A dispassionate judgment would be that Bessemer owed more to the development work of his Swedish licensees than to Mushet. [119] William T. Jeans, _The creators of the age of steel_, London, 1884. Kelly's right to be adjudged the joint inventor of what is now often called the Kelly-Bessemer process is questionable.[120] Admittedly, he experimented in the treatment of molten metal with air blasts, but it is by no means clear, on the evidence, that he got beyond the experimental stage. It is certain that he never had the objective of making steel, which was Bessemer's primary aim. Nor is there evidence that his process was taken beyond the experimental stage by the Cambria Works. The rejection of his "apparatus" by W. F. Durfee must have been based, to some extent at least, upon the Johnstown trials. There are strong grounds then, for agreeing with one historian[121] who concludes: The fact that Kelly was an American is evidently the principal reason why certain popular writers have made much of an invention that, had not Bessemer developed his process, would never have attracted notice. Kelly's patent proved very useful to industrial interests in this country as a bargaining weapon in negotiations with the Bessemer group for the exchange of patent rights. [120] Bessemer dealt with Kelly's claim to priority in a letter to _Engineering_, 1896, vol. 61, p. 367. [121] Louis C. Hunter, "The heavy industries since 1860," in H. F. Williamson (editor), _The growth of the American economy_, New York, 1944, p. 469. Kelly's suggestion[122] that some British puddlers may have communicated his secret to Bessemer can, probably, never be verified. All that can be said is that Bessemer was not an ironman; his contacts with the iron trade were, so far as can be ascertained, nonexistent until he himself invaded Sheffield. So it is unlikely that such a secret would have been taken to him, even if he were a well-known inventor. [122] Later developed into a dramatic story by Boucher, _op. cit._ (footnote 97). End of Project Gutenberg's The Beginnings of Cheap Steel, by Philip W. Bishop