Background
Albert Arents was born on March 14, 1840 in Clausthal, Germany.
Albert Arents was born on March 14, 1840 in Clausthal, Germany.
His education was typical of this school of young German engineers.
He had two years at the University of Berlin and his technical training at the Royal Mining Academy, Clausthal.
He came to America in 1865 under engagement to a small lead mine in Massachusetts and later found employment with the Eureka Consolidated Company, Eureka, Nev. The most primitive character of smelting operations greeted Arents and his associates at Eureka, the first furnace used there having been an adobe affair with only natural draft, not actually a blast-furnace. Nevertheless, Eureka may well be considered as the birthplace of American lead smelting, for Arents was responsible for many of the most important features and his "siphon lead-well" was, in fact, revolutionary in its effect upon lead blast-furnace practise.
Prior to the use of his device it had been necessary to periodically "tap" the lead from the furnace, but with his improvement the lead continually overflowed from the furnace crucible, gradually as it was reduced from the ore, thus avoiding the noxious operation of "tapping" large volumes of such highly heated lead, besides materially improving all of the blast-furnace conditions.
The metallurgical progress was so great that when, in the next few years, smelting spread into Utah and Colorado, the practise, except for automatic feeding and the much smaller furnaces, was practically the same as present-day operations.
Arents's siphon lead-well was not a manufactured device upon which his name could be distinctly displayed, but was merely the manner of placing the brick-work in the furnace crucible, and yet universally, from general manager down to most menial workman, it was spoken of as "Arents's lead-well. "
Prior to 1885 Arents removed to Alameda, California, which remained his home until his death. That he did not altogether relinquish pyrometallurgy is shown by an indefinitely worded patent of a revolving roaster, some of its features remaining in its prototype, the widely used cement kiln of the present day.
No record of his family is available.