The ladle is at once conveyed by the crane to a row of large cast-iron ingot moulds, and the metal is poured, or "teemed," into them as shown in Fig. 25. Most large ladles are now poured from a hole in the bottom, but with ladles poured over the edge, care must be taken to skim away the slag to keep it from going into the mould. The slag is later poured from the ladle into a steel-bodied slag car and conveyed to the dump. The crane moves the ladles readily along the row of moulds. In this view the moulds are filled through a clay-lined iron pipe, or "runner," leading into the bottom of each mould. These runners are, in this view, behind the moulds. The moulds are not lined nor are they previously heated, but ladles, pipes, troughs, and other refractory lined holders or conveyers of molten metal must be heated and must never contain any moisture when metal is poured into them.

Fig. 25. - Pouring Steel into Ingot Moulds.

The subsequent treatment of the ingots produced in these moulds is described in the next chapter.