All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

The Discovery of Cheap Steel 29 notoriously slow and expensive, especially when re- garded by our modern methods of comparison. The foregoing date has since proved to be one of the most prominent milestones in the history of industry and commerce—indeed, of the world itself. But it was not only an Industrial Emancipation Day from the fact that it released the iron and steel pro- ducers from the yoke of hand-labour. It contributed to the cheaper manufacture of every other article which is dependent more or less upon this commodity, because the time occupied in the manufacture of steel was reduced from a day and a half to twenty minutes. Every country between the two poles can point to its coterie of steel magnates. Yet the foundations of the fortunes of all of these men were laid by a British inventor. True, the latter amassed a fortune which he considered an adequate reward for what he had accomplished, but it was as a drop in the bucket when compared with that acquired by many who followed him and benefited from his genius. Although the cheap process for the production of steel did not meet with publicity until 1855, the inventor, Mr.—afterwards Sir—Henry Bessemer, then forty-two years of age, had already given several striking illustrations of his creative ability. At twenty he should have netted a huge fortune through saving the Government a round £100,000 a year. But governments ever maintain a lukewarm, hostile, or niggardly attitude towards inventors, and young Bessemer was no exception to the rule. He had the bitter mortification of seeing the fruits of his labours appreciated and appropriated, but without