If we examine the utilization of the heat developed by the combustion of a given quantity of coal in this process, and compare it with the result of the combustion of an equivalent amount of fuel in a blast furnace, we shall soon see the theoretical economy of the process. The coal is burned on the grate of the puddling-furnace, to carbonic acid, and the flame is more fully utilized than in an ordinary puddling-furnace, for besides the ordinary hearth there is the second or rear hearth, where additional heat is taken up, and then the products of combustion are further utilized in heating the retorts in which the ore is partly reduced. After this the heat is still further utilized by passing it under the boilers for the generation of steam, and the heat lost in the gases, when they finally escape, is very small. In a blast furnace the carbon is at first burned only to carbonic oxide, and the products of combustion issue mainly in this form from the top of the furnace. Then a portion of the heat resulting from the subsequent burning of these gases is pretty well utilized in making steam to supply the power required about the works, but the rest of the gas can only be utilized for heating the blast, and here there is an enormous waste, the amount of heat returned to the furnace by the heated blast being very small in proportion to the amount generated by the burning of that portion of carbonic oxide expended in heating it, and the gases escape from both the hot-blast and the boilers at a high temperature. In the direct process under consideration the fuel burned is more completely utilized than in the puddling process, to which the cast iron from the blast furnace is subjected to convert it into wrought iron. The economy claimed for this process, over the blast furnace and puddling practice for the production of wrought iron, is that nearly all the fuel used in the puddling operation is saved, and that with about the same amount of fuel used in the blast furnace to produce a ton of pig iron, a ton of wrought iron blooms can be made. I had no opportunity of weighing the charges of ore and coal used, but I saw the process in actual operation at Rockaway, N.J. The iron produced was hammered up into good solid blooms, containing but little cinder. The muck-bar made from the blooms was fibrous in fracture, and showed every appearance of good iron. I am informed by the manager of the Sanderson Brothers' steel works, at Syracuse, N.Y., that they purchased blooms made by the Wilson process in 1881-1882, that _none_ of them showed red-shortness, and that they discontinued their use only on account of the injurious action of the titanium they contained on the melting pots. These blooms were made from magnetic sands from the Long Island and Connecticut coasts. [Illustration: NEW PROCESS FOR MAKING WROUGHT IRON FROM THE ORE.] The drawing given shows the construction of the furnace employed. I quote from the published description: