At the time of the Crimean War, Bessemer had some experiments made at Vincennes with cylindrical projectiles he had devised for firing from smooth-bore guns, yet so as to impart to the projectile at the same time rotation about its axis. The experiments were successful, but it was pointed out that the guns of cast iron then in use would not bear heavy projectiles, and he was induced, at the suggestion of the Emperor Napoleon III., to undertake some researches with the view of finding metal more suitable for artillery. Bessemer, having then little knowledge of the metallurgy of iron, applied himself on his return to England to the study of the best books on the subject, visited the principal iron-working districts, and began a series of experiments at a small experimental installation he set up in London. There, after repeated failures, he did at length succeed in producing a metal much tougher than the cast iron then used, and a small model gun was submitted to the Emperor, who encouraged Bessemer to persevere with his experiments; which he did, though the expense was a great tax on his capital, continued as the experiments were for two years and a half. But by this time he had acquired a knowledge of many important facts, and these gradually led him to the experimental realization of the idea he had conceived, but only after many trials in which several thousand pounds were expended. At length the agenda of the British Association for the Cheltenham meeting of 1856 announced that a paper would be read by H. Bessemer, entitled “The Manufacture of Iron and Steel without Fuel.” It will be easily understood that a title in such terms would give rise to much derisive incredulity; and we may imagine the iron-masters on that occasion crowding into Section G, while asking each other in the spirit of certain philosophers of old, “What will this babbler say?” Some of what he did say may here be quoted, as at once explanatory and historically memorable. “I set out with the assumption that crude iron contains about 5 per cent. of carbon; that carbon cannot exist at a white heat in the presence of oxygen without uniting therewith and producing combustion; that such combustion would proceed with a rapidity dependent on the amount of surface of carbon exposed; and lastly, that the temperature which the metal would acquire would be also dependent on the rapidity with which the oxygen and carbon were made to combine; and consequently, that it was only necessary to bring the oxygen and carbon together in such a manner that a vast surface should be exposed to their mutual action, in order to produce a temperature hitherto unattainable in our largest furnaces. [Illustration: FIG. 23.—_Experiments at Baxter House._ ]