22 Lange, Bessemer^ Goransson and Miishet. 



Wedding says, Bessemer's deserts remain undiminished, 

 for it is no real invention to have the idea of turning a 

 known natural law to account without being in a position 

 to indicate the right means for carrying it out.^' 



In 1857, Parry applied for a patent for decarburizing 

 crude iron by blowing down upon it in a closed chamber 

 without fuel instead of blowing upwards as in the Bessemer 

 process. This was not completed. When Bessemer read 

 his paper before the Institution of Civil Engineers in 

 1859, Brown was one of the speakers, and said that he 

 had been sanguine of the success of the Bessemer process, 

 and had spent £7,000 in endeavouring to carry it out 

 (this without licence from Bessemer). He mentioned 

 the difficulty which he experienced, amounting, indeed, to 

 an impracticability in finding a completely refractory 

 material for the furnace. 



He criticised Bessemer's figures as to the cost of the 

 materials, and said that with regard to waste there was, 

 under the most favourable circumstances, a loss in the 

 manufacture of nearly 40 per cent, of metal ; and, on one 

 occasion, his agent informed him that nothing but cinder 

 remained. 



In 1861, Parry took out a patent, the idea of which, 

 evidently, was to get round the Bessemer process, as then 

 practised, by applying the pneumatic process, not to pig- 

 iron, but to a crude iron produced by melting scrap-iron 

 with coke in a small blast furnace. 



This patent, and the attempt to corner the use of 

 manganese, caused Bessemer great anxiety. In 1864, 

 Bessemer became aware, by accident, that negotiations 

 were on foot to form the Ebbw Vale Ironworks and mines 

 into a joint-stock company, with a capital of ;^2,ooo,ooo, 

 a Mr. David Chadwick being the financial agent. Their 



"■ Wedding, " Eisenhiittenkuade " iii., 2. 



