There was one explanation which always appealed to me much on account of its simplicity. I heard it from a very learned German. This was his story: The German iron always contained phosphorus, including also the great deposits of iron which the Germans had found in Alsace-Lorraine. The only good iron that Germany had prior to 1880 was that in the Iron Chancellor. Hence, Germany could not build up a steel industry, and without it no great industrial development is possible in any country. A miracle happened; a young Englishman, a clerk in a London police court, made a discovery which was destined to give Germany its great steel industry. This was Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, who discovered the so-called “basic Bessemer” process. It made iron containing phosphorus easily available for the manufacture of iron and steel products. This started the modern steel industry of Germany in the early eighties. Many a street in the towns of the German steel districts was named in honor of Gilchrist Thomas. “This,” said my informant, “is the power which, as you express it, the young German eagle has discovered in its pinions.” I suspected that the object of his story might have been to discourage an opinion on my part that the remarkable vigor of Germany was derived from the weakness of France. Hence I looked up the data of his story, but I found them correct. Years ago I told this story to the late Andrew Carnegie, and he agreed with my German informant. To-day I am convinced that neither the great works of Krupp, nor the great German navy, nor many other things which have happened since my Berlin days, would have been possible without the start which was made with the aid of Gilchrist Thomas.