STEEL MAKING IN NOVA SCOTIA GILPIN. 13 



carriage acted as a measure of protection to their more 

 fortunately situated competitors. It looked as if the steel 

 production of the world was to be practically limited to those 

 countries which had the opportunity of assembling at the water 

 edge a good and cheap local fuel and a pure water borne ore ; or, 

 to a country like the United States of America, which, possess- 

 ing both these requisites, had also a cheap land and water 

 carriage, and an almost unlimited home market. 



At this point in the history of steel an unexpected and 

 important discovery was made. It was found that under certain 

 conditions of manipulation, including a basic lining for the 

 converters, i. e., the use of substances such as magnesia, it was 

 possible to convert phosphorus, the great enemy of the Bessemer 

 process, into an important adjunct in steel making. As hitherto 

 the limit for phosphorus in Bessemer ore (.07) was measured by 

 hundreds of one per cent., and the great difficulty was to find iron 

 ores free from it in large enough quantities to ensure a regular 

 and cheap supply, it is plain that when as much as three per 

 cent, of phosphorus was permissible in the new process, a fresh 

 field was opened up. Briefly speaking, the process consisted in 

 the burning out of the carbon, silicon, and sulphur, by manganese 

 and the phosphorus, the latter after discharging its kind offices 

 practically eliminating itself. 



As was to be expected, this process, known as the Thomas 

 Gilchrist, specially recommended itself to the German steel 

 makers who had at hand large supplies of low grade ores. Large 

 establishments were started there and at other points on the 

 continent, and now the Bessemer steel makers of England find 

 their markets successfully invaded by the makers of basic steel. 

 In spite of the experience thus gained during the past few years 

 in England, the steel makers there, bound by prejudice, are only 

 now awaking to the fact that they must be distanced by the 

 continental steel makers, unless they adopt the process based on 

 the poorer and cheaper ores. Thus the inventive faculties of 

 two men threaten to divert a great trade, and to starve an 

 industry in which millions are invested in England. 



