As the electrolytic production of copper is an industry of great present importance, so the production of iron and steel by electricity promises to be of the greatest future importance.  Electric furnaces for making steel are now maintained, and the industry has passed beyond an experimental condition.  But it has not reached the point where it is competing with the Bessemer or the open hearth process of the manufacture of steel, while for the smelting of iron ores the electric furnace has not yet been found practical from an economic standpoint.  Before 1880 Sir William Siemens showed that an electric arc could be used to melt iron or steel in a crucible, and he patented an electric crucible furnace which was the first attempt to use electricity in iron and steel manufacture.  He stated that the process would not be too costly and that it had a great future before it.  This was an application of the intense heat of the arc, which supplies a higher temperature than any source known except that of the sun.  This heat is used to melt the metal, in which condition various impurities can be removed and necessary ingredients added.  Siemens’ furnace did not find extensive application, largely on account of the great metallurgical developments then taking place in the iron industry and the thorough knowledge of metallurgical processes as carried on, possessed by metallurgical engineers.  But the idea by no means languished, and in 1899 Paul Heroult and other electro-metallurgists were active in developing a practical electric furnace for iron and steel work.  The Swedish engineer, F. A. Kjellin, was also active and as the result of the efforts of these and other workers, by 1909 electric furnaces were employed, not only in the manufacture of special steels whose composition and making were attended with special care, but for rails and structural material.  There were reported to be between thirty and forty electric steel plants in various countries, and the outlook for the future was distinctly bright.  The application of electro-metallurgy at this time was confined to the manufacture of steel, as the smelting of iron had not emerged from the experimental stage of its development, though extensive trials on a large scale of various furnaces have been undertaken in Europe and by the Canadian government at Sault Ste. Marie, where the Heroult furnace, soon to be described, was employed.  Electro-metallurgy of steel, as in all utilization of electrical power, depends upon obtaining electricity at a reasonable cost, and then utilizing the heat of the arc or of the current in the most practical and economical form.  One of the pioneer furnaces for this purpose which has seen considerable development and practical application is the Heroult furnace, which is a tilting furnace of the crucible type, whose operation depends upon both the heat of the arc and on the heat produced by the resistance of the molten material.  In the Heroult process the impurities of the molten iron are