Faraday’s scientific activities in the year 1820 were very marked. New researches on steel had been going on for some months. It had been hoped that by alloying iron with some other metals, such as silver, platinum, or nickel, a non-rusting alloy might be found. This idea took its rise from the erroneous notion that meteoric iron, which is richly alloyed with nickel, does not rust. Faraday found nickel steel to be more readily oxidised, not less, than ordinary steel. The platinum steel was also a failure. Silver steel was of more interest, though it was found impossible to incorporate in the alloy more than a small percentage of silver. Nevertheless, silver steel was used for some time by a Sheffield firm for manufacture of fenders. The alloys of iron with platinum, iridium, and rhodium were also of no great use. But the research demonstrated the surprising effects which minute quantities of other metals may have upon the quality of steel. Occasionally in later life Faraday would present one of his friends with a razor made from his own special steel. A paper on the use of alloys of steel in surgical instrument making was published in the _Quarterly Journal_ in collaboration with Mr. Stodart. Faraday also read his first paper before the Royal Society on two new compounds of chlorine and carbon, and on a new compound of iodine, carbon, and hydrogen. He also succeeded in making artificial plumbago from charcoal. In writing to his friend Professor G. de la Rive, he gives a long and chatty abstract of his researches on the alloys of steel. They appear to have originated in some analyses of wootz or Indian steel, a material which, when etched with acid, shows a beautifully damascened or reticulated surface. This effect Faraday never found with pure steel, but imitated it successfully with a steel alloyed with “the metal of alumine,” an element which down to that time had not been isolated. He then describes the rhodium, silver, and nickel steels, and mentions incidentally how he has been surprised to discover that he can volatilise silver, and that he cannot reduce the metal titanium. He is doubtful whether this metal “ever has been reduced at all in the pure state.” [It can now be readily reduced either in the electric arc or by the use of metallic aluminium.] He winds up the letter with the words: “Pray pity us that, after two years’ experiments, we have got no further; but I am sure, if you knew the labour of the experiments, you would applaud us for our perseverance at least.”