Carbon an Alloying Element

With the great excess of carbon present in the small furnace it was unhkely that the small amount absorbed by the iron should be seen as of importance. Aristotle and many of his successors even up to the Middle Ages looked on steel as a purer sort of iron. It had come nearer the typically metallic state. Cast iron had arrived at this state, yet it was brittle and non-formable. But it had the properties most typical of a metal fusibility and castabihty. Even as late as 1783 Georges Louis Leclerc de BufFon (1707-1788) in France wrote that 

De Buffon ought perhaps to have known better. He was both an ironmaster and a naturalist. He contributed very much to the strong position of French science from the middle of the 18 century. Together with L.Daubenton and B. G. E. de Lac p de he edited a monumental work in 44 volumes, Histoire naturdle, generate et particuUere. In his treatment of steel it is clear that he heavily criticized the concept of phlogiston. In France, at the end of the 18 century, phlogiston was on the way out. But he 

Sven Rinman (1720-1792) in Sweden lived at the same time as de Buffon. He, however, refused the guesses and speculations of his contemporaries. Instead he performed experiments, which were evaluated in the circle of active and famous scientists, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Gottlieb Gahn and Torbern Bergman, with whom he shared a great interest in the chemistry of metallurgical processes and their theoretical conditions. 

At the age of eighteen he was attached to the Bergskollegium, The Royal Swedish Board for Mining and Metallurgy, and he devoted all his life to his country s industry. He also became an authority abroad. Many new Swedish establishments were designed and built up under the direction of Rinman. 

He was a practical man and active over the whole area, mining, metallur and manufacturing, from the drilling of cannons to the making of thimbles. 

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