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THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY IN SWEDEN
tings. Particulars in this respect will be found in the more detailed description of the
different works, which form a separate section of this book.
SCIENCE IN STEEL INDUSTRY.
We have already mentioned that the iron and steel industry in Sweden is of very
ancient origin and that its products always have been considered superior to
everything else in that line. We have also pointed out, that one of the chief reasons for this
superiority is the purity of the raw materials, the ores and the fuel, but it should be
born in mind that this reason cannot alone account for it. There is another reason of
the greatest importance: the prominent part that science has always played in the
development. The Swedish iron industry has always been fortunate enough to count men
of world-wide fame in its ranks. We will recall only a few, such as Urban Hjärne,
Christoffer Polhem, Emanuel Swedenborg, Sven Rinman, the famous chemists C. V. Scheele,
the discoverer of the oxygen, Torben Bergman, J. Berzelius and Victor Eggertz, whose
calorimetric test for carbon is perhaps the most universally used method of analysis,
N. G. Sefström, the discoverer of vanadium, C. J. Garney, whose textbook on blast
furnace practice in 1791 was for a long time considered a standard work, translated to
several languages. Among the names of later times should further be mentioned
Joachim and Richard Åkerman, Gustaf Ekman and J. A. Brinell. Several of these men
have during a great part of their lives been attached to the universities and the college
for mining and metallurgy as professors, and their work for the iron industry should
consequently not be measured only by the results they have reached themselves; they
have had a very much greater importance through their work in communicating the
results of science through numerous pupils from the catheder out into practical life,
out into the works.
We do not hesitate to pronounce that one of the greatest secrets of the success
of the Swedish iron industry is the clear view of the importance of scientific methods
in industry always shown by its leading men. It may also be stated that at present
date the scientific control in the manufacture of iron and steel in Sweden is developed
to a degree as in no other country.
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