380 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF 



suitability to cut other metals, or when drawn out it will show a 

 permanent elasticity not equalled by any other substance ; it is 

 susceptible of retaining magnetism, and will become what is called 

 a permanent magnet, which property is shared with it to an 

 inferior degree by only two other metals nickel and cobalt. It is 

 now produced in another condition known as mild steel, in which 

 it manifests a quality of a totally different kind, a ductility not 

 equal only but superior to that of copper and silver. 



I hold in my hand a vase that has been wrought from a bar of 

 this mild steel by an ordinary blacksmith, or I should rather say 

 by an extraordinary blacksmith, because upon examination the 

 workmanship displayed in the production of this vase is found to 

 be really astonishing. The vase is hollow throughout, and not 

 more than J^ of an inch in thickness and perfectly sound, without 

 weld or soldering. For this work of art I am indebted to my 

 esteemed friend Mr. Henri Schneider, of the celebrated Creusot 

 works in France, who has forwarded it to me as a sample of what 

 he had produced by the open hearth process of steel making, of 

 which process I shall have occasion to speak further on. 



It was not, however, until the year 1856, that a means was pro- 

 posed of producing steel at a cheap rate. This was the year when 

 Mr. Henry Bessemer read his famous paper at the meeting of the 

 British Association at Cheltenham. His paper was entitled " The 

 manufacture of malleable iron and steel without fuel," and it 

 naturally created the greatest possible interest throughout the 

 country. Mr. Bessemer, however, did not immediately succeed in 

 producing by his process such steel as could be used. It was not 

 until the year 1862, the time of the Universal Exhibition in Lon- 

 don, that Bessemer steel attained a decided position in commerce. 

 But, in speaking of this very important process, I feel in justice 

 bound to make reference to the name of Mushet, who, when he 

 heard of the Bessemer process, thought that it would require an 

 addition analogous to what Heath made in the Sheffield pot- 

 melting process that of manganese. Mushet proposed and 

 patented a mode of adding spiegeleisen (or pig metal containing a 

 considerable percentage of manganese) to the Bessemer metal 

 whilst it is still in the liquid state, thereby separating from it the 

 oxygen held in suspension in the metal in consequence of the 

 blowing, and as we now know, adding to it some manganese which 



