STEEL MAKING IN NOVA SCOTIA—GILPIN. es 
carriage acted as a measure of protection to their more 
fortunately situated competitors. It looked as if the steel 
production of the world was to be practically limited to those 
countries which had the opportunity of assembling at the water 
edge a good and cheap local fuel and a pure water borne ore; or, 
to a country like the United States of America, which, possess- 
ing both these requisites, had also a cheap land and water 
carriage, and an almost unlimited home market. 
At this point in the history of steel an unexpected and 
important discovery was made. It was found that under certain 
conditions of manipulation, including a basic lining for the 
converters, 2. @., the use of substances such as magnesia, it was 
possible to convert phosphorus, the great enemy of the Bessemer 
process, into an important adjunct in steel making. As hitherto 
the limit for phosphorus in Bessemer ore (.07) was measured by 
hundreds of one per cent., and the great difficulty was to find iron 
ores free from it in large enough quantities to ensure a regular 
and cheap supply, it is plain that when as much as three per 
cent. of phosphorus was permissible in the new process, a fresh 
field was opened up. Briefly speaking, the process consisted in 
the burning out of the carbon, silicon, and sulphur, by manganese 
and the phosphorus, the latter after discharging its kind offices 
practically eliminating itself. 
As was to be expected, this process, known as the Thomas 
Gilchrist, specially recommended itself to the German steel 
makers who had at hand large supplies of low grade ores. Large 
establishments were started there and at other points on the 
continent, and now the Bessemer steel makers of England find 
their markets successfully invaded by the makers of basic steel. 
In spite of the experience thus gained during the past few years 
in England, the steel makers there, bound by prejudice, are only 
now awaking to the fact that they must be distanced by the 
continental steel makers, unless they adopt the process based on 
the poorer and cheaper ores. Thus the inventive faculties of 
two men threaten to divert a great trade, and to starve an 
industry in which millions are invested in England. 
