Carbon . . .014
Silicium . . .004
Sulphur . . .052
Phosphorus . . .047 .046
Iron . . 99.893 99.787
Manganese . nil.
Copper minute trace
---------
100.010
---------

Henry Bessemer, Esq.

It is very generally known that of all the Swedish bar-irons, hoop L Dannemora bar-iron is the purest brand to be met with in commerce. It is these iron bars, which sell for £30 per ton and upwards, that are used wholly, or in part, in making the highest class of crucible steel produced in Sheffield. As an example of its purity, Dr. Percy, in his well-known work on Metallurgy, gives the analysis of what he justly calls "this world-renowned iron," and in order that there should be no possible mistake on this point, I print below a portion of page 736 of the volume devoted to iron and steel.

An examination of the specimens of Bessemer steel from Sweden in the Exposition shows us that the metal there produced is of a far superior character to that made in England, and naturally leads to inquiry as to the cause of the difference, and whether we may hope to attain the same success in the United States. First we observe coils of wire of all sizes, down to the very finest, such as No. 47, or even smaller. This they have not been able regularly to produce in England. In the next place we notice a good display of fine cutlery, and the writer is informed by a competent authority that this metal answers so well for this purpose that it is now used almost to the exclusion of any other. This statement is corroborated by the fact that in the miscellaneous classes of the Swedish department, where cutlery occurs not as an exhibition of steel, but merely as a display of workmanship by other parties in the same manner as other articles of merchandise, cases of razors are exhibited with the mark of the kind of steel of which they are made stamped or etched upon them as usual, and these are all "Bessemer," but from a variety of different works, viz., Högbo, Carsdal, Osterby, and Söderfors. The ore used in Sweden for producing iron for the Bessemer process is exclusively magnetic, and of a very pure quality. An analysis of a mixture of those used for the iron employed at the Fagersta works before roasting gives the following composition:--

Carb. acid . . 8.00
Silicium . . 17.35
Alumina . . 0.95
Lime . . 6.50
Magnesia . . 4.35
Protoxide of
manganese . 3.35
Magnetic oxide . . 32.15
Peroxide of iron . 27.40
--------
100.05
Phosphoric acid . 03

All the pig made from this mixture of ores the exhibitors state will give a steel without the use of spiegeleisen, which is not at all red short. The analysis of gray iron from the same works, used for the Bessemer process, is given as follows:--

Carbon combined . . 1.012
Graphite . . 3.527
Silicium . . 0.854
Manganese . . 1.919
Phosphorus . .
0.031
Sulphur . . 0.010

From these examples, 2, 3, and 4 of hoop L bar-iron, we have for No. 2, pure iron 99.863 per cent.; for No. 3, pure iron 99.220; and for No. 4, pure iron 98.605; giving a mean of 99.220 of pure iron in these three samples of hoop L.

Now, by Mr. Riley's analysis, we have only two testings of the Bessemer malleable iron gun, the first giving 99.893 per cent. of pure iron, and the second one 99.787, a mean of 99.840 per cent. of pure iron, or 00.611 more than Dannemora bar.

Since the Dannemora iron mines achieved their deservedly high reputation, many new mines had come into operation in Sweden, at which pig-iron only was made, and it was the products of these mines that I had analysed for my special use, and thus discovered that some of them were producing pig-iron of extreme purity. Thus I was enabled to make malleable iron or steel of the highest quality from Swedish pig, costing, delivered in Sheffield, £6 l0s. to £7 per ton, and yielding, from my converter, ingots of cast