“Most of the nickel goes into nickel-steel,” said the metallurgist, “although it enters also into many other manufactures. The value of nickel-steel is due to the fact that it combines exceeding toughness with great strength. Copper wire has great toughness. A steel needle or pen-knife has great strength. But it is only nickel-steel that has both toughness and strength. This makes it the best metal we know for armour plate. A battleship with a hull covered with steel or iron would be shattered to pieces if it were hit by one of the modern shells. If the armour plate is made of nickel-steel, the largest projectile makes only a dimple, such as you would in a pat of butter by sticking your finger into it. This property of toughness is added to the steel by putting in three and one half per cent. of nickel during the process of manufacturing. All the big warships of to-day have a belt of nickel-steel armour plate about eighteen inches thick. Nickel is also alloyed with copper for making army field kitchens and bullet casings.” Nickel-steel rails are used largely where there are curves at the bottom of steep grades. When a heavily loaded freight train strikes such a curve, the only things that hold it on the track are the flanges of the wheels and the heads of the rails. In winter the rails are apt to become brittle, and when a heavy train, rushing down hill, strikes them they sometimes break and there is a wreck. The Horseshoe Curve of the Pennsylvania Railroad, for instance, is made of nickel-steel rails. The metal is employed also in bridge building. It is going into many of our large apartment houses and other tall buildings. It is fifty per cent. stronger than ordinary steel and the result is that less metal can be used, or with an equal weight the building can have double the strength. Nickel-steel does not expand or contract as much as common steel, and for this reason it is made into clock pendulums, which must be of the same length the year round in order to keep the right time. As nickel does not rust in air or water, and resists the action of many acids, it is much used in plating other metals. It is in demand for cooking utensils, household articles, and plumbing equipment, as well as for automobile parts. Practically all the nickel contained in our five-cent pieces is from the Canadian mines. They are only one quarter nickel, however, the remainder being copper. Indeed, there is but a fraction of a cent’s worth of nickel in a five-cent piece. A few countries, however, use pure nickel for their coinage.