S/X WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 22$ 



reassert themselves at a time of enlightened competition like the 

 present. 



I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 



0. WILLIAM SIEMENS. 



12, QUKBN ANHE'S GATB, S.W., Dec. 12, 1878. 



STEEL FOR WAR PURPOSES. 

 To THE EDITOR OF "THE TIMES." 



SIR, Although I have followed the discussion that has recently 

 appeared in the columns of The Times, and in which General 

 Younghusband, Sir J. H. Lefroy, Mr. Krupp, and Mr. Bessemer 

 have taken part, having reference to my lecture before the Royal 

 United Service Institution on the above subject, I have hitherto 

 abstained from taking part in the controversy, and should much 

 have preferred to maintain this reserve if that discussion had not 

 somewhat drifted away from the facts. 



In my lecture, and upon all previous occasions of discussing the 

 history of modern steel manufacture, I have spoken with the 

 greatest admiration of the Bessemer process, the achievement of 

 which marks an epoch in the metal industry of the world ; but 

 simultaneously with the Bessemer process another process has 

 grown up by my labours and has attained a position of its own as 

 regards the production of certain kinds of steel notably of those 

 mild steels of uniform quality which are more particularly applic- 

 able for war purposes. According to published statistics for 1877 

 the total quantity of steel manufactured by this, the open-hearth 

 process, was during that year 275,000 tons, and its use has since 

 that time considerably increased, notwithstanding the present 

 extreme depression in trade. 



I have no desire to question or limit the ultimate capability of 

 the Bessemer process as regards high and uniform qualities of 

 steel ; but Mr. Bessemer' s remarks in his letter of to-day would 

 lead the reader to infer that the steel for war purposes actually 

 furnished by Sir Joseph Whitworth, by Krupp of Essen, and by 

 VOL. in. Q 



