The startling novelty of the methods and results described in this paper had the effect of paralyzing discussion at the time. But soon the voice of detraction was heard; many iron-masters ridiculed the idea of producing iron and steel without fuel, and indeed it may have been observed, the title of the paper notwithstanding, that first the silicon and carbon, and then the iron itself, really supplied the fuel. And we must remember that malleable iron in a molten state was then deemed an impossibility, for the hottest furnaces then known could not effect the fusion, however prolonged their action might be, yet Bessemer was to obtain five tons in this condition in the short space of half an hour with no other aid than cold air. Then it was said that Bessemer’s process of forcing air into melted cast iron had no claim of novelty, for it had been tried before and found valueless. Some iron-masters on trying experiments on a small scale and with imperfect appliances met with failures, and discredited the process at once; but five large establishments paid for licences sums amounting to £26,500 within three weeks of the reading of the paper. At the works of the Dowlais Iron Co., in South Wales, who were the first licensees, the first converter was set up under Bessemer’s personal superintendence, and at the first operation five tons of iron were produced direct from the blast furnace pig. This apparently satisfactory result proved quite otherwise when this iron came to be practically tested; for it was found quite useless! It was both “_cold-short_” and “red-short,” to use the technical terms,—the former of which means that although the sample may be welded, it is when cold brittle and rotten; the latter means that at a low red heat it breaks and crumbles under the hammer. Further trials were made, new experiments instituted, but the success that attended Bessemer’s early experiments could not be repeated, and as yet no one knew the reason why. Now it so happened that in the preliminary experiments an exceptionally pure pig iron had been made use of containing little or no phosphorus or sulphur, substances very deleterious in iron, and still more so in steel. With the capital obtained by the sale of his licences Bessemer quietly set to work to investigate the cause of his non-success, making daily experiments with a ton or two of metal at a time. These experiments extended over a period of two and a half years, and upon them Bessemer and his partner spent about £16,000, besides the £4,000 the preliminary researches had cost. But all difficulties were at length overcome, and the process was now found capable of turning out pure iron and steel when the pure pig iron of Sweden was used in the converter. In the meantime the licensees had made no attempts practically to carry out the process, which began to be denounced as visionary: it was “a mare’s nest”; it was “a meteor that had passed