e of tenacity and
flexibility,--qualities which render it of the highest value in all
kinds of tools and instruments where durability, polish, and fineness
of edge are essential requisites. It is to this material that we are
mainly indebted for the exquisite cutting instrument of the surgeon,
the chisel of the sculptor, the steel plate on which the engraver
practises his art, the cutting tools employed in the various processes
of skilled handicraft, down to the common saw or the axe used by the
backwoodsman in levelling the primeval forest.

The invention of cast-steel is due to Benjamin Huntsman, of
Attercliffe, near Sheffield. M. Le Play, Professor of Metallurgy in
the Royal School of Mines of France, after making careful inquiry and
weighing all the evidence on the subject, arrived at the conclusion
that the invention fairly belongs to Huntsman. The French professor
speaks of it as a "memorable discovery," made and applied with
admirable perseverance; and he claims for its inventor the
distinguished merit of advancing the steel manufactures of Yorkshire to
the first rank, and powerfully contributing to the establishment on a
firm foundation of the industrial and commercial supremacy of Great
Britain. It is remarkable that a French writer should have been among
the first to direct public attention to the merits of this inventor,
and to have first published the few facts known as to his history in a
French Government Report,--showing the neglect which men of this class
have heretofore received at home, and the much greater esteem in which
they are held by scientific foreigners.[4] Le Play, in his
enthusiastic admiration of the discoverer of so potent a metal as
cast-steel, paid a visit to Huntsman's grave in Atterclifle Churchyard,
near Sheffield, and from the inscription on his tombstone recites the
facts of his birth, his death, and his brief history. With the
assistance of his descendants, we are now enabled to add the following
record of the life and labours of this remarkable but almost forgotten
man.

Benjamin Huntsman was born in Lincolnshire in the year 1704. His
parents were of German extraction, and had settled in this country only
a few years previous to his birth. The boy being of an ingenious turn,
was bred to a mechanical calling; and becoming celebrated for his
expertness in repairing clocks, he eventually set up in business as a
clock maker and mender in the town of Doncaster. He also underto