early days of Heath's invention, he supplied the carburet in small packages to his licensees; he made this by the deoxydation of black oxide of manganese mixed with coal-tar, or other carbonaceous matter, in crucibles heated in an ordinary air furnace. This was a costly process, and as the demand increased he suggested to his licensees that it would be cheaper to put a given quantity of oxide of manganese and charcoal powder into their crucibles, along with the cold pieces of bar iron or steel to be melted. These materials would, when sufficiently heated, chemically react on each other, and produce the requisite quantity of carburet of manganese in readiness to unite with the steel as soon as the latter passed into the fluid state. But Heath's licensees said, "This is not precisely your patent, Mr. Heath," and they claimed the right to carry out this suggestion without paying him any royalty. This was the cause of some eight or nine years of litigation, by which poor Heath was ultimately ruined, although his patent was established by a final decision of the House of Lords -- alas! only too late; for Heath died a broken-hearted, ruined man, wholly unrewarded for his valuable invention.

Thus we see that both in the use of a carburet, and also by the use a mixed powder, consisting of oxide of manganese and carbon, Heath's process has been successfully and commercially carried on from the date of his patent, in 1839, up to the present hour.

Now, as my converting process was specially intended to deal with iron that had been smelted with mineral fuel, it will be readily understood how disastrous it would have been to me, if, by the action of another patentee, I had been prevented from using manganese; for if manganese, in some form or other, were absolutely necessary for the production of steel of good quality from iron smelted with mineral fuel, it would follow that if the use of manganese, in all its known forms and combinations when applied to the Bessemer process, could be patented, thus becoming the exclusive property of some other persons, then I should have been rendered utterly powerless, and my invention could not have been worked without the permission of the holders of these patents, and I should consequently have been wholly at their mercy.

This part of my narrative turns upon a patent obtained by Mr. Joseph Gilbert Martien, on September 15th, 1855, about a month before I took out my first steel patents. Mr. Martien's invention referred to improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel. He was at that time engaged at the Ebbw Vale Works, either on the staff of that company or as an independent experimenter. There would have been no need for me to refer to Mr. Martien's patent of 1855, but for subsequent events with which it was associated. It was really a valueless patent, and one which found no practical application; nevertheless, I must describe it briefly here, and I cannot do better than reprint some passages from Mr. Martien's specification.

Specification.

A.D. 1855. -- No. 2082.

Martien's Improvements in the Manufacture of Iron and Steel.

This Invention has for its object the purifying iron when in the liquid state from a blast furnace, or from a refinery furnace, by means of atmospheric air, or of steam, or vapour of water applied below, and so that it may rise up amongst and completely penetrate and search every part of the metal prior to the congelation, or before such liquid metal is allowed to set, or prior to its being run into a reverberatory furnace in order to its being subjected to puddling, by which means the manufacture of wrought iron by puddling such purified cast iron, and also the manufacture of steel therefrom in the ordinary manner, are improved.

In carrying out my invention, In place of allowing the melted iron from a blast furnace simply to flow in the ordinary gutter or channel to the bed or moulds, or to refinery or puddling furnaces, in the ordinary manner, I employ channels or gutters, so arranged that numerous streams of air, or of steam, or vapour of water may be passed through and amongst the melted metal as it flows from a blast furnace.