An essay on the mystery of tempering steel : wherein the effects of that operation are fully considered / Extracted from the works of the celebrated Mons. Reaumur ; By J. Savigny.

Réaumur, René-Antoine Ferchault de, 1683-1757.

Date:: 1771

Credit: An essay on the mystery of tempering steel : wherein the effects of that operation are fully considered / Extracted from the works of the celebrated Mons. Reaumur ; By J. Savigny. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$* • r * fi • heat cauies to float in thofe bodies, and by degrees, as the aftion of the fire t * • ’ r*. grows weaker, part of the fluid matter, f” * - , - which had been forced from the molu- * . „ * * ■ i •■vt* * * cules re-enters, if the heat diminifhes by very flow degrees, the greater quantity - *- > { /T,., % <- will return, thus, the more the means $ . * . • r * • of cooling the fteel are procraftinated, the * r , .«■ ' * f-\ r y lefs it approaches that ftate, which tem- pering would have brought it to, on the # i * contrary, the more fudden the means \.j - f ? • , are of cooling it, the harder it will be. Notwithftanding, we have all along fpoke of tempering, as a very fudden operation, it muft not however, be con- r f » fidered as inftantanious; neither fteel nor iron becomes cold immediately, upon /. * * - , their being plunged in water, on the *• .V. contrary, * * * ♦$