own form; so, if you could find a single crystal, you would
recognize it by its form.
“But when melted iron grows solid, the crystals are crowded so close
together that, when it is prepared for the microscope, and polished
like this, the surface looks as if it were made up of ‘crystal grains.’
“Sometimes crystallization takes place in steel if it is subjected to
long repeated jar. Many accidents in engines are due to that.”
As he took the cover off his microscope, Mr. Farnsworth said:
“I suppose, Harry, that your ‘pygmies’ are the elements that are found
in the various kinds of iron?”
“The same,” answered Mr. Prescott.
“Then I shall tell Billy Bradford that some of the pygmies are enemies
and others are friends; some need to be driven away, and others should
be invited to come in.
“The most numerous enemies are the Carbon pygmies. The blast furnace
drives most of them off, but they have to be fought in the pig iron,
too.
“Sulphur pygmies are about the worst of all, because they make the iron
brittle. They are practically the hardest to drive away.
“Phosphorus pygmies haven’t a good reputation, but they are in much
better standing than the Sulphur enemies.
“Now, if you’ll look in here--this is the purest and the softest
Swedish bar iron--you’ll see where the edges of the crystals come
together. These are friendly Ferrite pygmies, crowding close together.
_Ferrum_ is the Latin name for iron; you must remember that.”
“If I didn’t know,” said John Bradford, when he took his turn, “I
should think I was looking at some sort of wood with a very fine grain.”
“This,” said Mr. Farnsworth, changing the specimen, “has black and
white streaks in it; that means that the iron has begun to be steel.
When it has light patches like these in it, we know that it has taken
up more carbon, and has grown harder.
“So it goes,” he said, showing one after another of the specimens. “You
can see for yourself that, if friendly pygmies stand in line, taking
hold of hands, that would make a good kind of iron to draw out into a
wire. If enemies stand around in groups, they make the iron easy to
break.
“When we want steel for chisels, for example, we invite Tungsten to
come in; when we want certain parts for automobiles we call in some
Vanadium pygmies.”
“So,” said Mr. Prescott, “while we need the giants to make the pig
iron, the real value of the iron and steel depends on the pygmies.”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Mr. Farnsworth.
“Anything the trouble with you, young chap?” asked Dr. Crandon. “You
haven’t spoken for ten minutes. Feel bad anywhere?”
“No,” answered Billy. “I was just wishing I could know about all those
things.”
“I’m glad it’s nothing worse than that,” said Dr. Crandon.
“Now,” said Mr. Prescott, “we’ll start for some more giants. Coming,
Farnsworth?”
“Sorry, not to-day. Call again!”
“The steel mill comes next on my program,” said Mr. Prescott, when they
went out. “I want you to see a Bessemer converter, an open hearth, and
some crucibles, because that practically covers the different methods
of making iron and steel.
“Here is the Bessemer converter. You see it is an iron cylinder made
of wrought iron plates, and it tapers off at the top in a conical end.
See. It is swinging down to be filled almost as easily as you can turn
your hand over. In a moment it will stand up again, twenty-five feet
tall.
“Bessemer got hold of the idea that air could be used instead of fuel.
They say he risked his life in his experiments. He worked a long time,
but he won, and the Bessemer converters started the boom in steel.
“See it come up again, with fifteen tons of hot pig iron in it. Down in
the bottom of the converter is a blast chest where the air is forced in
under pressure, after it has been blown into a tank by blowing engines.”
“O-o-oh!” exclaimed Billy, as the top of the converter seemed to burst
into flame, and a shower of sparks came down.
“That,” said Dr. Crandon, “is surely a fearful sort of thing!”
Then the flame began to drop slowly, and they saw that the converter
itself was safe.
“This process burns out all the carbon. Bessemer was trying to make
wrought iron when he started out. Now they put back the right amount of
carbon, and make the iron into steel.
“It’s a chemical process. When the air strikes the hot metals the
oxygen unites with them, and they burst into flame. The whole process
takes between fifteen and twenty minutes.”
“I am very sure,” said Dr. Crandon, “that I shouldn’t like to work
here.”
“When we get to the open hearth process, which is the rival of the
Bessemer,” said Mr. Prescott, “I expect that none of you will want to
work there.”
“For my part,” said John Bradford, slowly, “I prefer Prescott mill.”
“So do I,” said Billy.
“Which reminds me,” said Mr. Prescott, “to tell you that I have been
looking at some machines to help in the foundry. They will help about
lifting and ramming; but they won’t do away with the work of men.
“Here we are, gentlemen, before a Siemens-Martin open hearth. This
is a continuous process. It was evolved by Sir William Siemens, a
German-English engineer, and his brother. Then a man named Martin, a
Frenchman, I understand, found a way to mix the iron and steel that are
put on the hearth, so it bears both the names.
“We’ll just look in. It is a large, shallow basin, made of bricks,
partly filled with iron. Both hot air and gas are burned on top of the
iron. The process takes seven or eight hours; but it produces larger
quantities of steel than the Bessemer converters can do.
“Then, too, it furnishes all kinds of iron and steel, for they sample
it as it burns, and draw off the steel at any percentage of carbon that
they want.
“Cast iron has a great deal of carbon in it; steel has much less; and
wrought iron has almost none.
“Now, we’ll go over to the crucible furnace.”
They walked slowly across the yard.
“There are no giants here,” said Mr. Prescott, “with the exception
of the furnaces in which they set the crucibles; and they are small,
compared with the furnaces that we have seen.”
They found themselves in a long room lined with shelves of clay
crucibles, about eighteen inches in height. On the sides of the room,
under the shelves, were rows of small furnaces, each large enough for
two crucibles.
“The crucible process,” said Mr. Prescott, “gives us our finest steels.
It is a simple melting together of iron and charcoal. The carbon of the
charcoal passes into the iron. When the crucibles are filled, they are
set in the furnace, and left for several days.
“They make a special kind of crucible steel over in Sheffield.”
While he was saying that, Mr. Prescott glanced at Billy, but Billy was
looking at the furnace, and did not hear what Mr. Prescott said.
Mr. Prescott looked at him hard, as he said:
“The home of the crucible is Sheffield.”
“Sheffield,” said Billy, turning, “is where they make good jack-knives.”
“Want to see a genuine Sheffield?” asked Mr. Prescott, putting his hand
into his pocket.
That time he didn’t have to attract Billy’s attention, for Billy stood
waiting.
“See,” said Mr. Prescott, pulling out a chain that had a knife on it,
and opening the blades. “See, it has Sheffield on both blades.”
Billy’s eyes saw the “Sheffield.” Then they saw something else, for on
the side of the knife was a little silver plate, and on it--he had to
look twice--was “Billy Bradford.”
“That’s a good knife,” said Billy.
The three men smiled, each his very best smile.
“Thank you, Mr. Prescott,” said Billy as he took the knife. Then he
smiled, too.
“Now for the steel mill, and the last of our giants.”
“Is the mill deserted?” asked Dr. Crandon, as they went in.
“It’s much easier,” said Mr. Prescott, “to find the giants in a steel
mill than it is to find the men. If you look around you’ll find a few,
but they’ll be in most unexpected places.”
“I see a man,” exclaimed Billy, “up in a cage!”
“He’s controlling that crane,” said Mr. Prescott. “See it carry that
ingot of red-hot iron!”
“This,” said Dr. Crandon, “passes belief. There’s a boy over there, in
a reclining chair, who is opening a furnace down on this side.”
“Look at that!” exclaimed John Bradford, pointing to a crane like a
huge thumb and forefinger, which had picked up a red-hot ingot, tons in
weight, and was dropping it on a waiting car.
“Let’s follow it,” said Mr. Prescott, pleased to see John Bradford so
excited.
They followed it to a room filled with clanking rolls.
Another crane swung the red-hot iron into the jaws of rollers.
On went the fiery bolt, sometimes up on one roller, then down on
another, till at last they found that it had come out a finished rail.
Then a huge, round steel magnet, lowered by a man in a derrick house,
picked up half a dozen rails; another lever sent the crane down the
overhead tracks; and the rails were dropped in order on waiting cars.
“It used,” said Mr. Prescott, “to take a dozen men to load a single
rail.
“Giants or not, Billy Bradford?”
“Giants for sure,” replied Billy.
“Fire-eaters!” exclaimed Dr. Crandon. “Let’s go!”
“I’m ready,” said Mr. Prescott. “I’m glad that the work is so much
easier for the men, but I must confess that I don’t care to watch
red-hot iron shooting, almost flying around.”
“I’m ready to go,” said Billy.
“Joseph,” said Mr. Prescott, a few minutes later, “drive till you find
a country road.”
That evening, as they sat together on the hotel veranda, Mr. Prescott
said:
“I’ve been thinking,” then he stopped a moment to see whether Billy was
listening, “how much iron has done to make the world smaller.”
Then, seeing that Billy’s eyes were opening wider and wider, he said:
“The world is so much smaller than it used to be that I sometimes
wonder how much smaller it may grow.”
“Isn’t it just as far around the world as it always was?” asked Billy,
looking first at Mr. Prescott, then at his Uncle John, and then back at
Mr. Prescott.
“It’s of no use, Billy,” said Dr. Crandon, “to expect this man to tell
us anything straight out. He’s trying to train our minds. If we’re
going around with him, we shall have to submit to indirect methods of
obtaining information.”
“If you’ll excuse me, Crandon,” said Mr. Prescott, “I’m not sure that
Billy won’t learn as fast by my ‘indirect methods’ as he will by the
kind of words that you are using.”
“Even, I think,” said Dr. Crandon.
Then the three men smiled, each in his own way.
Billy didn’t smile. All his best heroes seemed to be showing
“disagreeable spots” at the same time.
But Billy had only a minute of thinking that, for Dr. Crandon said, in
his most friendly tone:
“I think I know what he’s driving at, so I’ll lend you a hand. It would
take a long time to sail around the world, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure,” answered Billy, quite like himself.
“But, if we were to start in an automobile, and drive to a train that
would take us to San Francisco----”
“And then,” said Uncle John, “take a steamer across the ocean----”
“And,” finished Mr. Prescott, “get back home in less than forty days,
wouldn’t that make the world smaller than if we had to sail and sail
and sail?”
“Of course,” answered Billy. “Anybody can see that.”
“And, if you were to go alone, Billy,” continued Mr. Prescott, in his
very friendliest tone, “you could wire me or ‘phone me or cable me
almost anywhere along the route. Wouldn’t that make the world seem very
small?
“And what do all these things mean but iron--iron engines and iron
rails and iron wires and watches with steel springs and magnetic steel
needles in compasses that guide the great steamers through the paths of
the sea?”
“Sometimes,” said Billy, in a half-discouraged tone, “I think there’s
no end to knowing about iron.”
“That’s not very far from true, Billy,” said Mr. Prescott. “We could
sit here till to-morrow morning trying to mention things made of iron,
or by means of iron, and then we should be likely to forget many of
them.
“If it weren’t for iron and steel implements and tools, men would have
hard work to earn a living.
“Dr. Crandon, what does it seem to you that we should lose if we were
to lose iron?”
“I’ve been thinking about the arts--surgery, too. We need iron for
sculpture, for music, for printing books and papers. We need iron, I
should say, for art’s sake.”
“And you, Bradford?”
“I’ve been thinking about agriculture. I never realized, before this
trip, how we really depend on iron for our food. That phosphatic
fertilizer set me to thinking about plows, mills, and all sorts of
things.”
“I think,” said Mr. Prescott, “that the man was right who said that the
strength of nations depends on coal and iron far more than it does on
gold.
“Another man said practically the same when he said that iron has given
man liberty and industry: tools and implements of peace, as well as
weapons of war. When you think it out, that seems to cover it all.
“Now, Billy,” Mr. Prescott went on, “I know what you will say. You may
say it.”
“Without iron,” said Billy, smiling up at Mr. Prescott, “we should be
just ‘nothin’, nobody.’”
“My lecture course,” said Mr. Prescott, “is now finished.
“To-morrow, I am going to show you where they try to make--do
make--something greater than iron.”
[Illustration]