“I have before mentioned that after the boil has taken place a steady and powerful flame succeeds, which continues without any change for about ten or twelve minutes, when it rapidly falls off. As soon as this diminution of flame is apparent the workman will know that the process is completed, and that the crude iron has been converted into pure malleable iron, which he will form into ingots of any suitable size and shape by simply opening the tap-hole of the converting vessel and allowing the fluid malleable iron to flow into the iron ingot moulds placed there to receive it. The masses of iron thus formed will be free from any admixture of cinder, oxide, or other extraneous matters, and will be far more pure and in a forwarder state of manufacture than a pile formed of ordinary puddle bars. And thus it will be seen that by a single process, requiring no manipulation or particular skill, and with only one workman, from three to five tons of crude iron pass into the condition of several piles of malleable iron in from thirty to thirty-five minutes, with the expenditure of about a third part the blast now used in a finery furnace, with an equal charge of iron, and with the consumption of no other fuel than is contained in the crude iron. “To those who are best acquainted with the nature of fluid iron, it may be a matter of surprise that a blast of cold air forced into melted crude iron is capable of raising its temperature to such a degree as to retain it in a perfect state of fluidity after it has lost all its carbon and is in the condition of malleable iron, which, in the highest heat of our forges, only becomes softened into a pasty mass. But such is the excessive temperature that I am enabled to arrive at with a properly shaped converting vessel and a judicious distribution of the blast, that I am enabled not only to retain the fluidity of the metal, but to create so much surplus heat as to remelt all the crop-ends, ingot-runners, and other scrap that is made throughout the process, and thus bring them, without labour or fuel, into ingots of a quality equal to the rest of the charge of new metal....