general education remain so defective, that engineers, mechanicians, founders, manufacturers, and traders remain generally ignorant of chemistry and chemical analysis, the knowledge of which is yet so important to all, a clearly written handbook such as this (which deals with the vastest of our metallic industriesthat of iron) cannot but prove serviceable now, and must become increasingly so with the progress of education. I have, therefore, deemed the work of Drs. De Koninck and Dietz worthy of translation, and have added some notes which, it may be hoped, do not detract from its value. Amongst these is one which may offer several useful hints (derived from personal experience) for the construction and arrangement of industrial and analytical laboratories in ironworks and like establishments. The formulæ, as well as the atomic and molecular numbers, I have left as I found them in the original work. LONDON, 3d June, 1872. ROBERT MALLET. PREFACE OF THE AUTHORS. AMONG the numerous works of analytical chemistry which we have consulted, we have not met with a single treatise on the docimacy of iron in an exclusively industrial point of view. We have tried to supply this want by the publication of the present Manual, in which our aim has been to present in a concise form every item of information which we considered of use to chemists in ironworks, for whom our work is specially intended. We are convinced that our labor will spare them long and wearisome researches, which they would often be obliged to make, through more general treatises often of little practical utility. We hope we shall assist in generalizing the processes most in use, or at least in causing the adoption of uniform |