pe and size required. The pots are replaced, filled
again, and the process is repeated; the red-hot pots thus serving for
three successive charges, after which they are rejected as useless.

When Huntsman had perfected his invention, it would naturally occur to
him that the new metal might be employed for other purposes besides
clock-springs and pendulums. The business of clock-making was then of
a very limited character, and it could scarcely have been worth his
while to pursue so extensive and costly a series of experiments merely
to supply the requirements of that trade. It is more probable that at
an early stage of his investigations he shrewdly foresaw the extensive
uses to which cast-steel might be applied in the manufacture of tools
and cutlery of a superior kind; and we accordingly find him early
endeavouring to persuade the manufacturers of Sheffield to employ it in
the manufacture of knives and razors. But the cutlers obstinately
refused to work a material so much harder than that which they had been
accustomed to use; and for a time he gave up all hopes of creating a
demand in that quarter. Foiled in his endeavours to sell his steel at
home, Huntsman turned his attention to foreign markets; and he soon
found he could readily sell abroad all that he could make. The merit
of employing cast-steel for general purposes belongs to the French,
always so quick to appreciate the advantages of any new discovery, and
for a time the whole of the cast-steel that Huntsman could manufacture
was exported to France. When he had fairly established his business
with that country, the Sheffield cutlers became alarmed at the
reputation which cast-steel was acquiring abroad; and when they heard
of the preference displayed by English as well as French consumers for
the cutlery manufactured of that metal, they readily apprehended the
serious consequences that must necessarily result to their own trade if
cast-steel came into general use. They then appointed a deputation to
wait upon Sir George Savile, one of the members for the county of York,
and requested him to use his influence with the government to obtain an
order to prohibit the exportation of cast-steel. But on learning from
the deputation that the Sheffield manufacturers themselves would not
make use of the new steel, he positively declined to comply with their
request. It was indeed fortunate for the interests of the town that
the object of the deputation was defe