It is no part of the duty of the Institute to assign to each
of these gentlemen his precise share in the development of the basic
process. Whatever those shares may be, I feel sure you will agree with
your council as to the propriety of their having awarded a Bessemer
medal to two of these gentlemen--Messrs. Snelus and Thomas--to Mr.
Snelus as the first who made pure steel from impure iron in a Bessemer
converter lined with basic materials; to Mr. Thomas, who solved the
same problem independently, and so clearly demonstrated its
practicability to Mr. Richards by the trials at Blaenavon, as to have
led that gentleman to devote all his energies and the great resources
of the Eston Works to the task of making it what it now is, a great
commercial success. All difficulties connected with the lining of the
converter and in insuring a durability of the bottom, nearly, if not
quite, equal to that in the acid process, appear now to have been
successfully surmounted, and I am informed by Mr. Gilchrist that the
present production of basic steel in this country and on the Continent
is already at the rate of considerably more than 500,000 tons per
annum, and that works are now in course of construction which will
increase this quantity to more than a million tons.
Our members will have the opportunity of seeing the process at work
during their visit to Middlesbrough, at the Eston Works of Messrs.
Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., which are now producing 150,000 tons per annum
of steel of the highest quality from the phosphoretic Cleveland ores;
and also at the North-Eastern Steel Company's Works.
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