CREATORS OF THE AGE OF STEEL 47 



of Baxter House was repeated, everything went well, but 

 the result was not steel it was nothing but a very good 

 cast iron. 



Those who had praised the new process now ridiculed it. 

 The failure was inexplicable, but it was a failure, and 

 exactly six weeks after the publication of the article in the 

 Times a meeting of iron masters at Dudley condemned the 

 Bessemer process as a practical failure. 



The inventor was not dismayed. Patiently and hope- 

 fully he set to work to find the flaw that had spoiled his 

 work. A long series of experiments followed before he 

 found the cause of his failure. By a mere chance the iron 

 used on the occasion at Baxter House when steel was made 

 was Blaenavon pig, which was exceptionally free from 

 phosphorus. The metal used at the Dowlais works con- 

 tained this element. Here he found the cause of his fail- 

 ure. He set to work to eliminate the phosphorus by the 

 puddling process, but while doing this there arrived an 

 invoice of Swedish pig iron, clear of the obnoxious sub- 

 stance. Under his original process this yielded steel of 

 such a high quality that he at once abandoned the effort 

 to dephosphorize ordinary iron, and began to manufacture 

 from the Swedish import. Sheffield steel was selling at 

 60 per ton ; he could buy Swedish pig for 7, and turn it 

 into steel at a very small cost. 



Steel is pure iron with a small percentage of carbon to 

 harden it. The line of demarcation between steel and 

 iron is a difficult one to trace. Following the discoveries 

 made in India by J. M. Marshall, Bessemer introduced 

 ferro-manganese into his converter, and the pure iron was 

 at once carburized into steel. 



The public, however, had lost confidence in Bessemer; 

 he had spent his private fortune, he had made steel, the 

 point was now to sell that steel. Through the assistance 

 of Mr. Galloway, Bessemer bought in the licenses which he 

 had sold, works were erected, and steel produced at a 

 profit at 42 a ton Sheffield was selling at 60. This 



