forge purposes of the country blacksmith, and for such like purposes,
would soon become a thing of the past. Mr. Harrison, the engineer of
the North-Eastern Railway, told me that about eighteen months ago the
North-Eastern Railway applied for tenders for rails in any quantities
between 2,000 and 10,000 tons, and they issued alternative
specifications for iron and for steel. They received about ten
tenders. Some did not care to tender for iron at all; but when they
did tender alternatively, the price quoted for the iron was greater
than for the steel. I have no doubt whatever that, in a short time, it
will be practically impossible to procure iron made by the puddling
process, of dimensions fit for many of the purposes for which a few
years ago it alone was used.

With respect to steel, in 1831 the process in use was that of
cementation, producing blistered steel, which was either piled and
welded to make shear steel, or was broken into small pieces, melted in
pots, and run into an ingot weighing only some 50 lb. or 60 lb. At
that time steel was dealt in by the pound; nobody thought of steel in
tons. In 1881, we are all aware that, by Sir Henry Bessemer's
well-known discovery, carried out by him with such persistent vigor,
cast iron is, by the blowing process, converted into steel, and that
of Dr. Siemens' equally well-known process (now that, owing to his
invention of the regenerative furnace, it is possible to obtain the
necessary high temperature), steel is made upon the open hearth. We
are, moreover, aware that, by both of these processes, steel is
produced in quantities of many tons at a single operation, with the
result that as instanced in the case of the North-Eastern rails, steel
is a cheaper material than the wrought iron made by the puddling
process. One cannot pass away from the steel manufacture without
alluding to Sir Joseph Whitworth's process of putting a pressure on