Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ivii. (1913), TVi?. V\. 17 



Goransson's visit to England in the autumn of 1858, as 

 before related. Goransson found that Bessemer was 

 making steel by granulating the converted charge by 

 running it into water and then classifying according to the 

 carbon percentage ; the granulated metal being then 

 remelted in crucibles. Goransson was able, during his 

 visit, to put Bessemer into the way of his Swedish practice 

 of blowing, after which, so far as I can learn, the granu- 

 lating was abandoned — although not immediately — and 

 the process thus established on a proper basis. There is 

 a brief entry by W. D. Allen in an old diary for 1859: 

 " First made steel direct." This was on June 18th, and 

 thus fixes the date of the change. 



The first year of working resulted in a loss of ^^"729, 

 and in 1859, the second year, the loss was ;^i,ioo. In 

 i860, simultaneously with the appearance of the con- 

 verter in its present form, there was a profit of ^900, and 

 seven years later, the profit had risen to ^^"28,000. 



Bessemer says in his autobiography : — 



"Some idea may be formed of the iaiportance of the 

 " manufacture, and of how much the people of Sheffield lost 

 "by their prejudice and incredulity, when I state the simple 

 " fact that on the expiration of the fourteen years' term of 

 "partnership of our Sheffield firm, the works, which had 

 "been greatly increased from time to time entirely out of 

 " revenue, were sold by private contract for exactly twenty- 

 "four times the amount of the whole subscribed capital of 

 "the firm, notwithstanding that we had divided in profits 

 "during the partnership a sum equal to fifty-seven times the 

 "gross capital. So that, by the mere commercial working of 

 " the process, apart from the patent, each of the five partners 

 " retired horn the Sheffield works after fourteen years, having 

 " made eighty-one times the amount of his subscribed 

 "capital, or an average of nearly cent, per cent, every two 

 "months — a result probably unprecedented in the annals of 

 "commerce." 



The principal product of the works in the beginning 

 was tool steel. This sold at £a,2 a ton as against the 



