Muslut. by this time, had apparently decided lo 

 i^encralize the ap[)Hcation of his compound instead of 

 citing its use in conjunction with Marticn's process, 

 or, as he put it, he had been obliged to do for his 

 English specification by the Ebbw Vale Iron W'orks. 



The discussion in the Scientific American, which was 

 mostly concerned with Martien's claim to priority, 

 soon evoked a letter from William Kelly. Writing 

 under date of September 30, 1856, from the Suwanee 

 Iron Works, Eddyville, Kentucky, he claimed to have 

 started "a series of experiments" in November 1851 

 which had been witnessed by hundreds of persons and 

 "discussed amongst the ironmasters, etc., of this sec- 

 tion, all of whom are perfectly familiar with the whole 

 principle ... as discovered by me nearly five years 

 ago." A number of English puddlers had visited him 

 to see his new process. "Several of them have since 

 returned to England and may have spoken of my 

 invention there." Kelly expected "shortly to have 

 the in\ention perfected and bring it before the 

 public." •'■ 



Bessemer's application for an American patent was 

 granted during the week ending November 18, 1856, 

 and Kelly began his interference proceedings some- 

 time before January 1857.'* 



Kelly's witnesses were almost wholly from the ranks 

 of employees or former employees. The only excep- 

 tion was Dr. Alfred H. Champion, a physician of 

 Eddyville. Dr. Champion describes a meeting in the 

 fall of 1851 with "two or three practical Ironmasters 

 and others" at which Kelly described his process and 

 invited all present to see it in operation. He stated: 



The company present all differed in opinion from Mr. 

 Kelly and appealed to me as a chemist in confirmation 

 of their doubts. I at once decided that Mr. Kelly was 

 correct in his Theory and then went on to explain the 

 received opinion of chemists a century ago on this subject, 

 and the present received opinion which was in direct 

 confirmation of the novel theory of Mr. Kelly. I also 

 mentioned the analogy of said Kelly's process in decarbon- 

 ising iron to the process of decarbonising blood in the human 

 lungs. 



" Scientific American, 1856, vol. 12, p. 43, Kelly's suggestion of 

 piracy of his ideas was later enlarged upon by his biographer 

 .John Newton Boucher, WiUuim Kelly: A true history oj llie so- 

 called Bessemer process, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 1924. 



»' Ibid., p. 82. Kelly's notice of his intention to take testimony 

 was addressed to Bessemer on January 12, 1857. See papers 

 on "Interference, William Kelly vs. Henry Bessemer Decision 

 April 13, 1857." U. S. Patent Office Records. Quotations 

 below arc from this file, which is now permanently preserved 

 in the library of the U. S. Patent Office. 



I'APER 3: BEGINNINGS OF CHEAP STEEL 



The Doctor does not say, specifically, if he or any 

 of the "company" went to see the process in operation. 

 Kelly obtained aHidaviis from another seventeen 

 witnesses. Ten of the.se recorded their recollections of 

 experiments conducted in 1847. Five described the 

 1851 work. Two knew of or had seen both. One of 

 the last group was John B. Evans who became forge 

 manager of Kelly's Union Forge, a few miles from 

 Suwanee. This evidence is of interest since a man in 

 his position should have been in a position to tell some- 

 thing about the results of Kelly's operations in terms 

 of usable metal. Unfortunately, he limits hiiiLself lo 

 a comment on the metal which had chilled around a 

 tuyere which had been sent back to the Forge ("it was 

 partly malleable and partly refined pig-iron") and to 

 an account of a conversation with others who had 

 worked some of Kelly's "good wrought iron" made 

 by the new process. 



Only one of the witnesses (William Soden) makes 

 a reference to the phenomenon which is an accom- 

 paniment of the blowing of a converter: the prolonged 

 and violent emission of sparks and flames which 

 startled Bessemer in his first use of the process ^ and 

 which still provides an exciting, if not awe-inspiring, 

 interlude in a visit to a steel mill. Soden refers, 

 without much excitement, to a boiling commotion, 

 but the results of Kelly's "air-boiling'' were, evidently, 

 not such as to impress the rest of those who claimed 

 to have seen his furnace in operation. Only five of 

 the total of eighteen of the witnesses say that they 

 witnessed the operations. .Soden, incidentally, knew 

 of seven different "air-boiling" furnaces, some with 

 four and some with eight tuyeres, but he also neglected 

 lo report on the use of the metal. 



As is well known, Kelly satisfied the Acting Com- 

 missioner that he had "made this invention and 

 showed it by drawings and experiment as early as 

 1847," and he was awarded priority by the Acting 

 Commissioner's decision of April 13, 1857, and U. S. 

 Patent 17628 was granted him as of June 23, 1857. 

 The Scientific American sympathized with Bessemer's 

 realization that his American patent was "of no more 

 value to him than so much waste paper" but took the 

 opportunity of chastising Kelly for his negligence in 

 not securing a patent at a much earlier date and ccm- 

 plained of a patent system which did not require an 

 inventor to luake known his discovery promptly. The 

 journal advocated a "certain fixed time" after which 

 such an inventor "should not be allowed to subvert 



w Bessemer, op cit. (footnote 7), p. 144. 



43 



