JUNE 27, 1884.] 
he turned his attention to other lines of inven- 
tion, producing a machine for working velvets, 
new type-making machinery, apparatus for 
making bronze powders, and other equally 
important and profitable devices. For many 
years previous to the conception of his great- 
est invention, the young man’s mind was as- 
tonishingly prolific of valuable and remarkable 
devices and processes. 
In 18538, when forty years of age, his atten- 
tion was called to the importance of effecting 
improvements in the then crude forms of ord- 
nance, and the unsatisfactory character of all 
ordnance metal. He devised a method of 
firing elongated projectiles from smooth bore 
guns, —a plan which had been attempted, 
but unsuccessfully, at intervals of every few 
years, from the time of probably its first and 
tolerably successful inventor, Robert L. Ste- 
vens, in the beginning of the century. The 
plan was to a certain degree satisfactory ; but 
it brought out very strongly the evident neces- 
sity of obtaining a better metal for ordnance ; 
and to this problem the young mechanic now 
addressed himself. Studying the problem in 
the truly philosophic manner, he saw that the 
end to be gained was the removal of carbon, 
and other impurities in the crude cast-iron, by 
some process that should do the work thor- 
oughly, quickly, cheaply, and yet give a prod- 
uct in the form of ingot-metal. He saw that 
this could be done by a process of oxidation, 
and finally hit upon the idea of performing 
this operation by driving air, in finely divided 
streams, upward from a submerged reservoir, 
through the mass of molten cast-iron. This 
was the invention of the ‘ Bessemer process,’ 
the greatest invention in the history of metal- 
lurgy. It was as simple, and apparently as 
obvious, a method of accomplishing the work, 
as can be conceived: its simplicity and ob- 
viousness are such as make it seem wonderful 
that it had not been done a century earlier. 
The story of Columbus and the egg here finds 
a parallel. 
Some minor and accessory, yet essential, 
inventions were required to perfect the main 
invention, which delayed success some months ; 
but they were in time perfected by the uncon- 
querable Bessemer: and the process, after 
those delays which are inevitable whenever it 
is necessary to overthrow old methods in the 
introduction of new ones, became commercially 
successful. It was only, however, after Bes- 
semer and his partners had built steel-works, 
and had shown on a full scale how far his de- 
vices were capable of yielding profit, that the 
iron-manufacturers and the steel-makers were 
SCIENCE. 
791 
induced to accept if as the coming steel-mak- 
ing process. 
But the Bessemer process would be of com- 
paratively little value, except for the invention 
of the now universal method of recarburizing 
— after the first operation, that of removing 
the silicon and carbon, is completed — by the 
use of ‘spiegeleisen’ or of ferro-manganese. 
It is this detail that gave the inventor success, 
after months of delay, within sight, apparent- 
ly, of his goal. The question of priority of 
discovery of this method of recarburizing is 
still in dispute between the friends of Besse- 
mer and of R. F. Mushet, and may never be 
fully settled to the satisfaction of either. 
There would seem to be no doubt that both of 
these metallurgists were working in this direc- 
tion at the same time, and that both hit upon 
it at very nearly the same date. The fact, 
however, that Bessemer has never paid royal- 
ties to Mushet, is perhaps the best evidence, 
at least, of the legal status of the case.1 No 
one will, however, question that Mushet was 
on this track when Bessemer was working at 
the same point; and it is most probable that 
he found the solution of the problem at about 
the same time with the more fortunate invent- 
or. Bessemer has himself frankly acknowl- 
edged the importance of Mushet’s share in the 
invention claimed for him. ‘The fact seems to 
be, that Mushet used spiegeleisen, or ferro- 
manganese, while Bessemer was still trying to 
use the oxide of manganese. 
This, in brief, is the history of the invention 
of the Bessemer process of making steel, — an 
invention which has, in the short space of a 
quarter of a century, completely revolutionized 
some of the greatest of human industries ; 
which has reduced enormously the cost of 
making the ‘ mild’ steels which are now, con- 
sequently, displacing iron in every department 
of manufactures ; and which bids fair in a very 
few years, even if it cannot be said to be an 
accomplished fact to-day, to convert the iron- 
manufactures of the world into steel-manufac- 
tures, and which has thus inaugurated the ‘ age 
of steel.’ 
To make the story of the Bessemer process 
complete, the author of this little history should 
have told of the advances made in the United 
States, where the work done by Bessemer in 
Great Britain was first copied, then improved 
upon, till to-day the capacity for production 
has been enormously increased, works originally 
built for a production of thirty thousand tons 
per year having carried the figure up to from 
1 Mushet patented the invention, but three years later al- 
lowed the patent to lapse by non-payment of the stamp-tax. 
