THE IRON ORES OF NICTAUX, N. S—GILPIN. tet 
steel, but managed with more success in designing methods for 
producing malleable iron by direct processes which, however, 
could not compete in cheapness with malleable iron made from 
pig iron puddled by hand. | 
At this stage the Bessemer process appeared, and the difli- 
culty was solved. Steel could be made with regularity of 
output and uniformity of composition, and it came at once into 
commercial competition with wrought iron. At first many 
difficulties were encountered, not the least of which was the 
disposition to doubt that a desired standard of uniformity in 
tensile and other tests could be maintained, Step by step the 
chemist and the steel maker advanced, this difficulty was solved 
by an enquiry into the composition of the ores, the fuels, the 
re-actions in the furnace, while the practical steel maker invented 
the improvements required in the shape of the convertors, the 
machinery needed to handle it, the linings, ete. Finally, the 
test requirements for steel rails, girders, ete., imposed by 
architects and engineers, were easily and regularly met, and it 
was acknowledged that steel was the king of all metals. Borrow- 
ing from other elements their properties, it became hard almost 
as a diamond, or flexible and soft so that it could be pressed 
without breaking into a dish or kettle. Few people taking up 
a piece of steel imagine what a long history of investigation, 
experiment, and down-right hard inventive work it represents, 
probably the greatest and most important of our generation 
It was found to be a sine qua non that good steel required 
as its foundation good pig iron. Pig iron that did very well 
for common foundry purposes, or that could be puddled into 
fair bar iron, would not answer for the Bessemer process. This 
discovery called for the best of materials. Some ores were 
useless, some fuels carried too much sulphur or phosphorus, ete. 
The limits within which fuels and ores and fluxes were suitable 
for the Bessemer process were soon defined exactly, and of course 
the composition of the pig iron to be produced for conversion 
into steel was defined with equal exactness. The amounts of 
phosphorus, sulphur, silicon, ete., allowed in the pig iron were 
