WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 



411 



have been entirely waste labour, and he might ba excused, perhaps, 

 if he dropped in a word in favour of the latter process without in 

 any way wishing to detract from the Bessemer process. Mr. 

 Bessemer had brought before them very interesting specimens, 

 showing that at the very early stages of the process excellent 

 material was produced thereby. Therefore he might ask why was 

 it that this material did not come for a number of years into such 

 use as the mild steel was now put to ? The answer, he thought, 

 had been given indirectly by Mr. Bessemer himself. Mr. Bessemer 

 had said frankly that he did not always produce such excellent 

 quality, and that there were irregularities which sometimes gave 

 rise to failure. It might be added, as remarked by Mr. Sneius, 

 that there was another cause of difficulty, and that was the 

 chemical composition. If the Bessemer process was carried out 

 properly, and good Swedish metal or high-class hematite was used, 

 he did not doubt that excellent results would be produced by it ; 

 but he thought that in a process such as the open hearth, which 

 allowed plenty of time for the taking of samples and for adjusting 

 the composition of the metal at the end of the operation, if they 

 started on equal ground, with equal care, there must be some ad- 

 vantage in favour of the uniform production of such metal as they 

 were speaking of. Another reason he might allege was that of the 

 chemical composition. Starting with pig metal of the same per- 

 centage of phosphorus, silicon, and sulphur, in the case of the 

 open-hearth process, where they treated the metal with ore and 

 limestone, they did not diminish the weight of metal ; that was to 

 say, for a ton of pig metal put in they got out within 1 per cent, 

 of a ton of steel. That in itself meant no reduction in the per- 

 centage of phosphorus and sulphur. Whereas in the Bessemer 

 process there was a certain loss of weight, meaning a certain con- 

 centration within a less weight of those materials. It might be 

 very little ; it might be nothing if absolutely pure metal was used ; 

 but if impure metal was used it would be something. On the 

 following day they would have a process brought before them by 

 which Bessemer metal could be produced from Cleveland iron. He 

 did not doubt the chemical result ; but if there was merit in it, 

 that merit might be claimed in favour of the open-hearth process 

 as carried on hitherto, inasmuch as in the Siemens process they 

 had always used ore and limestone as necessary additions to the 



