iron and steel may be obtained. One of the
most valuable forms of the metal is described by Mr. Bessemer as
"semi-steel," being in hardness about midway between ordinary
cast-steel and soft malleable iron. The Bessemer processes are now in
full operation in England as well as abroad, both for converting crude
into malleable iron, and for producing steel; and the results are
expected to prove of the greatest practical utility in all cases where
iron and steel are extensively employed.

Yet, like every other invention, this of Mr. Bessemer had long been
dreamt of, if not really made. We are informed in Warner's Tour
through the Northern. Counties of England, published at Bath in 1801,
that a Mr. Reed of Whitehaven had succeeded at that early period in
making steel direct from the ore; and Mr. Mushet clearly alludes to the
process in his "Papers on Iron and Steel." Nevertheless, Mr. Bessemer
is entitled to the merit of working out the idea, and bringing the
process to perfection, by his great skill and indomitable perseverance.
In the Heath process, carburet of manganese is employed to aid the
conversion of iron into steel, while it also confers on the metal the
property of welding and working more soundly under the hammer--a fact
discovered by Mr. Heath while residing in India. Mr. Mushet's process
is of a similar character. Another inventor, Major Uchatius, an
Austrian engineer, granulates crude iron while in a molten state by
pouring it into water, and then subjecting it to the process of
conversion. Some of the manufacturers still affect secrecy in their
operations; but as one of the Sanderson firm--famous for the excellence
of their steel--remarked to a visitor when showing him over their
works, "the great secret is to have the courage to be honest--a spirit
to purchase the best material, and the means and disposition to do
justice to it in the manufacture."

It remains to be added, that much of the success of the Sheffield
manufactures is attributable to the practical skill of the workmen, who
have profited by the accumulated experience treasured up by their class
through many generations. The results of the innumerable experiments
conducted before their eyes have issued in a most valuable though
unwritten code of practice, the details of which are known only to
themselves. They are also a most laborious class; and Le Play says of
them, when alluding to the fact of a single workman superintending the
ope