steel annually, an amount equal to the whole importation of steel of every kind. . . . The only steel now [1831] imported from Great Britain is of a different and better quality than that just mentioned." Cast steel was not then made in the United States. This variety of steel was invented in England, by Benjamin Huntsman, in 1740. Mr. Huntsman was a watch-maker, and also made clocks, roasting-jacks, and other mechanical contrivances.
The invention of Huntsman consisted substantially in breaking "blister steel" into small fragments, placing these in a crucible, and subjecting that to sufficient heat to render its contents perfectly fluid; the fluid steel was then poured (or "teemed") into a cast-iron mold. Melting the "blister steel" removed all its solid infusible impurities, and when the ingot which resulted from the "teeming" (or "casting," hence the term cast steel) was hammered or rolled, the product was found to be much more homogeneous, and the temper more uniform, than was ever the case in steel made by the old welding process. The first attempt to produce "cast steel" in America that is fairly entitled to be called successful was made by the brothers William and John Hill Garrard, natives of England, who in August, 1832, commenced the manufacture of "cast steel" in works located on the Miami Canal, at Cincinnati.
Metallurgical history is indebted to James M. Swank[1] for a full account of these works, including a statement of Dr. William Garrard, who was living in 1884. As to the commercial success of his manufacture, Dr. Garrard says: "I sold my steel and manufactured articles principally to manufacturers. There were some wholesale houses that bought of me, but they were importing houses, and when the Sheffield manufacturers found that I was making as good steel and manufactured saws and files as good as they did, they gave our merchants such an extended time of credit that they bought as little as possible from us." The Cincinnati Steel Works, as this establishment was called, continued in operation until 1844, although in the last seven years of their existence the principal product was blister steel. That the cast steel made in these works was of excellent quality there is abundant proof.
It is impossible within the space available to give in detail an account of the many attempts that were made in various parts of the country, but chiefly in Pennsylvania, between the years 1830 and 1860, to manufacture steel of the best quality. The reasons for the almost uniform failure can now be very easily assigned; there was a universal ignorance of chemistry and a consequent contempt for its teachings, and the experimenters had not sufficient knowledge of practical metallurgy to utilize their occasional
- ↑ In Iron in all Ages.
