24 Lange, Bessemer, Goransson and Mushet. 



he and Mushet could have compelled Bessemer to agree 

 to any terms that they might have chosen to dictate. 

 Mushet had identified himself not only with the wrong 

 process but with the wrong persons. Under the circum- 

 stances, Bessemer's attitude towards him was but natural 

 and reasonable, and Bessemer's subsequent treatment of 

 him was, as I shall show, a not ungenerous one. 



BESSEMER AND MUSHET. 

 In dealing with Mushet's claims, Bessemer first refers 

 to the old knowledge of the use of spathose manganesian 

 iron in steel-making, and to Heath's process of the use of 

 carburet of manganese in crucible steel- making in com- 

 mon use in Sheffield. He draws attention to the fact that 

 Mushet's patent of September 22nd, 1856, took a well- 

 known compound, i.e., " spiegeleisen," and that the inven- 

 tion which he proposed to improve by the same was not 

 Bessemer's, but Martien's valueless patent. This was, in 

 fact, a great error of judgment on Mushet's part, and 

 one difficult to understand. Bessemer draws attention to 

 the fact that his own patents covered the recarburization 

 of the converted metal by pig-iron, but he clearly did not 

 refer to a deoxidising agent thereby. Bessemer then 

 refers to the unsuitability of spiegeleisen for mild steels, 

 owing to its low manganese, and his efforts to introduce 

 ferro-manganese.^^ Here he is upon safer ground, as, for 

 the largest proportion of the world's Bessemer steel, ferro- 

 manganese became a more important alloy than spiegel- 

 iron. Bessemer gives a list of 24 patents relating to the 

 use of manganese in steel, and covering a period from 

 1799 to 1856; he argues that if Mushet had invented an 

 alloy suitable for the recarburization of mild steel and 

 containing about 60% of manganese, 4% of carbon, and 



1^ Tlie contention here, apparently, is to set a limit to the scope of 

 I^Iushet's services. 



