'This appeared so feasible, and in every way so great an improvement, that the experiment on the granular pieces was at once abandoned, and as soon as I was well enough, I proceeded to try the experiment of forcing the air under the fluid metal. The result was marvellous. Complete decarburation was effected in half an hour. The heat produced was immense, but unfortunately more than half the metal was blown out of the pot. This led to the use of pots with large, hollow, perforated covers, which effectually prevented the loss of metal. These experiments continued from January to October 1855. I have by me on the mantelpiece at this moment, a small piece of rolled bar-iron which was rolled at Woolwich Arsenal, and exhibited a year later at Cheltenham. 'I then applied for a patent, but before preparing my provisional specification (dated October 17, 1855), I searched for other patents to ascertain whether anything of the sort had been done before. I then found your patent for puddling with the steam-rabble, and also Martin's patent for the use of steam in gutters while molten iron was being conveyed from the blast-furnace to a finery, there to be refined in the ordinary way prior to puddling.' [Illustration: BESSEMER CONVERTING VESSEL: _a_, _a_, _a_, tuyères; _b_, air-space; _c_, melted metal.] Several leading men in the iron trade took licenses for the new manufacture, which brought Bessemer £27,000 within thirty days of the time of reading his paper. These licenses he afterwards bought back for £31,000, giving fresh ones in their stead. Some of the early experiments failed, and it was feared the new method would prove impracticable. These experiments failed because of the presence of phosphorus in the iron. But Bessemer worked steadily in order to remove the difficulties which had arisen, and a chemical laboratory was added to his establishment, with a professor of chemistry attached. Success awaited him. The new method of steel-making spread into France and Sweden, and in 1879 the works for making Bessemer steel were eighty-four in number, and represented a capital of more than three millions. His process for the manufacture of steel raised the annual production of steel in England from 50,000 tons by the older processes to as many as 2,000,000 tons in some years. It was next used for boiler-plates; shipbuilding with Bessemer steel was begun in 1862, and now it is employed for most of the purposes for which malleable iron was formerly used. The production of Europe and America in 1892 was over 10,000,000 tons, of a probable value of £84,000,000, sufficient, as has been remarked, to make a solid steel wall round London 40 feet high, and 5 feet thick. It would take, according to the inventor, two or three years' production of all the gold-mines in the world to pay in gold for the output of Bessemer steel for one year. The price of steel previous to Huntsman's process was about £10,000 per ton; after him, from £50 to £100. Now Bessemer