AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 15 



unideal. We need the infusion of a spirit of culture into tlie 

 national thought and life, if we are to realize the destiny which 

 seems possible to us. 



The preaching of Peter the Hermit aroused all Europe. The 

 present occasion is less picturesque, but the crusade which it 

 preaches stands for interests much more vital than the recovery 

 of Jerusalem. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 

 SINCE COLUMBUS. 



IX. THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL. {Concluded.) 

 Br WILLIAM F. DURFEE, Engineer. 



WHILE the Englishmen, Bessemer and Parry, and the Ameri- 

 can, Martien, were experimenting in England, the germ 

 which they were trying to develop into vigorous life had been 

 discovered in America; for the evidence is unimpeachable that 

 the late William Kelly had been for several years experimenting 

 in the same direction as his English contemporaries. We are 

 indebted to Mr. James M. Swank for securing a description of 

 these experiments from Mr. Kelly himself; and the reader who 

 desires to s§e the most complete account yet published of them 

 will find it in Mr. Swank's Iron in all Ages. 



Mr. Kelly and his brother bought the Eddyville Iron Works, 

 in Kentucky, in 1846. Their product was pig metal and charcoal 

 blooms. As a result of close study, the idea occurred to Mr. Kelly 

 that in the refining process fuel would be unnecessary after the 

 iron was melted, if powerful blasts of air were forced into the fluid 

 metal, for the heat generated by the union of the oxygen of the 

 air with the carbon of the metal would be sufiicient to accomplish 

 the refining. He first built a small blast-furnace, about twelve 

 feet high, in which to test this idea. The furnace had two tuyeres, 

 one above the other, the upper one to melt the stock, and the 

 lower to convey the blast into the metal. He began his experi- 

 ments in October, 1847, but was interrupted by other work, and 

 did not find time to take them up again till 1851. Finding that 

 this furnace was not capable of melting the iron properly, he de- 

 cided to separate his refining process from the melting operation, 

 and take the metal already melted from the blast-furnace. In 

 these experiments he was endeavoring to produce malleable iron. 



" With this object in view," says Mr. I^elly, " I built a furnace, 

 consisting of a square brick abutment, having a circular chamber 

 inside, the bottom of which was concave like a molder's ladle. 

 In the bottom was fixed a circular tile of fire-clay, perforated for 



