"What? You mean zinc ingots? Marin was taken aback, and then overjoyed. With zinc ingots, many of his ideas can be put into practice. For example, make white iron sheets and wrap white iron sheets on the bottom of the boat to prevent ship maggots from gnawing on ship maggots.

You know, many wooden boats have accidents because the bottom of the boat has been gnawed by maggots, or is about to break holes. If it is smashed by an enemy shell, or by the wind and waves, the ship will leak. The Spanish Armada was only finished under the combined blows of ship maggots, sea storms and the British's Hongyi artillery. There were not many that were really sunk by the British artillery alone.

After listening to the guard's report, Marin immediately couldn't sit still, and some couldn't sleep. At dawn the next day, Marin went to Emden Harbour with a dark circle under his eyes.

Marin then saw the zinc ingots that had been brought back from Newfoundland......

There are not many zinc ingots shipped back this time, a bunch of zinc ingots, and the total weight is only about 1 ton. This is so because it is too difficult to transport ore from the Bakkens lead-zinc mine.

For this 1 ton of zinc ingot, Marin's men used a mule team to carry the ore from the mountains of Bakkens to the port of Cornabrook by the sea, and a total of about 17 tons of ore were transported. There, there was a blast furnace, as well as the coal needed for smelting, which was brought from Cape Breton Island......

In fact, the mule team under Marin alone could not transport 17 tons of ore. It was the governor of Cornabrook who traded large quantities of salt from Cape Breton and other goods popular with the Beotuks of the interior of Newfoundland for the locals to help carry them with them using their domesticated reindeer.

The Beotuk people of the interior of Newfoundland live mainly by herding reindeer on the inland highlands. The inland is not like the coast, and the fishermen along the coast can replenish a lot of salt by boiling sea fish and eating it. After all, it is a saltwater fish that contains salt in itself.

The Beotuk people in the interior are not close to the sea, they are very short of salt. Sometimes, in order to replenish the salt, they have to learn to lick some of the salt from the rock face with reindeer. Or, kill the reindeer and drink the reindeer blood to replenish the salt. However, these two methods are a drop in the bucket and can't add too much salt.

And Marin happened to relocate all the salt boiling bases to Cape Breton Island, where the salt production is very large. So, give those Beotuks a little salt, no pressure. It's like a big farmer giving away a bag of rice, is there any pressure? No!

But for the Beotuks in the hinterland, that's a great favor. In order to repay the favor, these simple inland Beotuk people not only helped with mining, but also picked out some reindeer with great strength and good temper to help carry lead and zinc ore.

Although the reindeer can't catch up with the mules, there is no problem walking the mountain paths. After all, this is their home turf. Even if the strength of the pack is not as good as that of the mule, the local people have more reindeer, and the number of them has increased, and there are many packs. Eventually, the first smelter in Konabrook received 17 tonnes of ore.

At Marin's suggestion, the craftsmen made a small change above the blast furnace – a copper tube was used for the flue gas outlet above, which was curved to guide the side. But a cold water sink is attached to the copper pipe to cool the copper pipe.

Originally, without this copper tube, the zinc would have turned into steam and escaped directly from the top of the blast furnace. But with this copper pipe with the help of a cold water tank, the zinc vapor is directly cooled, first turned into zinc liquid, condensed and sunk to the bottom, and then slides down the copper pipe......

Of course, there is also a lot of molten zinc, which has condensed into a solid directly on the copper pipe, but most of it still flows out......

Afterwards, the white zinc layer attached to the inner wall of the coarse copper pipe was scraped with a scraper to obtain coarse zinc. Then, the crude zinc is melted again in a furnace with a temperature of only a few hundred degrees, and after stirring and separation, the impurities are removed and the zinc ingots with fewer impurities are refined......

Of course, in Marin's eyes, 1 ton of zinc ingot is really not much! Because, the use of zinc is too big and too wide......

So, Marlin decided to buy another 100 mules for the transportation of ore from the Bakkens lead-zinc mine on the island of Newfoundland. Marin had only sent 10 mules before, which was really not enough......

However, with this ton of zinc ingots, Marlin can start to make white iron sheets......

As a result, Marin ordered the steel mill to start making a large number of thin iron sheets, which were cut into half a square meter in size......

The reason why I only get half a square meter is because there are too few zinc ingots......

Marin ordered the construction of a flat-bottomed furnace and melted the ingots into molten zinc in the flat-bottomed furnace. Then, after making nail holes in advance, the cut ordinary iron sheet is thrown into the zinc liquid to soak for a while, and then it is fished out...... In this way, a galvanized white iron sheet was successfully made......

The reason why the nail hole is made in advance is to prevent the nail from damaging the galvanized layer when nailing towards the bottom of the ship. In this way, the white iron sheet is more susceptible to corrosion by seawater. However, if you nail the hole beforehand, even if you nail it again, it will not damage the galvanized layer. In this way, the galvanized white iron sheet is less susceptible to corrosion by seawater......

Although, the corrosion resistance of the white iron sheet is much worse than that of the copper sheet. However, it can last for at least a year or two. As long as you don't die and rub against the reef and destroy the galvanized layer, the white iron sheet can still be used for a long time. After it is corroded, it is a big deal to replace it with a white iron sheet. Anyway, the cost of white iron sheet is much lower than that of copper sheet......

Then, after making another batch of white iron sheets, Marin ordered - to the bottom of a battleship, began to nail white iron sheets. After nailing, the test results of going to sea ......

Anyway, when Ben's expedition to Panama returns, Amerigo will be able to take a few ships with white iron at the bottom, along the land line of the west coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the west coast of the South Pacific, first to Panama City, and then start the route to the East Daming......

By that time, Conabrook would have been able to produce more than ten or twenty tons of zinc ingots to send back. In that case, you can make a lot of white iron sheets, which can be used to nail the waterline part of the ship that needs to go to sea.

Of course, you also have to stock up on a spare batch of white iron sheets in case you need to replace them. After all, there is no guarantee that the ship will not bump into each other during the voyage. If you hit the reef hard, it will definitely be over, but if you rub it and scratch some of the galvanized layers of the white iron sheet, then the best way to deal with it is to replace the broken white iron sheet with a spare white iron sheet.

Anyway, the part below the waterline of the hull was nailed up piece by piece of white iron. To change the white iron sheet, simply drive the boat to a suitable tidal zone. At low tide, the ship runs aground temporarily, and the craftsmen go down to change the white iron sheets. When the tide rises, the ship continues to sail......

Looking at the shiny white iron sheet, the craftsmen exclaimed:

"It looks like silver!" However, they all knew that it was the effect of a meltable metal ingot plated on the outside of an ordinary iron sheet, not real silver.

But to the surprise of the craftsmen - they didn't seem to have heard of this metal, which in terms of its melting point and other properties, it somewhat resembled tin, but was more shiny than tin. The silver-white white iron sheet can even be used as a mirror. Before the invention of the glass mirror by the Venetians, the white iron sheet seemed to be comparable to the copper mirror...... It is also with reference to this attribute that Marin asked people to use white iron sheet to make several solar cookers that use the reflective characteristics of white iron sheet to replace the expensive copper sun cooker......

Revised