Manchester Memoirs, J W. Ivii. (1913), No. IT. 31 



Bessemer refers to a booklet which he sent me, namely, a 

 reprint from the Engineering Revieiv of July 20th of that 

 year, and entitled " A Brief Statistical Sketch of the 

 Bessemer Steel Industry: Past and Present." In this 

 article, of which he was the author, he attempts to give an 

 idea of the world's production of Bessemer steel in 1892, 

 which amounted to no less than 10,500,000 tons, by 

 representing the same as a steel column looft. in diameter, 

 the diameter of a large gasometer, and 6,684ft. high. 



I am indebted to Mr. Harold Jeans for further statistics 

 of Bessemer steel production since the year 1S92, and find 

 that the world's record output was achieved last year, 

 19 1 2, with a total of 29,350,000 tons, or more than 2f 

 times the amount that Bessemer, himself, found so im- 

 pressive. This tonnage would lengthen the imaginary 

 lOOft. diameter steel column from 6,684ft. to 18,682ft. in 

 height. 



In order to impress you with an idea of the magnitude 

 of the above output in another way, I have prepared a 

 diagram showing that this amount of steel would represent 

 a column of 220ft. in diameter and 3,570ft. in height, or 

 the height of Snowdon. (See PI. V.) 



I feel, however, that I can with greater profit appeal 

 to your imagination by mentioning some of the economic 

 results of a process capable of producing cheap steel in 

 such quantities. By enabling steel to be produced at a less 

 cost than that of common iron, the cost of construction of 

 railways has been so greatly lessened as to permit of their 

 extension to the most distant regions, and the cost of trans- 

 portation has been brought so low as to bring into the 

 markets of the world perishable products which were 

 formerly excluded from them. 



These two causes have reduced the value of food 

 products throughout the civilised world. Wages have 



