The Times reports that Mr. H. Y. Gartner, of New
York, has perfected in England a method of producing sodium, and from sodium aluminium and magnesium in almost unlimited quanti- ties. He has so improved the furnaces he uses that he can produce from one furnace 120 tons of sodium a year, which can be sold at 2112 a ton, or, say, a fourth of the present cost. With cheap sodium, cheap aluminium can be produced, a result of the highest importance, this metal combining tenacity, lightness,
and freedom from oxidisation. A combination of aluminium and copper or steel will, it is believed, be found one of the most tenacious of metals, and may be used for the casting of light cannon. This discovery, which appears to be genuine, takes us one step more on the mad towards a grand requisite of the day, a metal which, while as tenacious as steel, and nearly as cheap, shall be less than half its weight. That would solve the diffi- culty of armouring ships, and be some guarantee against that extinction of the durable woods with which the world is threatened at no distant date. Democracy has many promises to make ; but it is fatal to forests, the little proprietor declining to plant and wait, say, a century for his return.
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