of the exciting incidents of travel to relate: no hairbreadth escapes, no dangers by land and sea, to seize upon and captivate the imagination. Indeed, I could not help feeling that my daily pursuits were of too technical a character to supply the necessary materials to form an interesting book; and if the narrative were simply treated in the plain matter-of-fact style of which alone I was capable, I felt it would have inevitably failed to be of sufficient interest, either to the general reader or to the man of science. Thus the proposed biography was for the time abandoned.

Nevertheless, several of my friends have from time to time tried to induce me to write a concise account of my steel invention in my own quiet way. More especially was this view commended to my notice by my old friend Alexander Hollingsworth and his colleagues, the able editors of Engineering, William H. Maw and James Dredge. Thus it was in the year 1884 I found myself busily engaged in preparing large coloured drawings of the converting and other apparatus, and in the course of two or three months at least a dozen drawings were completed, from which photographic copies on a reduced scale were made on wood-blocks to illustrate the work I had just begun. At this time I was also engaged designing the whole of the machinery about to be erected by my grand son, William Bessemer Wright, at the new diamond mills in Clerkenwell; and I became so deeply engrossed in working out the details of several experimental diamond-cutting machines which were in course of construction on my own premises at Denmark Hill, that by degrees my attention was gradually more and more drawn from the book I had commenced, and I became at last wholly absorbed in the more congenial work of construction going on every day in my workshop. Again the long-contemplated autobiography was laid aside, and I must confess that there always was in my mind an undercurrent of feeling averse to the task. I have at all times keenly experienced the difficulty, which must necessarily confront an author when speaking of himself, and of what he has accomplished, of setting forth what I have done and what credit I am entitled to, without appearing to be self-assertive, and displaying a personal bias in relation to certain controversial matters into which I am obliged to enter. From this difficulty I see no way of escape without abandoning the work laid upon me by the importunity of my friends. I have, therefore, resolved to follow out rigidly the unenviable task of self-assertion, and not to shrink from fearlessly and truthfully claiming what is due to me, just as though I were speaking of some other person, whose advocate for the time I had constituted myself. And I shall, with equal candour, point out the persistent opposition and obstructive tactics to which my invention has been subjected in a few prominent cases; while, on the other hand, I shall with pleasure place on record my grateful acknowledgments to those in the world of science who have honoured me by their kind appreciation: a gratitude which is also due from me to the many iron and steel manufacturers who have unreservedly acknowledged my patent-rights, and with rigid and scrupulous honour have fulfilled to the letter all their engagements with me.

Having thus entered upon a task so long deferred, I shall endeavour to make assured accuracy of historical detail take the place of literary ability, which I know but too well will be only conspicuous by its absence in these pages. Fortunately, I am in a position to review the past wholly uninfluenced by any mercantile considerations, having long ceased to possess pecuniary interests in the iron or steel manufacture; and having arrived at that late period of life when there is no desire for new worlds to conquer, and there are no strong ambitions to bias the mind and obscure the judgment.

The name of Bessemer does not sound like an English one, and has often given rise to doubts as to my nationality. I may therefore mention a few facts in relation to my father. He was born at No. 6, Old Broad Street, in the City of London, and at the age of eleven years was taken to Holland by his parents, who settled there. In due time he was articled to a mechanical engineer, and during his apprenticeship assisted in erecting the first steam-engine in Holland, this engine being employed in draining the turf pits near Haarlem.

After arriving at the age of twenty-one, my father went to Paris, and there commenced a career which did him much honour. At the early age of twenty-six he was made a member of the Academy of Sciences, as a reward for a great improvement he had effected in the microscope. He was at that period engaged in the Paris Mint, and while there invented that very simple and beautiful machine now known as the