In the same way, too, in the manufacture of steel, the particles of coal at first applied to the surface pass through the iron.
This faculty of molecular displacement enables the metal in some cases to modify its state at one point or another. The use made of this faculty under certain circumstances is very curious, greatly resembling the adaptation of an animal to its environment, or the methods of defence against agents that might destroy it.
Effect of Stretching. Hartmann's Experiment.—When a cylindrical rod of metal, held firmly at either end—a test-piece, as it is called in metallurgy—is pulled sufficiently hard, it often elongates considerably, part of the elongation disappearing as soon as the strain ceases, and the other part remaining. The total elongation is thus the sum of an "elastic elongation," which is temporary, and a "permanent elongation." If we continue the stretching, there appears at some point of the rod a local extension with contraction of sectional area. It is here that the rod will break.
But in place of continuing the stretching, Mr. Hartmann suspends it. He stops, as if to give the "metal-being" time to rally. During this delay it would seem that the molecules hasten to the menaced point to reinforce and harden the weak part. In fact the metal, which was soft at other points, at this spot looks like tempered metal. It is no longer extensible.
When the experimenter begins the stretching again after this rest, and after the narrowed bar has been rolled and become cylindrical again, the local extension and sectional contraction is forced to occur at
