Brass patented a technique for the first industrial scale distillation of metallic zinc known as "distillation per descencum" or "the English process." This local zinc was used in speltering and allowed greater control over the zinc content of brass and the production of high-zinc copper alloys which would have been difficult or impossible to produce using cementation, for use in expensive objects such as scientific instruments, clocks, brass buttons and costume jewellery. However Champion continued to use the cheaper calamine cementation method to produce lower-zinc brass and the archaeological remains of bee-hive shaped cementation furnaces have been identified at his works
American Brass Company Inc., the next largest brass manufacturer, was able to expand its market share significantly as American Brass lagged. Despite its managerial challengers, American Brass was still a highly innovative company. It developed and patented a process for constructing hollow and ventilated busses from rectangular copper bars. The company also developed numerous new and unique metallurgical processes and alloys. On January 1, 1912, the companies held by American Brass were dissolved and all of the firm's divisions began operating under the name of the American Brass Company. The company also expanded, taking over the Chicago Brass Company of Kenosha, Wisconsin; Waterbury