came in time to save the remnant of the beautiful and famous forests of oak-the pride of England.

HENRY BESSEMER.

Steel follows iron as day succeeds night-the product of iron in its most refined and best estate. The art of making steel, as of iron, came from mysterious Asia, where it was practiced in the infancy of Oriental civilization, and instruments of war and domestic cutlery were made from ærolites-sky-descended masses of metal. The Hindoos were especially skilled in the art of making steel, as indeed they are at this day; and it has come to be pretty generally believed by such persons and scholars as have become familiar with the history of that people, 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 was known in Germany in the Middle Ages, but England then produced very little steel, and was mainly dependent for its supply of the article upon continental makers. Among the improved processes invented of late years for the manufacture of steel, that of Bessemer is the most noted, and promises before long to effect an entire revolution in the iron and steel trade. By it the crude metal is converted, by one simple process, directly as it comes from the blast-furnace. This is effected by driving through it, while still in a molten state, several streams of atmospheric air, on which the carbon of the crude iron unites with the oxygen of the atmosphere. The temperature is greatly raised, and a violent ebulition takes place, during which, if the process is continued, that part of the carbon which appears to be mechanically mixed and diffused through the crude iron, is entirely consumed. The metal becomes thoroughly cleansed, the slag is ejected and removed, while the sulphur and other volatile matters are driven off; the result being an ingot of malleable iron of the quality of charcoal iron.

An important feature in the process is, that by stopping it at a particular stage, immediately following the boil, before the whole of the carbon has been abstracted by the oxygen, the crude iron will be found to have passed into the condition of cast-steel of ordinary quality. By continuing the process, the metal losing its carbon, it passes from hard to soft steel, thence to steely iron, and last of all to very soft iron; so that by interrupting the progress at any stage, or continuing it to the end, almost any quality of iron and steel may be obtained. One of the most valuable forms of the metal is described by Mr. Bessemer as "semi-steel," being in hardness about midway between ordinary cast-steel and soft malleable iron. The Bessemer processes are now in full operation in England and in this country, both for converting crude into malleable iron and for

producing steel; and the results have already proved of the greatest practical utility in all cases where iron and steel are extensively employed.

Like every other invention, this of Mr. Bessemer had long been pondered over and dreampt of by some reflecting iron men, for more than sixty years; but Bessemer is entitled to the merit of working out the idea, and bringing the process to perfection, by his great skill and indomitable perseverance.

STEAM-ENGINES-JAMES WATT.

Early inventors yoked wind and water to sails and wheels, and made them work machinery of various kinds; but modern inventors have availed themselves of the far more swift and powerful, yet docile force of steam, which has now laid upon it the heaviest share of the burden of toil, and indeed become the universal drudge. Coal, water, and a little oil, are all that the steam-engine, with its bowels of iron and heart of fire, needs to enable it to go on working, night and day, without sleep or rest. Yoked to machinery of almost infinite variety, the results of vast ingenuity and labor, the steam-engine pumps water, drives spindles, threshes grain, prints books, hammers iron, plows land, saws timber, drives piles, impels ships, works railways, excavates canals, and, in a word, asserts an almost unbounded supremacy over the materials which enter into the daily uses of mankind, for clothing, for labor, for defence, for household purposes, for locomotion, for food, or for instruction.

The development of the powers of the steam-engine by Watt had an extraordinary effect upon the production of iron in England. It created a largely increased demand for the article for the purpose of the shafting and machinery it was employed to drive; while at the same time it cleared pits of water which before were unworkable, and being extensively applied to the blowing of ironfurnaces and the working of the rolling-mills, it thus gave a still further impetus to the manufacture of that metal. It has brought the production of iron in England alone, to say nothing of our own and other countries, from 12,000 tons in 1750 to over 4,000,000 tons of pig-iron annually at this time-more than the entire production of all other European countries.

The steam-engine is the power, more than any other mechanical invention, which moves the industrial world to-day. All other machinery depends upon and is moved by it. It is the pendulum of industry. When it stops all stops. Neither the discovery of the mechanical power of steam nor the invention of the first engine to be worked by steam originated with Watt, as commonly supposed, but he was the wonderful genius that comprehended all prior thoughts and discoveries, and perfected and made practical an engine whose mighty energies come of water and fire.

We read of an architect in the time of Justinian who being desirious of possessing his neighbor's house at a low figure, played upon his superstition by conducting steam in leather tubes from concealed boilers, through the partition wall beneath the beam which supported his neighbor's house; and the steam being raised, the ceiling shook as if by an earthquake. Finding his house "haunted” the architect was enabled to obtain the house on very favorable terms.

Ancient toy images were made of metal, with a hollow head, which were filled with water, the eyes and mouth stopped with wooden wedges; burning coals were then placed beneath the head, steam was shortly raised which, forcing out the wedges, the steam escaped by eyes and mouth with a thick cloud and loud report.

Archimedes is stated to have constructed a "steam gun," which carried a ball a talent in weight; and on a hollow ball being full of water and placed in the fire, the steam rushed up a long pipe, and was applied to the vanes of a mill.

The discovery of the fact, that a mechanical force is produced when water is evaporated by the application of heat (the first capital step in the invention of the steam-engine) is two thousand years old, having first been pointed out by Hero of Alexandria, a hundred and twenty years before the Christian era.

In 1543 Blasco de Garay, a Spaniard, made experiments in the harbor of Barcelona to propel vessels by an engine which is described as "an apparatus for boiling a great quantity of water; in certain wheels which serve as oars; and a machine that communicated to them the steam produced by the boiling water. That it was a steam engine is apparent from the objection made to it by one Ravago, an official, that "the boiler continually exposed the vessel to an explosion.

وو

Solomon De Caus, an eminent French engineer and mathematician, in 1615, proposed a machine, consisting of a wheel with flat vanes upon its rim, similar to the boards of a paddle wheel. The steam was to have been produced in a close vessel and made to issue with considerable force out of a tube directed against the vanes, which would cause the revolution of the wheel, the tube projecting from the mouth of the fiquer; but the steam had to pass through the atmosphere in its passage to the wheel. But this method bears no resemblance to any application of steam-power in use in engines of the present day.

Then came an intelligent and ingenious lord, the Marquis of Worcester, in the troublesome times of Charles I., who claimed the honor of being regarded as one of the chief inventors of the steam-engine. He made a successful pumping engine which would throw a constant stream of water forty feet high.

"One vessel of water, rarified by fire," he said, "driveth up forty feet of cold water, and a man that tends the work has but to turn two cocks; that one vessel of water being consumed, another begins to force and refill with cold water, and so successively; the fire being tended and kept constant, which the selfsame person may likewise abundantly perform in the interim between the necessity of turning the cocks." A copy of the Marquis' specification is in the British Museum.

In 1682 Sir Samuel Moreland, Master of Mechanics to Charles II., in a paper on the steam-engine, explained his "Principles of the New Force of Fire," converting water into vapor.

The steam-engines, prior to 1710, may be regarded as steam pumps, when Newcomer made important improvements, Brindley and Smeation subsequently adding others.

But the steam-engine proper, as known to us, was born with Watt, the result of whose labors had been a harvest of wealth and prosperity, unparalleled in the history of the world.

James Watt was born at Greenock, in Scotland, January 19, 1736, and had from his birth delicate health; and as he grew up, instead of being subjected to educational restraint, was, for the most part, left at liberty to choose his own occupations and amusements. His father was a mathematical instrumentmaker, and in his workshop little Watt soon found his toys. By amusing himself with the quadrant he was led to study optics and astronomy. He was found one day stretched upon the hearth, tracing with chalk, various lines and angles. "Why do you permit this child," said a friend to Watt's father, "to waste his time so? Why not send him to school?" Mr. Watt replied: "You judge him hastlly; before you condemn us ascertain how he is employed." On examining the boy, then six years of age, it was found that he was engaged in the solution of a problem of Euclid. Observing the tendency of his son's mind, Mr. Watt placed at his son's disposal a collection of tools, which he soon learned to use. He took to pieces and put together agatn and again all the children's toys which he could procure; and he employed himself in making new ones. Subsequently he constructed a little electrical machine, the sparks proceeding from which much amused the playfellows of the young invalid.

The father, who was sufficiently clear-sighted, entertained high hopes of the growing faculties of his son. More distant or less sagacious relatives were not so sanguine. One day Mrs. Muirhead, the aunt of the boy, reproaching him for what she conceived to be listless idleness, desired him to take a book, and occupy himself usefully. "More than an hour has now passed away,”

said she, “and you have not uttered a word. Do you know what you have been doing all this time? You have taken off and put on, repeatedly, the lid of the teapot; you have been holding the saucer and the spoons over the steam, and you have been endeavoring to catch the drops of water formed on them by the vapor. Is it not a shame for you to waste your time so?" Mrs. Muirhead was little aware that this was the first experiment in the career of discovery which was subsequently to immortalize her nephew.

She did not see, as many can, in the little boy, playing with the teapot, the great engineer preluding to more discoveries which were destined to confer on mankind inestimable benefits. Another relative, Mrs. Campbell, describes him watching the steam from the tea-kettle, and by means of a cup and spoon showing the condensation of steam.

Young Watt was sent to a commercial school, where he acquired the customary education; but his chief success lay in mathematics. At the age of nineteen he went to London and sought a situation. One John Morgan, a mathematical instrument maker, in Finch-lane, Cornhill, gave him employment. At the end of a year he returned to Glasgow, taking with him twenty guineas' worth of additional tools. He opened a shop as "Mathematical Instrument Maker to the University," and drew around him friends and patrons; among them the celebrated Adam Smith; Dr. Black, and John Robison. The latter said of young Watt, "I saw a workman, and expected no more; but was surprised to find a philosopher as young as myself, and always ready to instruct me."

It was at Glasgow College that Watt, experimenting on one of Newcomer's pumping engines, finally developed and brought to perfection the wonderful steam engine of to-day. He formed partnership with Dr. Roebuck and Boulton, took out patents in England and France. He visited Paris and met Lavoisier, Laplace and Fouroroy. At the expiration of their patent of seventeen years, in 1800, at the age of sixty-two, he retired from active duties, leaving two sons who continued the partnership. He purchased an estate at Heathfield, and indulged in all the pleasure of being a landed proprietor, and for nearly twenty years lived a tranquil and happy life. He died on the 19th of August, 1819, in his eighty-third year.

IRON BRIDGES-PRITCHARD-DARBY-BRUNNEL-TELFORD.

The first iron bridge ever erected was cast and made at the Coalbrookdale Works, England. Its projection as well as its erection being due to the skill and enterprise of Abraham Darby the third. I was built across the Severn,