EXPOSITION OF 1867. 
381 
product consequently bore a very high price and was limited 
to cutlery and a few other articles essentially requiring a hard¬ 
ness, tenacity, or elasticity not possessed by iron. To increase 
the production and reduce the cost of so valuable a form of iron, 
men of genius had long labored with but partial success up 
to a very late period ; so that quite recently even at Sheffield, 
which has long led all the cities of the world in the manufac¬ 
ture of steel, it sold at $250 to $500 per ton, according to 
quality. 
The puddling process at length came, and was a great im¬ 
provement on that of cementation. But something better still 
was demanded ; and a little more than five years since Mr. 
Bessemer of England came to the rescue with the important 
process which bears his name, and by means of which steel is 
now sold at a comparatively moderate price,!n both Europe and 
America. The Bessemer process consists in oxidizing out of 
the cast iron, from which the steel is manufactured, its excess 
of carbon by forcing through the molten mass currents of at- 
mosphiric air by means of a powerful bellows. The work is 
rapidly done and the excellent product was selling last year 
in Paris at $60 to $66 per ton, while the price of iron was 
only one third less. 
Bessemer steel was first presented to an incredulous public 
at the International Exhibition of 1862. For a moment the 
vrorld was satisfied. But one prominent difficulty yet stood in 
the way of cheap steel. Its manufacture, even by the Besse¬ 
mer process, required a good quality of coal. The advance 
from charcoal to mineral coal was a great step. But the sup¬ 
ply of this was wearing away even in the coal-producing coun¬ 
tries, while in many non-producing localities it could only be 
had at high prices. The genius of another inventive English¬ 
men was therefore laid under contribution, and thus at the next 
great exhibition, in 1867, a new and even greater wonder was 
produced. 
The Siemens Furnace, having been thoroughly tested mean¬ 
time in several countries, came to Paris to receive the “Grand 
Prize,” and to be pronounced the most important metallurgic 
