fined to
convert it to wrought iron by the Lancashire hearth process,"
according to A. K. Osborn, _An encyclopaedia of the iron and
steel industry_, New York, 1956.

This statement leaves the reader under the impression that the process
was in successful use. It is to be contrasted with the statement quoted
above (page 43), dated September 1856, when the process had, clearly,
not been perfected. In this connection, it should be noted that in the
report on the Suwanee Iron Works, included in _The iron manufacturer's
guide_,[104] it is stated that "It is at this furnace that Mr. Kelly's
process for refining iron in the hearth has been most fully
experimented upon."

[104] J. P. Lesley, _op. cit._ (footnote 39), p. 129. The preface
is dated April 6, 1859. The data was largely collected by Joseph
Lesley of Philadelphia, brother of the author, during a tour of
several months. Since Suwanee production is given for 44 weeks
only of 1857 (_i.e._, through November 4 or 5, 1857) it is
concluded that Lesley's visit was in the last few weeks of 1857.

A major financial crisis affected United States business in the fall of
1857. It began in the first week of October and by October 31 the
_Economist_ (London) reported that the banks of the United States had
"almost universally suspended specie payment."[105] Kelly was involved
in this crisis and his plant was closed down. According to Swank,[106]
some experiments were made to adapt Kelly's process to need of rolling
mills at the Cambria Iron Works in 1857 and 1858, Kelly himself being
at Johnstown, at least in June 1858. That the experiments were not
particularly successful is suggested by the lack of any American
contributions to the correspondence in the English technical journals.
Kelly was not mentioned as having done more than interfere with
Bessemer's first patent application. The success of the latter in
obtaining patents[107] in the United States in November 1856, covering
"the conversion of molten crude iron ... into steel or malleable iron,
without the use of fuel ..." also escaped the attention of both English
and American writers.

[105] _Economist_ (London), 1857, vol. 15, pp. 1129, 1209.

[106] Swank, _op. cit._ (footnote 42), p. 125. John Fritz, in his
_Autobiography_ (New York, 1912, p. 162), refers to experiments
during his time at Johnstown, _i.e._, between June 1854 and July
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