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for its beneficial influence upon both fabricating properties and service life. All modern high-speed steels likewise include vanadium as one of the most important constituents; the stability of the complex vanadium carbides offers important advantages in permitting continuous operation of the tools under conditions producing high temperature of the cutting edge. Mention was made above of an important chemical application. There has been extensive commercial use of vanadium catalysts in the preparation of contact sulfuric acid and in the manufacture of phthalic anhydride. This field is still growing and in addition many other catalytic reactions are being studied experimentally and commercially with vanadium compounds. The reproduction of this letter in your publication will be greatly appreciated. Yours very truly, JEROMESTRAUSS Chief Research Engineer VANADIUM CORFORATI~NOF AMERICA Bxroosvnm. PENNA.
* * * * * * To the Editor DEARSIR: Before replying to Mr. Strauss'sforegoing criticism of my brief paragraph about the uses of vanadium,' it seemq necessary to explain that in the articles on "The Discovery of the Elements" no attempt has been made to include detailed information about the properties and uses of any of the chemical elements. In the case of a few of the less common ones, however, the articles contain a brief statement regarding some modern application. In Part XI,2which was published before Mr. Strauss's letter was brought to my attention, the statement is made that vanadium and titanium are added to steel in the form of the iron alloys, and I ought to have made this point clear in Part VII in the section on vanadium. The ambiguity undoubtedly arose from the insertion of the preceding paragraph after the remainder of the manuscript had been prepared. Metallurgical literature contains many conflicting statements about the use of vanadium in steel. In his treatise3 on "The Metallography and Heat Treatment of Iron and Steel," Sauveur states,
' J.
EM. E~uc.,9, 882 (May, 1932). laid., 9, 1237 (July, 1932). a S a m m , "The MetaUography and Heat Treatment of Iron and Steel," 3rd edition, University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1926, p. 342. a
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Vanadium deoxidizes the molten steel, refines the grain, increases elastic limit, strength, hardness, and resistance to shock, to fatigue, and to wear. Added to chromium steel it enhances the valuable properties imparted to steel by chromium, hence the value of chromevanadium steel. It is quite possible that this beneficial effect of vanadium may be due, in part at least, to its powerful deoxidizing action. If, however, vanadium is no longer used as a deoxidizing agent, I accept the criticism. Since my statement in Part X I about the use of ferro-titanium in steel2 may also require some amplification, the following passage from Thornton's monograph on titanium4may be quoted: As early as 1901, and perhaps sooner, Rossi seems to have been aware that titanium, when added to steel in the form of ferro-titanium, is capable of bringing about certain desirable results; and, since in some cases analyses of titanium-treated steels showed little or no residual titanium, he was inclined to think that the improvement was due to some indirect action on the part of the titanium and not to an ordinary alloying effect. This supposition has since been fully confirmed by many experimentsit being now well known that the beneficial action of ferro-titanium, when added to iron or steel in the molten condition, depends upon the fact that a t high temperatures titanium has a very strong tendency to combine with both oxygen and nitrogen to form stable oxides and nitrides, which rise to the surface and are removed with the slag, thus sweeping the metal free of air vesicles (or from these gases otherwise held) and a t the same ,time preventing segregation. Hence the ingots or castings show greater soundness, cleanness and freedom from segregated impurities as compared with the untreated steel. Sincerely yours, MARYELVIRAWEEKS TEEUNNERS~TY OF RANSAS Lammce. KANSAS
THE ALUMINUM STATUE OF CHARLES M. HALL On page 1408 of the August, 1032, issue of the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION the credit line-Courtesy of Fisher Scientific Cmpany-was inadvertently omitted under the illustration of the aluminum statue of Charles M. Hall.
' THORNTON, "Titaniurnln The 1927, p. 69.
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