costly and very laborious. Eventually, I began to feel that the problem must be attacked from an entirely new position, viz., the production of pig-iron without phosphorus, a subject which I now took in hand. In the meantime I became very anxious to know how far my converting process would be successful if we succeeded in making, or obtaining, some pig-iron that was wholly or practically free from phosphorus and sulphur; and I determined to set this one vital question at rest for ever by obtaining from Sweden some pure charcoal pig-irons from which such excellent steel was made in Sheffield.

The very large scale on which my experimental trials were at this time carried out involved a considerable outlay in various ways, but there was no slackening of exertion, no cessation of the severe mental and bodily labour. A long and weary year was consumed in experiments, and but little real progress was made towards the removal of the difficulty; many new paths were struck out, but they led to no practical results. Several weeks were sometimes necessary to make and fit up the apparatus required to test a new theory, and it too often happened that the first hour's trial of the new scheme dashed all the high expectations that had been formed, and we had again to retrace our steps. Thus, week after week went on amid a constant succession of newly-formed hopes and crushing defeats, varied with occasional evidences of improvement. I, however, worked steadily on. Six months more of anxious toil glided away, and things were in very much the same state, except that many thousands of pounds had been uselessly expended, and I was much worn by hard work and mental anxiety. The large fortune that had seemed almost within my grasp was now far off; my name as an engineer and inventor had suffered much by the defeat of my plans. Those who had most feared the change with which my invention had threatened their long-vested interests felt perfectly reassured, and could now safely sneer at my unavailing efforts; and, what was far worse, my best friends tried, first by gentle hints, and then by stronger arguments, to make me desist from a pursuit that all the world had proclaimed to be utterly futile. It was, indeed, a hard struggle; I had well-nigh learned to distrust myself, and was fain at times to surrender my own convictions to the mere opinion of others. Those most near and dear to me grieved over my obstinate persistence. But what could I do? I had had the most irrefragable evidence of the absolute truth and soundness of the principle upon which my invention was based, and with this knowledge I could not persuade myself to fling away the promise of fame and wealth and lose entirely the results of years of labour and mental anxiety, and at the same time time confess myself beaten and defeated. Happily for me, the end was nigh.

The pure pig-iron, which I had ordered from Sweden, arrived at last, and no time was lost in converting it into pure, soft, malleable iron, and also into steel of various degrees of hardness. It was thus incontestably proved that with non-phosphoric pig-iron my converting process was a perfect success; and that with pig-iron that had cost me only £7 per ton, delivered in London, we could, and did, produce cast steel commercially worth £50 to £60 per ton, by simply forcing atmospheric air through it for the space of fifteen to twenty minutes, wholly without the use of manganese or spiegeleisen.

Thus was the so-called fallacious dream of the enthusiast realised to its fullest extent, and it was now my turn to triumph over those who had so confidently predicted my failure. I could see in my mind's eye the great iron industry of the world crumbling away under the irresistible force of the facts so recently elicited. In that one result the sentence had gone forth, and not all the knowledge accumulated during the last one hundred and fifty years by the thousands whose ingenuity and skill had helped to build up the mighty fabric of the British iron trade -- no, nor the millions that had been invested in carrying out the existing system of manufacture -- could reverse that one great fact, or stop the current that was destined to sweep away the old system of manufacturing wrought iron, and to establish homogeneous steel as the material to be in future employed in the construction of our ships and our guns, our viaducts and our bridges, our railroads and our locomotive engines, and the thousand-and-one things for which iron had hitherto been employed.

And yet, with all this newly-developed power, I was paralysed for the moment in the face of the stolid incredulity of all practical iron and steel manufacturers -- an incredulity which stood like the wall of a fortress, barring my way to the fruits of the victory I had already won.