money, took any trouble whatever, or offered any practical or scientific help, towards getting over this unlooked-for difficulty. They all stood by, mere passive and inert observers of the fact, not one of them lifting up a finger, or stretching out a hand, to save the wreck. For my own part, stunned as I was for the moment by the first blow, I never lost faith, or gave up the belief that all would yet be well. I had too deep an insight into the principle on which the whole theory was based to doubt of its correctness. By the mere accident of living in London, I had access only to the pig iron used by London ironfounders. I had sent to a founder who had occasionally made me iron castings, and requested him to send me a few tons of pig iron for experiments. He sent me the grey Blaenavon iron which he was then using in his business, and I accepted it simply as pig iron, without ever suspecting that pig iron from other sources was so different, and would give such contrary results.

There was also another most important factor which accounted for my partial success in those early days, and which was unobserved and unknown until a much later period, viz., in all these early experiments in London, I lined the converter with clay or firebrick, and not with a silicious material such as ganister or sand. When the small converting vessels were erected for trial by my licensees, they were lined with silicious materials which prevented the elimination of any phosphorus from the iron, as was demonstrated later by Thomas and Gilchrist's well-known dephosphorising process. It was, however, no use for me to argue the matter in the Press; all that I could say would be mere talk, and I felt that action was necessary, and not words. I therefore determined to justify myself by the only possible means left to me. After a full and deliberate consideration of the whole case, I resolved to continue my researches until I had made my process a commercial, as well as a scientific, success. I was in possession of a large sum of money, which those ironmasters who believed in my invention had deliberately invested in the speculation, acting just as I myself had done, when I had gone to great expense in carrying out my experiments in hope of reaping a large profit. But I was not content to balance matters thus, and cry "quits." At the same time there were duties which I owed to myself and my family. I had spent two years of valuable professional time, much hard labour, and a great deal of money, over this invention, and a proportion of the proceeds belonged, in all fairness, to my family. Having thought thoroughly over the risks and the powerful opposition I had to fight against, I came to the conclusion that it was my duty to settle the sum of £10,000 on my wife under trustees, so that I could not be absolutely ruined in the further pursuit of my invention, or by litigation in the defence of my patent rights. After this investment I had still left £12,000 to spend in perfecting my process, if found necessary. My partner, Mr. Longsdon, who had implicit faith in me, intimated his resolve to go heart and soul with me in bearing his share of the cost. Although not strictly in the chronological order of events, it may here be briefly stated that these licenses to make malleable iron by my process, for which £27,000 had been paid, and which turned out unfortunately to be of no commercial value, in consequence of being superseded by my steel process, were nevertheless re-purchased by Messrs. Bessemer and Longsdon for the sum of £32,500, or £5500 more than they were sold for to those gentlemen who had ventured to speculate on the success of my invention.

At this period it became essential for me to know exactly what were the constituents of pig iron in all its commercial varieties, and what were the precise proportions in which these substances usually existed. In order to gain this all-important knowledge, we engaged the services of Dr. Henry, a well known professor of chemistry, to make complete and careful analyses of the iron and other materials used in all our future experiments, as well as of the results obtained in the converter. The very numerous investigations of this gentleman were supplemented by the able assistance of Mr. Edward Riley and Dr. Percy, and much information was also gathered from the publications and previous researches of Mr. Robert Hunt, of the Record Office of the School of Mines.

In this way, continued investigations, accompanied by experimental trials in the converter, were always adding to our store of facts, but unfortunately they seemed to bring us scarcely a step nearer to the end we had in view. British pig-iron abounded with this fatal enemy, phosphorus, and I could not dislodge it. Apparatus was put up for the production of pure hydrogen gas, which was passed through the metal; as also were carbonic oxide, carburetted hydrogen, etc. Metallic oxides and alkaline salts, and many other fluxes, were tried with little or no beneficial results, and the metal was treated in various other ways. It is needless to follow the continuous string of heartbreaking failures and disappointments, which were very