The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-06-21

Industry has furnished us with many
wonderful romances, but the origin and
development of the steel trade of
Casson in his book, 1.-The Romance of
Steel form, perhaps, the most re-
markable industrial narrative ever
written. a thousand millionaires have
been made by the iron and steel trade
of America in the last forty years.
There was enough money made in steel
last year to give $50 men $1,000, 900
apiece, while enough iron and steel has
been produced in the States in twelve
months to secure no less than e37 to
every man, woman and child living in
the land of Uncle Sam.
And yet fifty years ago cheap steel
was unknown. 1t was then sold at a.
shilling a pound; the railroads We're
using iron rails which wore out in
les than two years, and the total out
put of iron and steel in a year was
less than is now made in four days.
Then came to William Kelly, Pitts
burg Irish-American. that flash Of
genius which provided the world with
a new metal-something as strong as
steel and as cheap as iron.
kelly was an ironmaker, and need
ed charcoal. In time all the wood
near his furnaces was burned, and
the nearest available source of sup
ply was seven miles distant. To cart
his charcoal seven miles meant bank
ruptcy, unless he could invent a way
to save fuel. One day he was sitting
in front of the 'inery fire when he
suddenly sprang to his feet with |
shout, and rushed to the furnace At
one edge he saw a white-hot spot in
the yellow mass of molten metal. The
iron al this spot was incandescent.
1t was almost gaseous. Yet there was
no charcoal-nothing but the steady
blast of air. Like a flash the idea
leaped into his excited brain-there
was no need of charcoal. Air alone
for fuel"
But people said he was crazy when
Kelly asserted that pig iron could be
changed into malleable iron by the
air blast. For every iron maker be-
lieved in those days that cold air
would chill hot iron. Some crank
will be, trying to burn ice next" said
one manufacturer, and Kelly. through
lack of means, could not turn his idea
into the success he deserved.
Then, seven years later, came Bes-
semer, who made the new process a
success by the invention
of his celebrated converter" and re-
ceived e2U00, 900, worldwide fame, and
a knighthood as his reward. Kelly
received 100000 and comparative
although his idea was the
nucleus of the Bessener process, by
which iron is purified from carbon byl
the direct introduction of oxygen; for
when Bessemer applied for and OBJ
tanned a United States patent for his
pneumatic process Kelly claimed
priority for his invention, and his
claim was allowed by the patent office.
Another pioneer of the steel trade,
Robert F. Mushet, a Scotsman, who
hit upon a device for removing diff
iculty that baffled Kelly and Besse-
ner, Jared even worse than Kelly. For
ne lost his patent by failing to pay the
necessary fee, and in his later years
was dependent upon a pension of $500,
which he received annually from Bes-
,emer.
The difficulty which Mushet remov-
ID was this:
THE air blast clears the molten
metal of carbon and of all impurities.
including sulphur and phosphorus. But
, certain quantity of carbon is neces-
,ary to harden the metal into the re-
luired quality of steel Instead OF en-
leavoring to stop the process at
Exactly the right moment, Mushet ask