such firms as Sir Joseph Whitworth, Messrs. Beyer, Peacock and Company, Messrs. Sharp, Stewart and Company, Sir William Fairbairn and Company, Messrs. Hicks, of Bolton, Messrs. Platt Bros., of Oldham, etc. A moment's consideration will show that such firms as those mentioned would never have continued to use this steel if it had been in the slightest degree inferior to the best steel made by the old process. By way of commercial proof, let us suppose that our price was £14 per ton below that of the trade. This would save precisely five farthings on the cost of a tool weighing 1 lb. Now if such a tool during its whole life occupied a workman (whose wages were seven-pence an hour) only twelve minutes more in extra sharpening on the grindstone, the advantage of £14 per ton would have been wholly lost. Is it, I would ask, probable that the eminent engineering firms quoted would have continued to use this Bessemer tool steel if the smallest shade of inferiority had manifested itself? Our tool steel was also used at the Arsenal, Woolwich, at the time when Colonel Eardley Wilmot, R.A., was Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factories, prior to the advent of Sir William Armstrong, and in confirmation of this fact I may quote the following passage from the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, according to which, on May 24th, 1859, Colonel Wilmot, in the course of a speech in reference to Bessemer Iron and Steel, said :--

As regards the steel, he had been using it for turning the outsides of heavy guns . . . . . cutting off large shavings several inches in length, and he has found none other superior to it, although much more costly.

We had now a large converting vessel erected at Sheffield, and commenced operations on an extended scale. We were very anxious to see how one of these large ingots would behave under the steam hammer, but a delay had unfortunately taken place in the erection of our own large hammer. In my impatience to see the result, I waited only until the first heavy ingot ever cast at the works had cooled down sufficiently to prevent it setting fire to the truck on which it was carried, before I sent it by rail to Messrs. Galloway, at Manchester, who had a large steam hammer in daily use. I followed by train, and saw the ingot formed into a gun of the old-fashioned type. This gun is, in many respects, a unique specimen of pure iron, and is now in the possession of the Iron and Steel Institute. The ingot was made of Swedish charcoal pig, costing £6 10s. per ton delivered in Sheffield; it was converted into pure soft iron, and no spiegeleisen or manganese in any form was employed in its production. This was not only the first large ingot made at our works at Sheffield, but it was the first piece of ordnance ever made in one piece of malleable iron, without weld or joint. It is no less remarkable for its extreme purity. The metal of this gun had originally been most carefully analysed, and many years later, during a discussion at one of the Iron and Steel Institute meetings in 1879, mention was made of its purity, a statement that was received with incredulity. It was said that it was so near absolute iron that there must have been some mistake in the analysis; whereupon it was proposed by the President to have it again analysed.

Mr. Edward Riley, the well-known analyst of iron and steel, was entrusted with this interesting investigation, and for this purpose the gun was removed from the offices of the Institute to my laboratory and workshops at Denmark Hill, and there put into the lathe. Shavings off the muzzle of the gun were received on a sheet of clean white paper held by Mr. Riley under the cutting tool, and were afterwards taken by him to his own laboratory in Finsbury Square for careful analysis. This occurred in the early part of March, 1879. A copy of the analysis, which fully confirmed that originally made, is given below.

Laboratory and Assay Offices, 2, City Road (14A, Finsbury Square), London, E.C. March 22nd, 1879.

EDWD. RILEY.

DEAR SIR,

Herewith I beg to forward you the results of my analysis of the sample of steel turned from a small steel gun in my presence on Monday last. The sample gave: