in the minds of those engaged in its prosecution, and it was my wish, for reasons immediately connected with the mode of manufacture, to embrace in the scope of my labours some considerations of a more commercial character, than those usually found in scientific or technological works.

Considerable additions to the producing powers of other nations were no doubt partly the cause of the distress in question; but, under ordinary circumstances, a mere temporary excess of production brings with it a remedy more or less speedy in its nature. All additions to manufacturing appliances are suspended, establishments in the least favourable localities are brought to a stand, and this process continues until the growing demand, consequent upon wider civilization and increasing commerce, calls for increased activity on the part of the producer.

The iron trade was passing through such a crisis at the period in question; and the apprehension entertained by those, whose capital was embarked in certain mines of iron ore and in malleable iron works, was not that a demand for the metal would never revive at all, but that it would revive in a form incapable of being supplied from the produce of their pits, or dealt with by their present machinery.

As will be anticipated, this is one of the results of the inventions of Bessemer and Siemens, by which steel made by the so-called pneumatic, or by the open hearth process, has already largely taken the place of iron. So far, indeed, as concerns rails, in this country at least, it may be said that the puddling furnace bids fair to be ultimately superseded by the converter; unless at any time the demand for rails shall be found to rise in excess of our means of supplying them in steel, whether from a want of suitable ore or from a temporary deficiency in proper steel-making establishments.

This recent addition to our national industry requires, however, the use of a raw material hitherto regarded as incapable of being furnished by those ores, which, from their abundance and cheapness of extraction, have placed Great Britain in her present high position as an iron making nation. In consequence of this supposed unsuitability of our clay ironstones for Bessemer pig iron, smelting establishments and some rail mills have been constructed in the neighbourhood of the hematite

mines of Cumberland and Lancashire, which almost alone, at least in this kingdom, produce ore sufficiently free from phosphorus to meet the requirements of the Bessemer or Siemens-Martin processes, as generally practised. It soon became apparent that the West of England ores would be inadequate to meet the additional demand made on them by all the new steel rail mills, and hence our supplies had to be supplemented by large importations from foreign countries.

The iron trade of Great Britain, with ample mining resources for supplying its blast furnaces, and with mills of sufficient capacity to meet all ordinary demands, has thus found itself constrained to import iron ore from abroad, and to construct new works to replace those which this sudden change of circumstances has silenced.

Is there any chance of a reversal of these conditions, forming, as they do, a great aggravation to the difficulties which threaten almost to overwhelm a considerable portion of the iron trade of this country? So far as a return to the puddling furnace is concerned, this seemed at one time hardly possible; for, incredible as it would have been at one time regårded, hematite ore can, in the opinion of some competent anthorities, be brought oversea from a distance of 1000 miles, landed close to mines furnishing the cheapest made pig iron in Great Britain, and converted into steel rails, at a lower cost than the native ironstone of Cleveland can furnish similar rails in iron.

Speaking from individual conviction, I am not disposed to take a desponding view of our purely national iron trade. The Bessemer converter, as hitherto employed, retains almost all the original phosphorus in the product. From different quarters well-grounded pretensions are now set up, which promise to modify the action of the pneumatic process, so as to secure the elimination of the phosphorus in the more impure varieties of pig. Failing this, the experience of some time past has incontestably proved, that, by means of the open hearth, rails can be manufactured of good quality, and yet containing a percentage of the metalloid referred to, which hitherto has been regarded as inadmissible in the Bessemer converter. This modification of the steel process would, of itself, permit a certain portion of British iron being employed, at all events in the manufacture of rails; but in addition to this it has been demonstrated as physically possible that

pig iron containing 175 per cent. of phosphorus can be freed from this element sufficiently well to afford steel of excellent quality, using the Siemens furnace instead of the Bessemer process in the subsequent stages of the process.

Can our own cheap ores, when burdened with the expense attending the differences of treatment referred to, compete with the purer mineral of the West of England and elsewhere? This is a subject which is largely occupying the minds of the ironmasters of this country. The experience of twenty years has reduced the cost of making Bessemer ingots to a mere fraction of its former amount. Giving it again as an individual opinion, I think that enough has been done to render it highly probable that, at no very distant day, any additional expense incurred in adapting the usual make of British pig iron to steel-making purposes, will be more than met by the lower cost of the mineral obtained from British soil.

A large amount of work, in the direction of thus adapting our native ores, more or less rich in phosphorus, to the purposes of steelmaking, has been done since the year of the French Exhibition. The delay, therefore, arising from the extended scope of my labours, and augmented by other claims on my time, has had the advantage of enabling me to examine the progress and consider the future of this interesting question.

Since the above was written the so-called Basic process, as applied to the pneumatic treatment of pig iron containing an excess of phosphorus, has met with considerable success. In Germany particularly, where the difference between the cost of the class of crude metal hitherto exclusively used in the Bessemer converter and that of the commoner descriptions is greater than in Great Britain, a very large quantity of steel has been made from pig containing upwards of 2 per cent. of phosphorus. It is true that some English manufacturers have expressed doubts whether the relative cost of the two varieties of pig iron in Great Britain will permit any general application of this dephosphorizing system in this country. A most important step in advance, however, has unquestionably been made it has been demonstrated that phosphorus can be readily separated from iron in the Bessemer converter. With this knowledge I have no doubt that steel will

ultimately be made, if it has not been made already, on the East coast of England, and from Cleveland stone, in all probability more cheaply than it can be produced from ore imported from Spain, and more cheaply also than it can be supplied from works on the West coast to the banks of the Tees.

The chemical conditions attending the so-called Direct process of obtaining malleable iron from the ores, are such as to prevent the absorption by the metal of the greater part of the phosphorus which the ores contain. This has led some to regard as possible a return to a mode of manufacture more or less identical with that practised in prehistoric times. Enough indeed has been done and said in connection with this opinion to render it desirable, at the proper time, to consider the grounds upon which this revival of the most ancient method of producing the metal is founded. Again, by means of some very important improvements in the puddling furnace, hopes have been, and perhaps are still, entertained of securing for what is now understood and described as malleable iron, a much more extensive sphere of usefulness than some are disposed to imagine it is destined to occupy in the future.

It is, of course, at all times difficult to lay down any limits as to what may or may not be capable of achievement. There seems but one course to pursue, under circumstances requiring such serious and immediate consideration by those interested in the subject. This course consists in a careful and systematic study of the different processes, either proposed or in actual use, with a view to ascertain what margin there is for any material change in those processes themselves, and hence for any marked advance in point of economy or of efficiency. A prominent feature in the competition which the British iron manufacturers have to encounter, is the great extension of iron works now taking place in foreign countries. Until a comparatively recent period, Great Britain enjoyed many advantages from the possession and advanced state of development of her large fields of coal, as well as of the iron mines already mentioned. To a considerable extent her position in this respect has been altered by the opening out of important carboniferous deposits in different parts of the world. If, in addition to this source of competition, circumstances compel British

manufacturers to be dependent, to any great extent, on Spain for their supply of ore, our iron trade cannot fail to be greatly affected by such a change.

Again, the very improvements that have taken place in the production of the metal have sensibly improved the relative position of other nations, less favourably circumstanced than Great Britain in the matter of mineral fuel. To manufacture an iron rail in Scotland fifty years ago, 11 or 12 tons of coal would have been consumed. To-day less than one-half of this quantity suffices for the work, and one-fourth of it is enough to produce a rail of steel. Thus, instead of having to multiply any difference in the cost of fuel by twelve, which would represent our former position, the same sum has only to be multiplied by three in order to ascertain the extent of our present advantage.

Within the recollection of many, almost the whole world was more or less dependent upon Great Britain for its supply of iron of ordinary quality. So recently as 1871, the United States of America virtually relieved us, in one shape or another, of nearly one-fifth of our make of pig iron. This important market was almost closed against us from 1875 up to the end of the year 1878. An unexpected demand for iron and steel in the autumn of 1879 found the United States, as it was alleged, unprepared to meet its own requirements; in consequence large importations were made from Great Britain, and these to some extent still continue. So long, however, as the present prohibitive tariff remains in force, it is only a want of capital and labour which will prevent North America, save under exceptional circumstances, from supplying all its own requirements.

As to our relations with the Continent of Europe, we have not only to meet France, Germany and Belgium in the open market, but, to the alarm of many-as I think, an unnecessary alarm-German and Belgian iron is to a moderate extent imported into this country.

In the hope of adding to, or correcting when necessary, the impressions derived, upon former occasions, from an examination of continental works, I once more, after the close of the Paris Exhibition, revisited some of the chief seats of the manufacture of iron in Europe. In like manner, so recently as 1874, and again in 1876, I endeavoured to make