THE CONQUEST OF NATl'RE 



years of experimenting in his little iron works near 

 London, he reached some definite results which he 

 announced to the British Association in 1856. In this 

 paper he described a process of converting cast iron 

 into steel by removing the excess of carbon in the molten 

 metal by a blast of air driven through it. This paper, 

 in short, described the general principles still employed 

 in the Bessemer process of manufacturing steel. And 

 although the first simple process described by Bessemer 

 has been modified and supplemented in recent years, it 

 was in this paper that the process which placed steel 

 upon the market as a comparatively cheap, and in- 

 finitely superior, substitute for ordinary iron, was first 

 disclosed. 



This famous paper before the British Association 

 aroused great interest among the English ironmasters, 

 and applications for licenses to use the new process 

 were made at once by several firms. But the success 

 attained by these firms was anything but satisfactory, 

 although Bessemer himself was soon able to manufac- 

 ture an entirely satisfactory product. The disappointed 

 ironmasters, therefore, returned to the earlier proc- 

 esses, the inventor himself being about the only 

 practical ironmaster who persisted in using it. 



Recognizing the defects in his process, Bessemer 

 set about overcoming them, and at the end of two years 

 he had so succeeded in perfecting his methods that his 

 product, equal in every respect to that of the older 

 process, could be manufactured at a great saving of 

 time and money. But the ironmasters were now skep- 

 tical, and refused to be again inveigled into applying 



[292] 



