Roberts-Austen; A Record of His Work. Being a Selection of the Addresses and Metallurgical Papers, Together with an Account of the Researches of Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen. Memorial Volume (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WORK AT THE MINT, 1880-1890. At the beginning of the second decade of Roberts-Austen's work at the Mint an important addition was made to the duties which 1880. he was called upon to perform. In the month of April, 1880, he was appointed by the Lord President of the Council to the Chair of Metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines. This office had long been held with much distinction by Dr. Percy, who may be said to have created an English literature of metallurgy. This appointment was made with the full consent and approval of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, as appears from the following extract from the Deputy Master's Report for 1880: ?- " In reply to an enquiry addressed to me by their Lordships' directions, I reported that, not only would these duties not be incompatible with those already devolving upon Mr. Roberts, but that this Department could not fail to derive advantage from the appointment of the Chemist of the Mint to a position in which, as Professor, every advance in metallurgical science must of necessity come under his notice." The year 1880 is noteworthy, also, as marking the commencement of the long series of researches into the properties and constitution of steel, which occupied him almost continuously until the time of his death in 1902. An investigation was made into the composition and properties of the steel used in the manufacture of dies. Frequent allusion had been made in earlier Reports to the difficulty which had been experienced in obtaining suitable steel for this purpose, and it had long been felt that the rough method of ascertaining the fitness of steel for conversion into dies, hitherto practised in the Mint, should give place to more trustworthy and scientific tests, while at the same time a more accurate knowledge s...