12 Lange, Bessemer, Goransson and Miishet. 



Henry, Edward Riley and Dr. Percy, the well-known 

 chemists and metallurgists, and the publications of Robert 

 Hunt of the Record Office of the School of Mines were 

 also gone through. The ensuing; experiments took the 

 (as we now know) unfortunate path of trying to rid com- 

 mon British pig of its phosphorus. Bessemer says : — 



" Apparatus was put up for the production of pure 

 " hydrogen gas which was passed through the metal ; as 

 " also were carbonic acid, carburetted hydrogen, etc. Metal- 

 " lie oxides and alkaline salts, and many other fluxes were 

 "tried with little or no beneficial results, and the metal was 

 " treated in various other ways. It is needless to follow the 

 "continuous string of heart-breaking failures and disappoint- 

 " ments, which were very costly and very laborious." 



Bessemer now saw that the problem had to be tackled 

 in a different way, namely,in the production of a phoshorus- 

 free pig-iron, and, as a preliminary step, he sent to Sweden 

 for some of the pure pig-irons used in Sheffield. Mean- 

 while, some eighteen months had been spent in useless 

 experiments.^' Bessemer says : — 



" Hapi)ily for me the end was nigh. The pure pig- 

 " iron, which I had ordered from Sweden, arrived at last, 

 " and no time was lost in converting it into pure, soft, 

 " malleable iron, and also into steel of various degrees of 

 "hardness. It was thus incontestably proved that with non- 

 " phosphoric pig-iron my converting process was a perfect 

 " success ; and that with pig-iron that had cost me only ^'] 

 " per ton, delivered in London, we could, and did, produce 

 " cast steel commercially worth ;^50 to ;^6o per ton by 

 "simply forcing atmospheric air through it for the space 

 " of fifteen to twenty minutes, wholly without the use of 

 " manganese or spiegeleisen." 



Now, neither in his autobiogra[^hy nor in his account 



of the history of his process as prepared for the Joint 



International Meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute, the 



^ 1 It is, probably, usually the case that theoretical research work is well 

 ahead of its practical application. Bessemer's practical difficulties were not 

 altogether justified by the actual stale of technical knowledge at the time, 

 had he or his advisers known where to look. See Appendix, Note 4. 



