45
bent, and planed. That material was steel, but a cheap
method of production and one which allowed greater
volume had to be found.
Jn Pennsylvania, William Kelley, an iron worker,
noticing that a piece of iron in his furnace had become
extremely hot, apparently without benefit of fuel,
concluded that steel might be made directly from iron,
using only air as fuel; oxygen in the air, when combined
with carbon in the iron, would burn away the carbon and,
hence, produce steel. An initial experiment in 1847
failed, but a similar experiment in 1850 yielded much
different results.
"We saw a middling-sized vessel," said one observer,
"that had a mouth open on one side and near the
top. The whole was shaped something like an egg,
only bigger than a barrel. We saw molten iron
poured into the vessel. Then, Kelley he turned on
a blast of cold air, blown from a rig he had
devised himself. The vessel set up a large noise,
a roaring like you dont often hear, and fire
belched furiously from its mouth, making many colors.
But only for a few minutes. The noise and fire
died down. We then saw a blacksmith take a small
part of the iron, which had cooled, and with a
merry ring of his hammer, he contrived and threw at
the feet of the amazed spectators, a perfect horse
shoe.
. . next, the smith took some more of the cooled
metal, made it into nails forthwith, and shod the
horse of one in the crowd."(27)
Kelley unfortunately neglected to patent his
process until 1856, by which time the famous Englishman,
Henry Bessemer, had arrived on the scene with essentially
27
Stewart H. Holbrook, Iron Brew, A Century of
American Ore and Steel (New York: Macmillan Company,
19Uo) p. 188.