5/A' U'l I.I.I AM SII'.MKNS, F.R S. 381 



is essential in order to make the metal thoroughly malleable. We 

 h:i\< here then a process that has done more than any other in- 

 vent inn in modern times to revolutionize, I may say, the most 

 important industries of the land. At present not only railway 

 machinery, but the very rails upon which we travel, are made not 

 of iron, but of steel, and if I say that steel rails have shown a power 

 of endurance five or six times greater than those of iron, I may 

 add, with some regret (and I now speak not as a consumer, but as 

 one connected with the production of steel as a manufacture) that 

 they are unfortunately produced at a price almost cheaper than 

 iron or any other metal that could be named. Perhaps, however, 

 the manufacturer will learn to produce them at those prices and 

 yet clear some profit. 



Almost at the same time that Mr. Bessemer made his remarkable 

 invention experiments were instituted, at a distance of not 100 

 yards from this place, which have led to another process of pro- 

 ducing steel upon a large scale. I, in conjunction with my brother, 

 Frederick Siemens (who had previously been my pupil), erected 

 an experimental furnace at Scotland Yard, by which we proposed 

 to attain very high degrees of heat, and it was almost from the 

 first that I looked upon that furnace as capable of accomplishing 

 what Reaumur, and after him, Heath, had proposed to do, namely 

 to produce steel in large quantities upon the open hearth. 



At first our attention was confined to melting steel in crucibles, 

 to melting glass, and to other applications of this mode of pro- 

 ducing intense heat ; the difficulties encountered were very great, 

 and it was not until the year 1861 or 1862 that the prejudices in 

 the way of the practical application of the furnace were sufficiently 

 overcome, and that the furnace itself had assumed such a shape as 

 to enable us to show that it could be applied with commercial 

 advantage. And it is a curious coincidence that it took us just as 

 long to mature this furnace as it took Mr. Bessemer to mature his 

 process. In the year 1861, a large furnace was erected at the 

 glass works of Messrs. Lloyd and Summerfield, near Birmingham, 

 which has been at work up to the present time, and has realized 

 those results that we, up to that time, had only hoped to attain. 

 The success then achieved encouraged me to commence a series of 

 experiments in the direction of producing steel on the open hearth, 

 but, in order not to weary you, I will proceed to describe the 



