734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



steel annually, an amount equal to the whole importation of steel 

 of every kind. . . . The only steel now [1831] imported from Great 

 Britain is of a different and better quality than that just men- 

 tioned/' Cast steel was not then made in the United States. This 

 variety of steel was invented in England, by Benjamin Huntsman, 

 in 1740. Mr. Huntsman was a watch-maker, and also made clocks, 

 roasting-jacks, and other mechanical contrivances. 



The invention of Huntsman consisted substantially in break- 

 ing " blister steel " into small fragments, placing these in a cruci- 

 ble, and subjecting that to sufficient heat to render its contents 

 perfectly fluid ; the fluid steel was then poured (or " teemed ") into 

 a cast-iron mold. Melting the " blister steel " removed all its solid 

 infusible impurities, and when the ingot which resulted from the 

 " teeming " (or " casting," hence the term cast steel) was hammered 

 or rolled, the product was found to be much more homogeneous, 

 and the temper more uniform, than was ever the case in steel made 

 by the old welding process. The first attempt to produce " cast 

 steel " in America that is fairly entitled to be called successful 

 was made by the brothers William and John Hill Garrard, natives 

 of England, who in August, 1832, commenced the manufacture of 

 " cast steel " in works located on the Miami Canal, at Cincinnati. 



Metallurgical history is indebted to James M. Swank * for a 

 full account of these works, including a statement of Dr. William 

 Garrard, who was living in 1884. As to the commercial success 

 of his manufacture, Dr. Garrard says : " I sold my steel and manu- 

 factured articles principally to manufacturers. There were some 

 wholesale houses that bought of me, but they were importing 

 houses, and when the Sheffield manufacturers found that I was 

 making as good steel and manufactured saws and files as good as 

 they did, they gave our merchants such an extended time of 

 credit that they bought as little as possible from us/' The Cin- 

 cinnati Steel Works, as this establishment was called, continued 

 in operation until 1844, although in the last seven years of their 

 existence the principal product was blister steel. That the cast 

 steel made in these works was of excellent quality there is abun- 

 dant proof. 



It is impossible within the space available to give in detail an 

 account of the many attempts that were made in various parts of 

 the country, but chiefly in Pennsylvania, between the years 1830 

 and 1860, to manufacture steel of the best quality. The reasons 

 for the almost uniform failure can now be very easily assigned ; 

 there was a universal ignorance of chemistry and a consequent 

 contempt for its teachings, and the experimenters had not suffi- 

 cient knowledge of practical metallurgy to utilize their occasional 



* In Iron in all Ages. 



