AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 17 



known as the Bessemer process, and a patent was granted me 

 over Mr. Bessemer." 



There has been a feeling among metallurgists in both hemi- 

 spheres that William Kelly's claims as an originator of a process 

 similar in all its essential features to that invented by Henry 

 Bessemer rest on a very unsubstantial foundation of experi- 

 mental facts and experience. This impression is entirely errone- 

 ous, as was proved in the interference proceedings before the 

 Commissioner of Patents, pending the issuance of a patent to 

 Kelly (June 23, 1857) ; and again in 1870, when the question of 

 granting an extension of Bessemer's patent (of November 11, 

 1856) was before the United States Patent Office, the commissioner 

 refused to grant such extension, holding that the patent should 

 not have been issued, as William Kelly was the prior inventor ; 

 and still again, when in 1871 William Kelly's patent was extended 

 for seven years, it having been proved to the satisfaction of the 

 commissioner that he had not been sufficiently remunerated for 

 the invention ; and yet again, by the fact of royalties having 

 been regularly paid by the manufacturers of steel during the 

 whole of the seven years for which Kelly's patent was extended, 

 for the right to use his invention; and so unimpeachable was 

 the evidence on which his claims were founded, that there was 

 no attempt to set them aside during that time.* 



The plain, straightforward statement of Mr. Kelly above quoted 

 is an additional proof that he was no mere schemer or dreamer. 

 It is evident that he had a definite end in view — the making of 

 malleable iron — and had he possessed more. capital and been situ- 

 ated where he could have availed himself of the best facilities, it 

 is quite probable that he would have arrived at that end by the 

 employment of methods and apparatus which would have left 

 little to be desired ; but, located in a small community (Eddyville 

 had not five hundred inhabitants), in a part of the country re- 

 mote from the best mechanical appliances and with limited 

 means, it is remarkable that he carried his invention as far as 

 he did before the heavy hand of bankruptcy crushed alike his 

 ledgers and experiments. 



As matters stood when Kelly's patent was issued, Bessemer 

 had received a patent for the same invention, and at a later date a 

 number of patents for apparatus the design of which was clearly 

 very far in advance of anything accomplished by Kelly. Joseph 

 G. Martien also had obtained a patent (February 24, 1857) for sub- 



* In this connection it is proper to note that all the profits which the owners of the 

 patents of Bessemer, Kelly, and Mushet ever received were earned and divided during the 

 seven years covered by the extension of the patent of William Kelly ; and had not that 

 extension been granted, the parties who had put their money into the purchase of these 

 patents would never have received one cent for their investment. 



VOL. XL. — 2 



