Iron Making in the Olden Times: as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of DeanNicholls, H. G. (Henry George)
History
Iron Making in the Olden Times: as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean
Nicholls, H. G. (Henry George)
Iron -- History; Iron industry and trade -- England
"At first they fill these furnaces with ore and cinder intermixt with
fuel, which in these works is always charcoal, laying them hollow at
the bottom, that they may the more easily take fire; but after they
are once kindled, the materials run together into an hard cake or
lump, which is sustained by the furnace, and through this the mettal
as it runs trickles down the receivers, which are placed at the
bottom, where there is a passage open, by which they take away the
scum and dross, and let out their mettal as they see occasion.
"Before the mouth of the furnace lyeth a great bed of sand, where
they make furrows of the fashion they desire to cast their iron: into
these, when the receivers are full, they let in their mettal, which
is made so very fluid by the violence of the fire that it not only
runs to a considerable distance, but stands afterwards boiling a
great while.
"After these furnaces are once at work, they keep them constantly
employed for many months together, never suffering the fire to
slacken night or day, but still supplying the waste of fuel and other
materials with fresh, poured in at the top.
"Several attempts have been made to bring in the use of the sea coal
in these works instead of charcoal; the former being to be had at an
easy rate, the latter not without a great expence; but hitherto they
have proved ineffectual, the workmen finding by experience that a
sea-coal fire, how vehement soever, will not penetrate the most fixed
parts of the ore, by which means they leave much of the mettal behind
them unmelted.
"From these furnaces they bring the sows and piggs of iron, as they
call them, to their forges; these are two sorts, though they stood
together under the same roof; one they call their finery, and the
other chafers: both of them are upon hearths, upon which they place
great heaps of sea coal, and behind them bellows like those of the
furnaces, but nothing near so large.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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