a cost of up to £50,000, resulting in a basic steel process which produced steel rails containing no more than 0.07% phosphorus. His obituary in The Times of 1904 noted, as a sign of the progress that Bell himself had brought about, that Bell could recall "seeing wooden rails in use on the tramroads by which coal was brought down to the River Tees". In 1867 and 1868, Bell gave papers on the state of the manufacture of iron and that of foreign competitors, in particular France, Belgium and Germany. Britain's great strength lay in its "incomparable fields of coal which constitute so important a feature in our mineral wealth". He stated that although the price and quality of coal were better in Britain, the cost of labour could be as much as 20–25% lower, particularly in Germany. In 1882, Bell successfully drilled for salt at Port Clarence, finding an exploitable salt bed at a depth of 1200 feet. He used the salt for making soda, but the borehole was sold to the Salt Union in 1888. In 1875, Bell began to move out of working in industry by retiring from his partnership with Robert Benson Bowman and Robert Stirling Newall, leaving the two of them to continue to run the chemical works until 1878, when Newall bought out Bowman. He continued to own shares in Bell companies and the North Eastern Railway. In 1901, at age 85, after a long period of difficulty for heavy industry and with fears of worse to come as manufacturing grew in Germany, America and Japan, he made a decisive move to guard the family's wealth. He sold his railway interests to the North Eastern Railway company, and the sale of a majority holding in his manufacturing companies to rival Dorman Long was completed in 1903. From the fortune thus released, he gave £5,000 to each of his many nephews, nieces and grandchildren. Politics For 30 years from 1850, Bell was active on the town council of Newcastle upon Tyne. He became sheriff of the town in 1851, mayor in 1854 and alderman in 1859. Once again he was elected mayor for Newcastle in 1862. Bell was elected as the Member of Parliament for North Durham from February to June 1874, and for The Hartlepools from 1875 to 1880. He lost his seat in North Durham in 1874 on the grounds that his agents