104 Sir Frederick Abel [April 22, 



arising out of continued advances made in the application of science 

 to the perfection or transformation of manufacturing processes, and 

 of the stimulating effects of such fluctuations upon the exertions of 

 those who are able to bring scientific knowledge to bear upon the 

 solution of problems in industrial operations which entirely baffle the 

 ordinary manufacturer. Within that period the inventions of 

 Bessemer and of Siemens have led to the replacement of iron by 

 steel in some of its most extensive applications. The Bessemer 

 converter, by which pig iron is rapidly transformed into steel by the 

 injection of air into the molten metal, has, so far as this country is 

 concerned, to a very great extent superseded the puddling furnace, in 

 which pig iron is transformed by long-continued laborious treatment 

 into steel or malleable iron. This important change in our national 

 industry was, ere long, productive of a serious crisis therein, and for 

 the reason that the pig iron produced from a large proportion of 

 those ores which, from their abundance and the cheapness of their 

 treatment, have been largely instrumental in placing Great Britain 

 in her high position as an iron-producing nation, could not bo 

 applied to the production of marketable steel by means of the 

 Bessemer converter. In the purification of this pig iron during 

 its conversion in the puddling furnace into a suitable material for 

 the production of rails, the elementary constituent phosphorus, which 

 it had carried with it from the ore as a contaminating ingredient 

 very detrimental to its strength, was eliminated, and by sufficient 

 treatment a malleable iron of good quality was obtained ; but in the 

 production of steel from the same material in the Bessemer converter, 

 the phosphorus is almost entirely retained in the metal, rendering it 

 unsuitable for manufacture into rails or plates. Hence the applica- 

 tion of this rapid steel-making process had to be chiefly restricted to 

 particular kinds of ores, the supplies of which are limited to a few 

 districts in this country. These had to be largely supplemented by 

 importations from other countries ; nevertheless the cheapness of 

 production and sui^eriority in point of strength, durability and 

 lightness of the steel rails thus sent into the market from the 

 Bessemer converter combined to maintain a supremacy of them over 

 iron rails, &c., manufactured by the old puddling processes from 

 the staple ores of the country. 



The advantages presented by steel over the wrought iron of the 

 puddling furnace for constructive purposes speedily became evident ; 

 combining as it does nearly double the strength with a more than 

 proportionate superiority in elasticity and ductility, its value for ship- 

 building purposes did not long fail to be realised. It was soon found 

 more profitable to build a steel steamer, paying a price of nearly 9/. 

 per ton for the material, than to construct one of iron which cost only 

 6/. 5s. per ton. The efiect of the rapid displacement of malleable iron 

 by steel produced from ores of a particular class has been, that at 

 least 85 to 90 per cent, of the iron ores of Great Britain could no 

 longer be applied to the production of material for rails and for con- 



