Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-07-18
4 ROMANCE OF STEEL
The Rise of a Great Industry and
Enormous Fortunes.
KELLY AND THE AIR BLAST.

The Flash of Genius Which Provided
the World With New MetaI-Rob-
ert Mashet's Device-captain Bill
Jones and Andrew Carnegie.
AS late rs the middle of the last CEN
fury cheap steel was unknown. 1t
was then sold at % cents a pound.
The railroads were using iron rails
which wore out in less than two years.
and the total output 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 fash of gen.
ius which provided the world with
new metal. something rs strong as
steel and as cheap as iron.
Kelly was an iron maker and needed
charcoal In time all the wood near
his furnaces was burned. and the near
est available source of supply was
seven miles distant. To cart his char
coal seven miles meant bankruptcy I'M
less he could invent way to save fuel.
One day he was sitting in front of the
''finery fire. when he suddenly Sprang
to his feet. with a shout. and rushed TO
the furnace. At one edge he saw
white hot spot in the yellow mass of
molten metal. The iron at this spot
was incandescent. 1t was almost gas
eous. Yet there was, no charcoal
nothing but the steady blast of air.
Like a fash 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 believed
in those days that cold air would chill
hot iron. 'Some crank will be trying
TO burn ice next" said one manufacture
er, and Kelly, through lack of means,
could not turn his idea into the sue
cess he deserved.
Then, seven years later, came Besse-
mer, who made the new process a COM
mercial success by the invention of his
celebrated converter" and received
S10,O00.00O. worldwide fame and a
knighthoOd as his reward. Kelly re-
ceived $5O0,0O0 and comparative Obliv-
ion, although his idea was the nu-
cleus of the Bessemer process by
which iron is purified from carbon by
the direct introduction of oxygen, for
when BeSSemer applied for and OBJ
tanned a United States patent for his
pneumatic process" Kelly claimed pri-
ority for his invention, and his claim
Another pioneer of the steel trade.
Robert F. Mushet, a Scotsman, who hit
upon q device for removing difficulty
that baffled Kelly and Bessemer, Jared
2 even worse than Kelly, for he lost his
patent by failing to pay the necessary
fees and in his later years was de-
pendent upon pension of 81 800 which
he received annually from Bessemer.
The difficulty which Munset removed
was this:
f'The air blast clears the molten
metal of carbon and of all impurities,
including sulphur and phosphorus But
a certain quantity of carbon is neces-
sary to harden the metal into the re-
quired quality of steel. Instead of
endeavoring to stop the process at
exactly the right moment. Mushet
asked, why not first burn out all the
carbon and then pour back the exact
quantity that you need?' This was a
simple device, hut no one had thought
of it before"
The man who took the invention of
Kelly and Bessemer into his hands, de-
velOped it into enc of the wonders OF
the world and made the Carnegie mil
lions was Captain William r. Jones
Bill Jones, as he was knOwn-who
seemed to live with the sole desire of
topping over the idea that England
owned the steel trade. He could have
been a millionaire many times over,
but he cared little for money. When
ne was offered a partnership he re-