3-053-638 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Shah at the Crewe Locomotive-Engine Factory: the Bessemer Process, 1873. The Shah of Persia is given a factory tour. 'One thing which attracted his notice was the conversion of pig iron into Bessemer steel. The cupola was tapped, and the fluid metal poured down a sand channel into the converting vessel. This was turned up, and the "blowing" commenced, with the visible result of a fierce and beautiful white flame streaming in a furious gale of wind from its mouth. Having glanced at the engines which force their tremendous draught through the melted metal, his Majesty passed to the cogging-shop, where a ten-ton duplex steam-hammer was squeezing flat under its blows a huge red-hot bar of metal...Other shops were inspected; and Mr. Webb, locomotive superintendent to the London and North-Western Company, explained to the Shah the different processes'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.