Iron, as you all know, is known to the arts in three forms: cast or crude, steel, and wrought or malleable. Cast iron varies much in chemical composition, being a mixture of iron and carbon chiefly, as constant factors, with which silicium in small quantities (from 1 to 5 percent.), phosphorus, sulphur, and sometimes manganese (e.g. spiegeleisen) and various other elements are combined. All of these have some effect upon the crystalline structure of the mass, but whatever crystallization takes place occurs at the moment of solidification, or between that and a red heat, and varies much, according to the time occupied in cooling, as to its composition. My own experience leads me to think that a cast iron having about 3 percent of carbon, a small percentage of phosphorus, say about ½ of 1 percent, and very small quantities of silicium (the less the better) and traces of manganese (the two latter substances slagging out almost entirely during the process of remelting for casting), makes a metal best adapted to the general use of the founder.

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