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converting cast into malleable Iron. 
,5. It is impossible to ascertain the principles of any art, 
without immediately improving the practice, or opening a 
prospect of future improvement. The preceding observations 
may serve to direct attempts to render the metallurgy of iron 
less difficult, laborious, and expensive. For, 1. if a quantity 
of oxygene, nearly sufficient to burn the charcoal, could be 
chymically combined with the cast iron, the operation would 
consume less fuel, and would not require so long a time. It 
may be worth while to consider if the ores of iron, containing 
manganese, owe any part of their value to this circumstance. 
2. If it could be contrived to apply a sufficient heat to large 
quantities of iron in close vessels, and at the same time, to 
agitate them sufficiently, the loss in conversion would not, per- 
haps, exceed ten in an hundred. 3. The important object of 
converting British iron into steel, may possibly be attained by 
following up reflections suggested by the foregoing expe- 
riments. When the oxygene has been separated in the form of 
carbonic acid, there will remain the charcoal and iron, the con- 
stituent parts of steel. Perhaps the materials, at a certain pe- 
riod of the process, may be so nearly approaching to steel as 
to be easily convertible. The mass will contain also a quan- 
tity of sulphur, on which perhaps the difficulty of making 
good steel from our iron depends. But this difficulty, I am 
persuade^ will not be insuperable. 
It may be proper to add, that whenever attention was paid 
to it, the hepatic smell in the extricated air was perfectly dis- 
tinguishable. 
I hope you will also permit me to add, that whatever in- 
formation or advantage may be derived from these facts and 
