It is time to come to an end of my recollections. I have endeavored to give a brief résumé of my life and labors. I hope they may prove interesting as well as useful to others. Thanks to a good constitution and a frame invigorated by work, I continue to lead, with my dear wife, a happy life.
XIII.
SIR HENRY BESSEMER.
THE AGE OF STEEL.
In intervals of the reading meetings so many of the children's afternoons with Uncle Fritz had been taken up with excursions to see machinery at work, that their next meeting at the Oliver House was, as it proved, the last for the winter.
They had gone to the pumping-station of the waterworks, and had seen the noiseless work of the great steam-engine there. They had gone to the Ætna Mills at Watertown, and with the eye of the flesh had seen "rovers" and shuttles, and had been taught what "slobbers" are. They had gone to Waltham, and had been taught something of the marvellous skill and delicacy expended on the manufacture of watches. They had gone to Rand and Avery's printing-house; and here they not only saw the processes of printing, but they saw steam power "converted" into electricity. They had gone to the Locomotive Factory in Albany Street, and understood, much better than before, the inventions of George Stephenson, under the lead of the foremen in the shops, who had been very kind to them.
On their last meeting Uncle Fritz reminded them of something which one of these gentlemen had taught them about the qualities of steel and iron; and again of what they had seen of steel-springs at Waltham, when they saw how the balances of watches are arranged.
"Some bright person has called our time 'the Age of Steel,'" he said. "You know Ovid's division was 'the Age of Gold, the Age of Silver, the Age of Brass, the Age of Iron.' And Ovid, who was in low spirits, thought the Age of Iron was the worst of all. Now, we begin to improve if we have entered the Age of Steel; for steel is, poetically speaking, glorified iron.
"Now the person to whom we owe it, that, in practice, we can build steel ships to-day where we once built iron ships, and lay steel rails to-day where even Stephenson was satisfied with iron, is Sir Henry Bessemer. The Queen knighted him in recognition of the service he had rendered to the world by his improvements in the processes of turning iron into steel.