"In the midst of my career of investigation," says he,[6] "and without a cause being assigned, I was stopped short. My furnaces, at the order of the manager, were pulled in pieces, and an edict was passed that they should never be erected again. Thus terminated my researches at the Clyde Iron Works. It happened at a time when I was interested--and I had been two years previously occupied--in an attempt to convert cast-iron into steel, without fusion, by a process of cementation, which had for its object the dispersion or absorption of the superfluous carbon contained in the cast-iron,--an object which at that time appeared to me of so great importance, that, with the consent of a friend, I erected an assay and cementing Furnace at the distance of about two miles from the Clyde Works. Thither I repaired at night, and sometimes at the breakfast and dinner hours during the day. This plan of operation was persevered in for the whole of one summer, but was found too uncertain and laborious to be continued. At the latter end of the year 1798 I left my chambers, and removed from the Clyde Works to the distance of about a mile, where I constructed several furnaces for assaying and cementing, capable of exciting a greater temperature than any to which I before had access; and thus for nearly two years I continued to carry on my investigations connected with iron and the alloys of the metals. "Though operating in a retired manner, and holding little communication with others, my views and opinions upon the RATIONALE of iron-making spread over the establishment. I was considered forward in affecting to see and explain matters in a different way from others who were much my seniors, and who were content to be satisfied with old methods of explanation, or with no explanation at all..... Notwithstanding these early reproaches, I have lived to see the nomenclature of my youth furnish a vocabulary of terms in the art of iron-making, which is used by many of the ironmasters of the present day with freedom and effect, in communicating with each other on the subject of their respective manufactures. Prejudices seldom outlive the generation to which they belong, when opposed by a more rational system of explanation. In this respect, Time (as my Lord Bacon says) is the greatest of all innovators.