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26
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
apparatus, as shown in the plan. The furnishing of the room B is also indicated.
The "melting-hole, in the corner of the lean-to shed C, was large enough to receive a pot which would hold seventy pounds of melted metal. Space will not permit a detailed description of the apparatus used in this laboratory,[1] but it would be regarded at the present day even, as thoroughly adequate for its purpose.
In the works at Wyandotte, on one of the early days of September, 1864, was produced, under the supervision of the writer of these papers, the first "Bessemer steel"[2] made in America.
- ↑ This description of the Experimental Steel Works of Wyandotte is, owing to space limitations, much curtailed; but any interested reader will find in the Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. vi, p. 40, and in the Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, vol. xii, p. 223, papers by the writer hereof in which much more attention is given to details than is here permissible.
- ↑ I adopt here and elsewhere in this article the popular designation, for the reason that I believe it to be the just and proper one; for, while there is no room for a doubt that the late William Kelly anticipated Bessemer by several years in the discovery of the fundamental idea of the process, he did not carry it out to its ultimate possibility as a means for the manufacture of steel; and while there is no reason to believe that Bessemer ever heard of what Kelly was doing, it is pretty certain that had not Kelly noted the granting of a patent to Bessemer he would never (owing to his unfavorable location supplemented by pecuniary embarrassment) have been able to procure such attention from the iron trade of this country as would have insured him any reward for his invention. Furthermore, although in Kelly's stationary "converter," it would have been, under proper management, quite possible to make a satisfactory quality of steel (stationary "converters" were used in Sweden with success for many years), it was quite evident from the first that the highly original and ingenious apparatus invented by Bessemer (especially the tilting "converter," and the "casting ladle" having a tap-hole in its bottom) was far superior to anything proposed by Kelly. It is also quite evident that had not Mushet (or some one else) suggested the use of spiegeleisen, neither the ideas of Kelly nor Bessemer would have been of value except in the direction in which they were practically carried out by Kelly as a substitute for the refinery-fire, or in the special case of iron containing a notable quantity of manganese (as was the fact in those used at first in Sweden); but it is not at all probable that Kelly would have discovered what was necessary to perfect the process, as he had no knowledge of spiegeleisen (in 1857 no iron was known in the commerce of America by that name) and was not a chemist or an employer of chemists—but, judging from the fact that Bessemer availed himself of the aid of chemistry at an early day in his investigations, it is not at all improbable that he would have himself discovered the value of spiegeleisen had not Mushet anticipated him. I think all the facts warrant the naming the discovery The Bessemer-Kelly-Mushet Process; but as Bessemer, by his ingenuity, persistence in methodical endeavor, and business sagacity, is clearly entitled to the first place, and if the process is to bear but one name, the popular verdict of over thirty years is fully justifiable in calling it "The Bessemer Process."While we are thus considering the relative merits of the chief actors in this metallurgical drama, it is but just that we should award due praise to Martien, the American, and Parry, the Englishman, for ideas of great originality, which, had they been followed out to their logical conclusion, must have developed similar results to those attained by Bessemer. These metallurgists evidently were standing, as it were, on the "delectable mountains" of discovery, and seeing dimly and afar some suggestions of the practical glories of the metallurgy of coming generations.
