Kelly was college-educated in metallurgy, while Bessemer in his autobiography described no education, other than a practical knowledge of typecasting and machining learned at his father's type foundry, stating in 1854, "My knowledge of iron metallurgy was at that time very limited...", but somehow he was able to build, without a long series of progressive improvements, a functioning converter to blow air into molten iron and convert it to steel. However, Bessemer was a renowned inventor of many industrial processes before he invented the Bessemer process and the potential of blowing air through iron had long been known about before either Bessemer or Kelly applied for a patent, such as in the finery process and in experiments undertaken in the 1840s by James Nasmyth. In September 1856, Bessemer's patent was reported by "Scientific American". Kelly wrote a letter to the magazine in October 1856 describing his earlier experiments and asserted that the English workmen at his plant had informed Bessemer of Kelly's experiments. Kelly writes, "I have reason to believe my discovery was known in England three or four years ago, as a number of English puddlers visited this place to see my new process. Several of them have since returned to England and may have spoken of my invention there." Kelly's son would later make the unsubstantiated allegation that Bessemer had personally visited Eddyville to secretly learn from Kelly's experiments.