plate could have been most easily produced, if such plates were common enough to justify what was said of the material in Sir Nathaniel Barnaby's paper. In the early part of this paper, the author damned Bessemer steel with faint praise; he said, "No doubt, excellent steel is produced in small quantities by the converter." Quite so; the small quantity of Bessemer steel made in England alone was, during the year in which this paper was read, over 700,000 tons, or more than one hundred times the total production of cast steel in Great Britain prior to the introduction of the process. These 700,000 tons were worth £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 sterling; so that the great commercial importance that Bessemer steel had attained at the date when Sir Nathaniel publicly denounced it as a treacherous material, could not be hidden by calling it a "small quantity." Or did Sir Nathaniel Barnaby desire his hearers to understand that only very little of this 700,000 tons was good steel? One per cent. of this small quantity would have supplied the Admiralty with 7000 tons, or enough to build two of the largest ships of war ever -- up to that time -- constructed; so the smallness of the quantity was no excuse for not using; it.

Again, Sir Nathaniel Barnaby said: "Our distrust of it is so great that the material may be said to be altogether unused by private shipbuilders, except for boats, and very small vessels, and masts and yards." This statement was absolutely unwarranted.

We were also told that "Marine engineers appear to be equally afraid of it." Every Englishman who reads this will be surprised at this confession of want of courage, on the part of our marine engineers. However this may be, it was very gratifying to know that we had among us eminent practical engineers in Great George Street, who had the courage of their opinions, and under whose sanction and advice hundreds of thousands of tons of Bessemer steel were at that time being used for structural purposes. At the meeting, when this paper was read, there was present Mr. Francis William Webb, the well-known Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North-Western Railway, who was kind enough to bring for exhibition several test-pieces illustrative of the tests to which every plate of the locomotive boilers made under his supervision at Crewe was subjected before it was used. These test-pieces consisted of strips of boiler- plate, doubled up quite into close contact while cold; and other pieces of plate, each having a hole 3/4 in. in diameter punched into it, which hole was then expanded or "drifted" out to 2 1/3 in. in diameter, by driving a conical punch or "drift," with a hammer, into the small hole first made.

Mr. Webb told those present at the meeting, that in their testing-house at Crewe they had 11,000 sets of these test-pieces, all duly stamped and numbered, each one referring to a corresponding number stamped on 11,000 Bessemer steel plates that had been worked up into locomotive boilers at Crewe, all of which had stood the ordeal of these bending and "drifting" tests. Further, he said that Bessemer steel had entirely superseded iron plates for boiler-making at Crewe, although his company had previously bought the best iron that could be found in this country. He also said that the London and North-Western Railway Company had, at the time this paper was read, no less than three hundred locomotive boilers in daily use, and that they were building at Crewe rather more than six steel boilers every week. All the steel plates were punched and worked, and then flanged into various shapes with steel hammers; they were not tickled with copper hammers, as Sir Nathaniel Barnaby had told his audience was a necessary precaution in French shipbuilding.

I may add that the London and North-Western Railway Company had, at that date, established extensive Bessemer steel works at Crewe, and made their own steel; thus demonstrating what could be accomplished for a great commercial company, advised by a thoroughly practical engineer, not given to fear and doubting.

Now, I would ask any reasonable man what there was to prevent the Admiralty from using such a simple and infallible mode of testing every steel plate brought into the shipyard, the responsible officials thus assuring themselves, beyond the possibility of doubt, that every plate in their ships was of the high standard quality contracted for, and so ending all the ridiculous suspicions of the treacherous nature of a material that was being daily used so successfully?

The simple mode of testing used by the London and North-Western Railway Company in 1875 is illustrated by Fig. 73, where (1) shows the irregular-shaped plate as it leaves the rolls; (2) shows it when sheared