It was deemed desirable to communicate these facts to the world, through the Institution of Civil Engineers, whose members could not fail to be deeply interested in the production of a new kind of homogeneous cast steel, having greater toughness and cohesive strength than the best wrought iron, and at a cost considerably less than that of cast steel made by any other known process. I, therefore, wrote a paper "On the Manufacture of Malleable Iron and Steel," which was illustrated by many interesting examples of the metal that had been subjected to various tests of the most severe description. This paper I submitted to the Council of the Institution about the end of December, 1858. It was accepted, and read at a crowded meeting on May 24th, 1859.

Now, I had no intention whatever to ask Sir William Armstrong, as a favour to myself, to adopt and use this wonderfully tough and rapidly produced metal, for the manufacture of gun-tubes, in lieu of the weaker, and much more costly, coiled iron employed by him for that purpose. But, I felt that, notwithstanding the summary rejection of Bessemer steel and Bessemer iron by Lord Herbert, it was a public duty which I owed to my country to give him a further opportunity, both of hearing and seeing what was daily being done with welded masses of Bessemer iron and with Bessemer mild steel. I knew that Sir William Armstrong had been, for several years, a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers; he was, when my paper was accepted, also a Member of Council , and, therefore, was one of the persons by whom all communications submitted to the Institution were examined, criticised, and finally voted worthy -- or otherwise -- of being read before a public meeting of their members, and of being published in their Proceedings. In the ordinary course of events, my paper would, I knew, be examined by Sir William Armstrong, and that this would be so appeared to me the more certain, because the careful and punctual secretary, Mr. Forrest, was in the habit of sending the actual paper that was to be examined to the private residences of all Members of Council who might be absent from the Council meetings. It was also his custom to invite important persons, who were supposed to be specially interested in the subject, to attend and take part in the discussion which follows the reading. Here again it seemed certain, if everything else failed, that Sir William Armstrong would be invited to come and join in the discussion of a subject in which he, as a paid servant of the State, must, or should, take the deepest interest. It was in this way that Colonel Eardley Wilmot was invited, and was present during the reading of my paper. But the one man in all Great Britain who was -- or who ought to have been most deeply interested in the subject, was not present at this important meeting; and thus I lost the unique opportunity I so much desired of bringing before him, while in the presence of the most eminent engineers of Great Britain, the proofs of the fitness of my metal for the construction of ordnance. But, such was the impression made on the other members of the Council of the Institution by the facts I brought before them, and by the marvellous proofs afforded by the specimens exhibited, of the value of this new kind of mild steel for constructive purposes, that they voted me the Telford gold medal; later, they made me a member of the Institution, and they also, "as the originator of the greatest improvement in the Iron Manufacture of Great Britain during the preceding five years," presented me with the Howard Quinquennial Prize, a massive gold cup, intrinsically worth 120 guineas. Finally, when advancing years rendered my duties as a Member of Council too arduous, they further conferred on me the great and distinguished position of Honorary Membership.

I will not trouble my readers with any lengthy abstracts from this paper, but it may be of interest to show some important portions of it. The following is one of the extracts referred to, which has been reproduced from the report of my paper, and the discussion thereon, printed by the Institution of Civil Engineers, and sent to all its members.

In the early part of this Paper it was shown that the process of puddling unavoidably introduces into the metal more or less cinder, and other mechanically-mixed impurities; also, that the different degrees of refinement and decarbonization of the numerous lumps of metal which compose a puddle ball, render the production of a homogeneous mass, by that means, a desideratum not yet achieved. It has likewise been pointed out how, in the working of the other malleable metals, all these difficulties are avoided by casting the metal in a fluid state into moulds. Now this is precisely what the Bessemer process proposes to accomplish -- that is, to bring malleable iron, or steel, into the same category with the other malleable metals, and by its purification, in a fluid state, to avoid the diffusion of cinder throughout the mass; so that when cast into an ingot, or into a single homogeneous mass of any desired form, or size, a metal of