What is almost as remarkable as
the enormous increase in the production of Bessemer steel is the great
diminution in its cost. In the years preceding 1875, the price of
rails manufactured from Bessemer ingots fluctuated between L10 and L18
per ton, and I remember Lord George Hamilton when he was
Under-Secretary for India of Lord Beaconsfield's administration in
1875 or 1876, congratulating himself on his good fortune in having
been able to secure a quantity of steel rails for the Indian
government at L13 per ton. Within the last three years we have seen
them sold under L4 10s. in this country, and L5 10s. in Germany and
Belgium.
LATEST IMPROVEMENTS IN IRON MAKING.
This great reduction is the cumulative result of a number of
concurrent improvements, partly in the conversion of the iron, and
partly in the subsequent treatment of the ingot steel. In most of the
great steelworks the iron is no longer remelted, but is transferred
direct from the blast furnace to the converter, a practice which
originated at Terre-Noire, and was long considered in this country to
be incompatible with uniformity in the quality of the steel produced.
The turn-out of the converter plant has been gradually increased in
this country to more than four times that of fourteen years ago, while
the practice of the United States is stated by a recent visitor to
have reached such an astounding figure that I am afraid to quote it
without confirmation; but the greatest economy arises no doubt in the
labor and fuel employed in the mill.
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