2 oo HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 



friend within his hearing, "Do you know there is some one 

 come down from London to read a paper on making steel from 

 cast-iron without fuel ! Did you ever hear such rubbish ? " 

 The ironmaster, however, was of a different opinion as to the 

 new invention after he had heard the paper lead. Its title was 

 certainly a misnomer, but the correctness of the principles on 

 which the pig-iron was converted into malleable iron, as explained 

 by the inventor, was generally recognised, and there seemed to 

 be good grounds for anticipating that the process would before 

 long come into general use. 



The rationale of the method of conversion was intelligible 

 and simple. Mr. Bessemer held that, by forcing atmospheric 

 air through the fluid metal, the oxygen was brought into contact 

 with the several particles of the iron and carbon, combining 

 with the latter to form carbonic-acid gas, which passed off by 

 the throat of the vessel, through which the slag was also ejected, 

 leaving as the product, when the combustion was complete, a 

 mass of malleable iron, which was run off by the tap, into the 

 ingot moulds placed to receive it. "Thus," said he, "by a 

 single process, requiring no manipulation or particular skill, and 

 with only one workman from three to five tons of crude iron 

 pass into the condition of several piles of malleable iron in from 

 thirty to thirty-five minutes, with the expenditure of about one- 

 third part of the blast now used in a fiery furnace with an equal 

 charge of iron, and with the consumption of no other fuel than 

 is contained in the crude iron." 



In the same paper the inventor called attention to an import- 

 ant feature of the new process in the following words : — " At the 

 stage of the process immediately following the boil, the whole 

 of the crude iron has passed into the condition of cast-steel of 

 ordinary quality. By the continuation of the process, the steel so 



