Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen has shown that in the case of molten alloys the conduction of electricity is apparently metallic, no transfer of matter attending the passage of the current. A group of bodies may, however, be yet discovered between alloys and electrolytes in which evidence may be found of some gradual change from wholly metallic to electrolytic conduction. A. P. Laurie has determined the electromotive force of a series of copper-zinc, copper-tin and gold-tin alloys, and as the result of his experiments he points to the existence of definite compounds. Explosive alloys have been formed by H. St Claire Deville and H. J. Debray in the case of rhodium, iridium and ruthenium, which evolve heat when they are dissolved in zinc. When the solution of the rhodium-zinc alloy is treated with hydrochloric acid, a residue is left which undergoes a change with explosive violence if it be heated in vacuo to 400°. The alloy is then insoluble in “aqua regia.” The metals have therefore passed into an insoluble form by a comparatively slight elevation of temperature.
Metals do not appear to have been studied from the point of view of surfusion until 1880, when A. D. van Riemsdijk showed that gold and silver would both pass below their actual freezing-points without becoming solid. Roberts-Austen pointed out that surfusion might be easily measured in metals and in alloys by the sensitive method of recording pyrometry Surfusion. perfected by him. He also showed that the crossing of curves of solubility, which had already been observed by H. le Chatelier and by A. C. A. Dahms in the case of salts, could be measured in the lead-tin alloys. The investigation of the mutual relations of partially miscible liquids, due to P. Alexejew, D. P. Konovalow, and to P. E. Duclaux, was extended to alloys by Alder Wright. The addition of a third metal will sometimes render the mixture of two other metals homogeneous. C. T. Heycock and F. H. Neville proved that when one metal is alloyed with a small quantity of some other metal, the solidification obeys the law of F. M. Raoult. Their experiments, although not conclusive, appear to indicate that the molecule of a metal when in dilute solution often consists of one atom. There are, however, numerous exceptions to this rule. In the cases of aluminium dissolved in tin and of mercury or bismuth in lead, it is at least probable that the molecules in solution are Al2, Hg2 and Bi2 respectively, while tin in lead appears to form a molecule of the type Sn4.
Since 1875 increased attention has been devoted to the applications of the rarer metals. Thus nickel, which was formerly used in the manufacture of “German silver” as a substitute for silver, is now widely employed in naval construction and in the manufacture of steel armourplate and projectiles. Alloyed with copper, it is used Industrial applications. for the envelopes of bullets. A nickel steel containing 36% of nickel has the property of retaining an almost constant volume when heated or cooled through a considerable range of temperature; it is therefore useful for the construction of pendulums and for measures of length. Another steel containing 45% of nickel has, like platinum, the same coefficient of expansion as glass. It can therefore be employed, instead of that costly metal, in the construction of incandescent lamps where a wire has to be fused into the glass to establish electric connexion between the inside and the outside of the bulb. Manganese not only forms with iron several alloys of great interest, but alloyed with copper it is used for electrical purposes, as an alloy can thus be obtained with an electrical resistance that does not alter with change of temperature; this alloy, called manganin, is used in the construction of resistance-boxes. Chromium also, in comparatively small quantities, is taking its place as a constituent of steel axles and tires, and in the manufacture of tool-steel. Steels containing as much as 12% of tungsten are now used as a material for tools intended for turning and planing iron and steel. The peculiarity of these steels is that no quenching or tempering is required. They are normally hard and remain so, even at a faint red heat; much deeper cuts can therefore be taken at a high speed without blunting the tool. Vanadium, molybdenum and titanium may be expected soon to play an important part in the constitution of steel. Titanium is alloyed in small quantities with aluminium for use in naval architecture. Aluminium, when alloyed with a few per cent of magnesium, gains greatly in rigidity while remaining very light; this alloy, under the name of magnalium, is coming into use for small articles in which lightness and rigidity have to be combined. One of the most interesting amongst recent alloys is Conrad Heusler’s alloy of copper, aluminium and manganese, which possesses magnetic properties far in excess of those of the constituent metals.
The importance is now widely recognized of considering the mechanical properties of alloys in connexion with the freezing-point curves to which reference has already been made, but the subject is a very complicated one, and all that need be said here, is that when considered in relation to their melting-points the pure metals are consistently weaker than alloys. The presence in an alloy of a eutectic which solidifies at a much lower temperature than the main mass, implies a great reduction in tenacity, especially if it is to be used above the ordinary temperature as in the case of pipes conveying super-heated steam. It has also been stated that alloys of metals with similar melting-points have higher tenacity when the atomic volumes of the constituent metals differ than when they are nearly the same.
References.—Alloys have formed a subject of reports to several scientific societies. Sir W. C. Roberts-Austen’s six Reports (1891 to 1904) to the Alloys Research Committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, the last report being concluded by William Gowland; the Cantor Lectures on Alloys delivered at the Society of Arts and the Contribution à l’étude des alliages (1901), published by the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale under the direction of the Commission des alliages (1896–1900), should be consulted. The theoretical aspect is discussed in Léon Guillet’s Étude théorique des alliages métalliques (1904). W. T. Brannt’s The Metallic Alloys (1896); Roberts-Austen’s Introduction to the Study of Metallurgy (1902); and R. G. Thurston’s Materials of Engineering, should be consulted for the more practical details.
Recent progress is reported in the scientific periodicals, especially in The Iron and Steel Metallurgist, formerly The Metallographist (Boston, Mass.), and Metallurgie (Halle). Important memoirs by Ewing and Rosenhain, and by C. T. Heycock and F. H. Neville in the Philosophical Transactions, by N. S. Kurnakow in the Zeitschrift für anorganische Chemie, and by E. S. Shepherd in the Journal of Physical Chemistry, may also be consulted. (W. C. R.-A.; F. H. Ne.)
ALLPORT, SIR JAMES JOSEPH (1811–1892), English railway manager, born on the 27th of February 1811, was a son of William Allport, of Birmingham, and was associated with railways from an early period of his life. In 1843 he became general manager of the Birmingham and Derby railway, and in the following year succeeded to the same position on the Newcastle and Darlington line. Six years later he assumed the charge of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire (now the Great Central) railway, and finally, in 1853, was appointed to the general managership of the Midland railway—an office which he held continuously, with the exception of a few years between 1857 and 1860, when he was managing director to Palmer’s Shipbuilding Company at Jarrow, until his retirement in 1880, when he became a director. During these twenty-seven years the Midland grew to be one of the most important railway systems in England, partly by the absorption of smaller lines and partly by the construction of two main extensions—on the south to London and on the north to Carlisle—whereby it obtained an independent through-route between the metropolis and the north. In the railway world Sir James Allport was known as a keen tactician and a vigorous fighter, and he should be remembered as the pioneer of cheap and comfortable railway travelling. He was the first to appreciate the importance of the third-class passenger as a source of revenue, and accordingly, in 1872, he inaugurated the policy—subsequently adopted more or less completely by all the railways of Great Britain—of carrying third-class passengers in well-fitted carriages at the uniform rate of one penny a mile on all trains. The diminution in the receipts from second-class passengers, which was one of the results, was regarded by some authorities as a sign of the unwisdom of his action, but to him it appeared a sufficient reason for the abolition of second-class carriages, which therefore disappeared from the Midland system in 1875, the first-class fares being at the same time substantially reduced.
