5 
the motive power for small river boats, many of which are to be 
seen on the upper reaches of the Thames during the boating 
season. In Germany and America electricity is much used in 
-miines for haulage work; in this country it was first successfully 
used both for haulage and pumping in mines, by Mr. Immisch in 
the Normanton colleries, two or three years ago. 
To Sir W. Siemens we are indebted for the introduction of the 
electric furnace for smelting metals; the reduction which this has 
effected in the cost of the production of aluminium has enabled 
that metal to be extensively used as an alloy for other metals, thus 
not only enhancing their valuable properties, but in many cases 
imparting to them novel characteristics. The subjects of the 
hardening and tempering of steel is of vital interest to the gun- 
maker; his treatment in the manufacture of his guns being, of 
course, largely influenced by the quality and nature of the steel 
with which he has to deal. It is barely thirty-five years since the 
discovery that by the addition of a fixed quantity of carbon to 
molten iron a cheap and excellent steel could be produced. This 
Bessemer steel is now made yearly at the rate of ten million five 
hundred thousand tons, as against a yearly manufacture of fifty 
thousand tons by the old process. And in the United States the 
Bessemer rails produccd are even double in number to those 
manufactured in this country. To give you some idea of the 
magnitude of the steel rade in the present day, I will mention a 
few statistics relative to the works of Messrs. Krupp, the famous 
German gun makers. The works at Essen cover one thousand 
acres, the number of men employed being twenty-five thousand, 
who live in the Krupp village of eight thousand cottages. The 
works contain four hundred and thirty-nine steam boilers, four 
hundred and fifty steam engines, eighty-two steam hammers, 
eleven large furnaces, and one thousand five hundred and forty- 
two smelting stoves. The amount of iron ore used daily is one 
thousand five hundred tons, and the consumption of fuel is four 
thousand tons of coal or coke per diem. 
Before quitting the subject of steel, I will draw your attention 
from the “infinitely great ’’ to the ‘‘infinitely small,’ namely to 
the manufacture of steel peus, for the production of which eighteen 
tons of steel are used daily in this country alone. The invention 
ot steel pens was due, like so many other inventions, to a trivial 
- accident. In 1830 Mr. Gillott, who was then a working jeweller, 
accidentally split up one of his fine steel tools. Being suddenly 
in needof a pen, he used the spoiled implement as a ready sub- 
stitute, and found it answered so admirably thatit suggested to 
him anew departure in the manufacture of pens, Itis said that 
the firm of Gillott alone produces as many pens in a day as all 
