can't we?" And I went on boiling out the impurities in my puddle.

Man's nature is like iron, never born in a pure state but
always mixed with elements that weaken it. Envy, greed and malice
are mixed with every man's nature when he comes into the world.
They are the brimstone that makes him brittle. He is pig-iron
until he boils them out of his system. Savages and criminals are
men who have not tried to boil this dross out of their nature.
Lincoln was one who boiled it out in the fires of adversity. He
puddled his own soul till the metal was pure, and that's how he
got the Iron Will that was strong enough to save a nation.

My purpose in slackening my heat as soon as the pig-iron was
melted was to oxidize the phosphorus and sulphur ahead of the
carbon. Just as alcohol vaporizes at a lower heat than water, so
sulphur and phosphorus oxidize at a lower heat than carbon. When
this reaction begins I see light flames breaking through the lake
of molten slag in my furnace. Probably from such a sight as this
the old-time artists got their pictures of Hell. The flames are
caused by the burning of carbon monoxide from the oxidation of
carbon. The slag is basic and takes the sulphur and phosphorus
into combination, thus ending its combination with the iron. The
purpose now is to oxidize the carbon, too, without reducing the
phosphorus and sulphur and causing them to return to the iron. We
want the pure iron to begin crystallizing out of the bath like
butter from the churning buttermilk.

More and more of the carbon gas comes out of the puddle, and as
it bubbles out the charge is agitated by its escape and the
"boil" is in progress. It is not real boiling like the boiling of