Steel
Steel names 5 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Steel an alloy of iron and carbon
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
an alloy of iron and carbon. It is midway in structure between cast iron and wrought iron . It contains less carbon than cast iron and more carbon than wrought iron. Examined under a microscope, steel is found to be composed of many particles of extremely soft, ductile iron, and a comparatively few particles of a hard, brittle compound of iron and carbon. There are various kinds of steel. The percentage of carbon varies from a half of one per cent to two per cent. The steel used for the armorplating of battleships contains about three per cent of nickel. Manganese steel contains about twelve per cent of manganese and one and one-half per cent of carbon. It is ductile but it is too hard to be cut by tools. It is used in the construction of burglar-proof safes. Chrome steel, used for the same purpose and for the armor of projectiles, also in the construction of stamp mills, contains about two per cent of chromium. The greater part of what is known as iron work now consists of steel. Four-fifths of the world's steel is manufactured in the United States , Germany, and Great Britain . Next in order come Russia, France, and Austria-Hungary. The total annual production is not far from 40,000,000 tons. This enormous product is used in the manufacture of fine cutlery, tools, implements, barbed wire, wire nails, bolts, rivets, chains, pipe, sheathing, vehicles, cars, rails, locomotives, steamers, machinery, armorplate, girders, beams, pillars, bridges, firearms, and cannon. Steel is replacing wood very rapidly in the construction of machinery and as a building material. Ordinary iron ore contains more carbon than is required for steel. In making steel it is necessary, first of all, to purify the iron by burning out the carbon. After that the elements for the alloy are introduced. The chief methods of getting rid of the carbon are known as the Bessemer process and the Siemens or open-hearth process. In the Bessemer process a powerful current of air is forced through holes in the sides of a graphite crucible containing from three to fifteen tons of molten iron. A tremendous bubbling and a shower of sparks characterizes this process. When the carbon in the iron has been burned out in this way a process occupying twenty-five to forty minutes, the converter contains pure iron. A small amount of fresh ore, containing the right quantity by weight of the various elements needed for the alloy is then added, and the contents of the converter are run into a mold to form billets of steel. In the open-hearth process the iron is melted in shallow, dish-shaped graphite crucibles. A powerful blast of air passes to and fro over the surface, thus burning out the carbon. The steel works of the United States produce two tons of Bessemer steel to one of open-hearth steel. In Great Britain, the open-hearth method is in the lead. Blister steel is produced by sealing up carbon and bars of wrought iron hermetically and heating them for days in a furnace. Blister steel hammered at a welding heat produces the best of all steel. It is known as shear steel. It is used for fine cutlery. The leading steel company, in fact, the richest manufacturing concern in the world, is the United States Steel Corporation , with headquarters at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It controls 125 lake vessels, several rail-roads, 18,000 coke furnaces, 78,000 blast furnaces for pig iron, and about 150 steel works, with an annual capacity of 9,000,000 tons of steel. The company employs nearly 200,000 men and pays anywhere from $100,000,000 to $140,000,000 a year in wages. The annual dividends to stock-holders are from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000. See Bessemer ; Carnegie ; Krupp ; Needle ; Razor ; Armor ; Nail ; Rail-Road ; Bridge ; Iron
Steel This wonderful modification of iron is a compound of
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
This wonderful modification of iron is a compound of the metal with from .833 to 1.67 per cent of carbon. In its properties steel combines the fusibility of cast iron with the malleability of wrought iron. Its value for cutting instruments, springs, etc., depends upon its quality of being tempered. When heated to redness and plunged into cold water it becomes hard enough to scratch glass; if again heated and cooled slowly, it becomes as soft almost as ordinary iron, and between these two extremes any required degree of hardness is obtained. As the metal declines in temperature, the thin film of oxide upon its surface constantly changes its color, and it is by these tints that the workman is guided. Thus, a straw-color indicates the degree of hardness for razors, a deep blue for sword-blades, saws, and watch-springs. Steel receives a higher polish than iron, and has less tendency to rust. Nitric acid corrodes it, and leaves the carbon as a dark-gray stain. For the various processes of manufacture see INDIA STEEL; PUDDLE-STEEL; BLISTER-STEEL; CRUCIBLE OR CAST STEEL; BESSEMER STEEL; OPEN-HEARTH OR SIEMENS-MARTIN STEEL; CHROMIUM STEEL; DAMASCUS STEEL; etc. Steel Bronze is the invention of Col. Uchatius, of the Austrian arsenals. It is simply a substitute for steel in the manufacture of guns. The alloy consists of about 90 copper and 10 tin, and is cast in an iron mould round a forged copper core. The resultant casting, after being turned and bored, is subjected to a process of opening and elongation by means of a conical steel-plug forced through by hydraulic power, resulting, it is claimed, in a tube of equal quality to the best steel tubes. See BRONZE.
Steel Iron, when combined with a small portion of carbon
American Watchmaker and Jeweler (1892)
Iron, when combined with a small portion of carbon. The varieties of steel are very great. Puddled steel is made from pig iron by a modification of the puddling process. Cast steel is made from wrought iron or blister steel by mixing it with powdered charcoal, after which it is melted in a crucible, cast into ingots and rolled or hammered into plates or bars. Blister steel is made from wrought iron by interlaying it with charcoal and keeping it at a high temperature for a number of days. Bessemer steel is made from the liquid cast iron as it comes from the smelting furnace by blowing air into it, thus burning out a portion of the carbon.
Steel MRS. FLORA ANNIE (WEB- STER)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
MRS. FLORA ANNIE (WEB- STER), an English novelist; born in Harrow-on-the-Hill, England, April 2, 1847. At 21 she married an Indian civilian and went to Bengal, where she became prominent in educational affairs, and was appointed inspectress of female schools. On the expiration of her husband's term of service, she returned with him to England and devoted herself to literary work. Her published works include: "From the Five Rivers" (1893); "Miss Stuart's Legacy" (1893); "The Potter's Thumb" (1894); "Flower of Forgiveness" (1894); "Red Rowans" (1895); "On the Face of the Waters" 896); and (1895); ; "In the Tideway" (1896); 1897); "The "In the Permanent Way" (1897); Host of the Lord" (1900); "Voices of the Night," etc.
Steel FREDERIC DORR, an American illustrator
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FREDERIC DORR, an American illustrator, born at Marquette, Mich., in 1873.. He studied art at the National Academy of Design and at the Art Students' League, New York. Beginning with 1897 he contributed illustrations to many of the leading periodicals, specializing in drawings for "direct process" reproduction. He was awarded the bronze medal at the St. Louis Exposition, in 1904, and was a member of the Society of Illustrators.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The chemistry Aiton's set out in 1910 still holds — steel is iron with roughly 0.1 to 2 per cent carbon, and nickel, manganese and chromium still do what the entry says they do. Everything about the scale and the making has moved. World output, put at "not far from 40,000,000 tons", passed 1.9 billion tonnes in recent years, and China alone now makes more than half of it, with the United States a distant fourth or so; the Bessemer converter, then supplying two tons in three in America, is gone entirely, displaced after 1952 by the basic oxygen furnace and by electric arc furnaces that melt scrap, while the open-hearth process the 1892 accounts praised has also all but vanished. The United States Steel Corporation, called "the richest manufacturing concern in the world" with 200,000 employees, shrank to a fraction of that and was bought by Japan's Nippon Steel in 2025.
Written for this edition, 2026.