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SOAKING PITS FOR STEEL INGOTS.

ON THE SUCCESSFUL ROLLING OF STEEL INGOTS WITH THEIR OWN INITIAL HEAT BY
MEANS OF THE SOAKING PIT PROCESS.

By Mr. JOHN GJERS, Middlesbrough.

[Footnote: Paper read before the Iron and Steel Institute at Vienna.]


When Sir Henry Bessemer, in 1856, made public his great invention, and
announced to the world that he was able to produce malleable steel from
cast iron without the expenditure of any fuel except that which already
existed in the fluid metal imparted to it in the blast furnace, his
statement was received with doubt and surprise. If he at that time had
been able to add that it was also possible to roll such steel into a
finished bar with no further expenditure of fuel, then undoubtedly the
surprise would have been much greater.

Even this, however, has come to pass; and the author of this paper
is now pleased to be able to inform this meeting that it is not only
possible, but that it is extremely easy and practical, by the means to
be described, to roll a steel ingot into, say, a bloom, a rail, or other
finished article with its own initial heat, without the aid of the