chidina; the Germans, to evolve their own teehnic|iies. 

 Bessemer coneludes: '" 



Had the invention been paK'nled, it would have become 

 public property in fovnieen years from the dale of the 

 patent, after which period the public would have been 

 able to buy bronze powder at its present [i.e., ca. i8go] 

 market i)rice, viz from two shillings and three pence to 

 two shillings and nine pence per pound. But this important 

 secret was kept for about ihirly-five years and the |)ublic 

 had to pay excessively high prices for twenis-one years 

 longer than they would have done had the invention become 

 public propert)' in fourteen years, as it would have been if 

 patented. Even this does not represent all the disad- 

 vantages resulting from secret manufacture. While every 

 detail of production was a profound secret, there were no 

 improvements made by the outside public in any one of the 

 machines employed during the whole thirty-five years; 

 whereas during the fourteen years, if the invention had been 

 patented, there would, in all probability have been many 

 improved machines invented and many novel features 

 applied to totally different manufactures. 



\\ hile these words, to some extent, were the rational- 

 izations of an old man, Bessemer's career showed that 

 his philosophy had a practical foundation; and, if 

 this was indeed his belief, the cpi.sode explains in 

 large measure Bessemer's later insistence on the 

 legal niceties of the patent procedure. The effect of 

 this will be seen. 



Bessemer's intervention in the field of iron and 

 steel was preceded by a period of experiments in the 

 manufacture of glass. Here Bessemer claims to have 

 made glass for the first time in the open hearth of a 

 reverberatory furnace." His work in glass manu- 

 facture at least gave him considerable experience in 

 the problems of fusion under high temperatures and 

 provided some support for his later claim that in 

 applying the reverberatory finnace to the manufacture 

 of malleable iron as describetl in his first patent of 

 January 185.S, he had in some manner anticipated 

 the work of C. W. Siemens and F.niil Martin. '- 



'» Ibid., p. 83. 



" Ibi<t., p. 108 ff. 



" Ibid., p. 141. Bessemer's assertion that he had approached 

 "within measurable distance" of anticipating the .Siemens- 

 Martin process, made in a paper presented at a meeting of the 

 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (Transacliom 

 nj Ihf American Society of .Mechanical Engineers, 1897, vol. 28, 

 p. 459), evoked strong criticism of Be.wmer's lack of generosity 

 (ibid., p. 482). One commentator, friendly to Bessemer, put 

 it that "Bessemer's relation to the open-hearth process was 

 very much like Kelly's to the Besisemer process . . . .Mthough 

 he was measurably near to the open-hearth process, he did 

 not follow it up and make it a commercial success . . ." 

 {ibid., p. 491). 



PAPER 3: BEGINNINGS OF CHEAP STEEL 



The general interest in problems of ordnance and 

 armor, stimulated by the Crimean War (1854-1856), 

 was shared by Bessemer, whose ingenuity soon pro- 

 duced a design for a projectile which could provide 

 its own rotation when fired from a smooth-bore gun.'"' 

 Bessemer's failure to interest the British War Office 

 in the idea led him to submit his design to the Emperor 

 Napoleon HI. Trials made with the encourageinent 

 of the Emperor showed the inadecjuacy of the cast- 

 iron guns of the period to deal with the heavier shot; 

 and Bessemer was presented with a new problem 

 which, with "the open mind which derived from a 

 limited kitowlcdgc of the metallurgy of war," he 

 attacked with impetuosity. Within three weeks of 

 his experiments in France, he had applied for a 

 patent for "Iinprovements in the Manufacture of 

 Iron and Steel." '^ This covered the fusion of steel 

 with pig or cast iron and, though this must be regarded 

 as only the first practical step toward the Bessemer 

 process,'^ it was his experiments with the furnace 

 which provided Bessemer with the idea for his 

 later developments. 



These were described in his patent dated October 

 17, 1855 (British patent 2321). This patent is signifi- 

 cant to the present study because his a[)plication for 

 an .Xmcrican patent, based on similar specifications, 

 led to the interference of William Kelly and to the 

 subsequent denial of the .American patent.'" In 

 British patent 2321 Bes.semer proposed to con\ert his 

 steel in crucibles, arranged in a suitable furnace and 

 each basing a sertical luxere. through which air 

 under pressure was forced through the molten metal, 

 .^^s Dredge '" points out, Bessemer's association of the 

 air blast with the increase in the temperature of the 

 metal "showed his appreciation of the end in \iew, 

 and the general way of attaining it, though his 

 mechanical details were still crude and iinperfect." 

 Experiments were continued and several more 

 British patents were applied for before Bessemer 

 made his appearance Ix'fore the British .Xssociaiion 



'3 British patent 2489, November 24, 1854. 



<* Bessemer, op. cit. (footnote 7), p. 137 He received British 

 patent 66. dated January 10, 1855. 



'•'See James W. Dredge, "Henry Bessemer 1813-1898." 

 Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1898, 

 vol. 19, p. 911. 



'• See U. S. Patent Office, Decision of Commissioner of 

 Patents, dated .\pril 13, 1857, in Kelly vs. Bessemer Inter- 

 ference. This is further discussed below (p. 42.) 



" Dredge, op. cit. (footnote 15), p. 912. 



31 



