Invention Of Cast Steel--Benjamin Huntsman.
"It may be averred that as certainly as the age of iron superseded that of bronze, so will the age of steel reign triumphant over iron."-- HENRY BESSEMER.

"Aujourd'hui la revolution que devait amener en Grande-Bretagne la memorable decouverte de Benjamin Huntsman est tout a fait accomplie, et chaque jour les consequetces sen feront plus vivement sentir sur le confinent."--LE PLAY, Sur la Fabricatio n de l' Acier en Yorkshire.


Iron, besides being used in various forms as bar and cast iron, is also used in various forms as bar and cast steel; and it is principally because of its many admirable qualities in these latter forms that iron maintains its supremacy over all the other metals.

The process of converting iron into steel had long been known among the Eastern nations before it was introduced into Europe. The Hindoos were especially skilled in the art of making steel, as indeed they are to this day; and it is supposed that the tools with which the Egyptians covered their obelisks and temples of porphyry and syenite with hieroglyphics were made of Indian steel, as probably no other metal was capable of executing such work. The art seems to have been well known in Germany in the Middle Ages, and the process is on the whole very faithfully described by Agricola in his great work on Metallurgy.* [footnote... AGRICOLA, De Re Metallica. Basle, 1621. ...] England then produced very little steel, and was mainly dependent for its supply of the article upon the continental makers.