i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stantially the same claims as he had patented in England ; but^ so 

 far as can be ascertained, he made no attempt to work his process, 

 having become convinced that the inventions of Bessemer and 

 Kelly were mnch more practical and really of an earlier date.* 



On May 26, 1857, Kobert F. Mushet, son of David Mushet, the 

 famous Scotch metallurgist, obtained an American patent for the 

 addition of a compound of iron, carbon, and manganese to cast 

 iron in the process of making malleable iron and steel. Previous 

 to this invention neither Bessemer nor Kelly had secured uniform 

 product ; and in fact Kelly had in only a few instances been able 

 to make a malleable metal, Mushet's invention, therefore, became 

 at once of controlling value as respects the new method of manu- 

 facturing steel. 



Early in the year 1860 the attention of the late Zohetli Shear- 

 man Durfee f was attracted to the Bessemer process. Having 

 become convinced of the great value of the process claimed alike 

 by Bessemer and Kelly, he induced the late Captain E. B. Ward, 

 of Detroit, to join him in obtaining control of Kelly's patents, and 

 of the American patents of Bessemer's apparatus and process, 

 and of Mushet's manganese mixture. In 1861 Mr. Durfee went to 

 Europe and spent several months in studying the practice of 

 making " Bessemer steel " in England, France, and Sweden. After 

 his return he and Captain Ward, in May, 1863, organized " The 

 Kelly Process Company,^' admitting Daniel J. Morrell, of Johns- 

 town, Pa., and William M. Lyon and James Park, Jr., of Pitts- 

 burg, Pa,, to an interest in the enterprise. J Although Mr. Kelly 



* Under date of May 29, 1357, Martien wrote to Messrs. Munn & Co., the solicitors of 

 William Kelly, a most generous letter, in which he abandons all claim to precedence in 

 the invention. The following is an extract from this letter: "I have found and have 

 been made perfectly satisfied, from the ample testimony laid before me in the case, that Mr. 

 Kelly is honestly the first and original inventor of the said process of manufacturing iron 

 without fuel. I find, moreover, that he has quietly been and is making improvements and 

 advancing with his invention in a very praiseworthy manner, and of which the public will 

 be put in possession in a short time." 



f The late Z. S. Durfee was born in Fall River, Mass., on April 22, 1831, and died in 

 Providence, R. I., June 8, 1880. He was a practical worker in iron and steel, and I claim 

 that he was the first business man in America to fully appreciate the great value of the 

 new process. He manifested the faith that was in him by a persistent effort to secure its 

 adoption, and, had his views been supported by his business associates, the manufacture of 

 steel by the pneumatic process would have been both a technical and commercial success 

 in the United States many years earlier than it was. 



X These gentlemen were selected because of their well-known business ability and 

 their influential association with or ownership of some of the largest and best-appointed 

 iron and steel works of the country, and it was confidently expected that they would take a. 

 lively interest in the new process by promptly employing it in the works with which they 

 were identified, and that their example would be very generally followed by the larger iron 

 and steel works of the United States. In this expectation Captain Ward and Z. S. Durfee 

 were greatly disappointed, as neither Mr. Lyon nor Mr. Parke ever adopted the process in 

 their works, and Mr. Morrell only succeeded in overcoming the objections of his associates 



