SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

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The Pictorial History of England; being a History of the People as well as a History of the Kingdom. Illustrated with many hundred Wood-cuts of Monumental Records ; Coins; Civil and Military Costume ; Domestic Buildings, Furniture, and Ornaments ; Cathedrals and other great works of Architecture; Sports and other Illustratious of Manners; Mechanical Inventions ; Portraits of the Kings and Queens ; their Signatures and Great Seals; and remarkable Historical Scenes. By George L. Craik and Charles Macfarlane, assisted by other Contributors. In six

volumes Charles Knight and Co. Itteram.rmar, A Comprehensive History of the Iron Trade throughout the World, from the earliest records to the present period. With an Appendix, containing Tables and other public Documents. By Harry Scrivenor. Blaeuavon Smith and Elder,

TOPOGRAPHY,

The History of Guernsey ; with Occasional Notices of Jersey. Alderney. and Sark, ,and Biographical Sketches. By Jonathan Duncan, Esq., BA.. Author of " The 'Dukes of Normandy," &c. &c. Longman and Co. Peavey, Ina, and other Poems. By Mira M. Radcliffe Walmeley, Liverpool.

SCRIVENOR'S HISTORY OF THE IRON-TRADE.

Tux design of this work is not to describe the different processes by which iron is manufactured into objects of use or ornament,— and scarcely, it would appear, to present a systematic account of the successive operations by which the ore is transmuted into iron,—but to narrate the earliest use of the metal, to give a history of the working of mines in different countries at different times, with the amount of their respective produce, and to notice the most striking changes in the art of smelting, or of melting the ore so as to extract the metal. Beginning, like an encyclo- paedist, with the Bible, Mr. SCRIVENOE tells, but apparently from second-hand sources, of the nations which made use of iron in ancient times, with a few particulars of their modes of working ; be then gives at some length a history of the mining- trade in Britain, up to 1830; after which he treats of that of Sweden, Russia, France, Spain, and the United States, as well as of the other nations of Europe and Asia,—dismissing the lesser or more unknown iron-countries in a brief and rapid manner. A chapter on the British trade since 1830, during which the con- sumption of iron has been so enormously extended, not merely by railways, but by its general use in the construction of steamers, roofs, columns, windows, and even furniture, concludes the history. In a large appendix are contained a variety of statistical documents, elaborate in their character and sometimes curious in their facts, but apparently published because the author possessed them, rather than for any extraordinary value or rarity they possessed. The Comprehensive History of the Iron Trade is useful, as bring- ing together a tolerably complete view of the subject ; which is not, we believe, to be found elsewhere. It also furnishes an outline narrative of the progress of the trade, and contains a variety of sta- tistical facts and several curious particulars : but it is an unskilful and insufficient work. The very first things to make clear to the general reader—the modes by which iron ore is transmuted into metal, and the differences between pig-iron and bar-iron, are not ex- pounded directly, though patience and intelligence may gather them from various sections of the work. Hence, persons who have no knowledge of the iron-trade will either be unable to follow the author at all, or will follow him without fully ap- prehending him, and of course without interest in his accounts of the processes adopted in different countries, and of the changes which have taken place within the last century. Neither does Mr. SCRIVENOR seem to have properly comprehended his sub- ject; for he passes summarily over important points, and enters into others of less consequence in great detail. The truth appears to be, that the author is an amateur historian, who took to reading about iron because he was interested in it ; and having accumulated a certain quantity of information, determined to give what be had gotten to the world. Hence the extent of his narrative, like the tables of his appendix, is seldom measured by its intrinsic nature, but by the quantity of material he has in hand. Something like a deprecation of criticism is thrown out by Mr. SCRIVENOR, for want of practice in authorship ; but this in strictness is only allowable to a man who gives to the world the result of original observation that would otherwise be lost. He who " makes a book from books," is bound to acquire a certain degree of authorcraft. The immense variety of uses to which iron has lately been ap- plied, has given rise to various panegyrics upon its importance ; but, notwithstanding the eloquent and practical enumeration of Dr. URE, we question whether any modern writer has approached the more comprehensive praise of LOCKE, who grounds his pane- gyric upon broad results and not upon particular instances. " Whatever," says he, " we may think of our parts or improve- ments in this part of the world, where knowledge and plenty seem to vie with each other, yet, to any one that will seriously reflect on it, I suppose it will appear past doubt, that were the use of iron lost among us, we should in a few ages be unavoidably reduced to the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage Ameri- cans, whose natural endowments and provisions come no way short of those of the most flourishing and polite nations. So that he who had first made known the use of the contemptible mineral, may be truly styled the Father of Arts and Author of Plenty."

This metal, so important to civilization that some have doubted whether the use of iron or the power over animals is the most in- fluential cause in the advancement of the human race, differs from the precious and some of the common metals in this, that "Nature never completes its formation.* Gold, silver, and copper, are found

• Strictly, Mx. SCRIVENOR is perhaps going too far in this statement ; but natural iron is so very rarely found, that its existence has been, and indeed still is, a matter of dispute.

in their perfect state in the clefts of rocks, in the sides of moun- tains, or the channels of rivers. These were, accordingly, the metals first known and first applied to use : but iron, the most ser- viceable of all, and to which man is most indebted, is never disco- vered in its perfect form ; its gross and stubborn ore must twice feel the force of fire and go through two laborious processes before it becomes fit for use."

In modern metallurgy, however, these processes are three, at least for the production of bar-iron. 1. Roasting ; by which the moisture and some other foreign matters are driven off by vola- tilization and the hard refractory ore is made more easily pul- verizable. 2. Smelting ; that is, reducing the pulverized ore to a state of fusion by excessive heat, either alone or with some additional substance to facilitate the melting when the ore is very obstinate, which substance is technically called " flux." When the non-metallic particles of the ore are brought to a fluid state of fusion, the metal sinks to the bottom of the furnace ; the "slag," or scoriae, covering it in a melted condition, is occasionally allowed to flow off ; and at stated times the iron itself is dis- charged into a bed of sand, where it forms from ten to twelve small "pigs." 3. The process of converting "pig" into bar-iron, which is called refining.

" For this purpose a furnace Is made use of resembling a smith's hearth, with a sloping cavity sunk from ten to twelve inches below the level of the blast- pipe. This cavity is filled with charcoal and scoria' ; and on the side opposite to the blast-pipe is laid a pig of cast-iron, well covered with hot fuel. The blast is then let in, and the pig of iron being placed in the very focus of the heat, soon begins to melt, and as it liquefies runs down into the cavity below ; here, being out of the direct influence of the blast, it becomes solid, and is then taken out and replaced in its former position, the cavity being then filled with char- coal; it is thus fused a second time, and after that a third time ; the whole of these three processes being usually effected in between three and four hours. As soon as the iron has become solid, it is taken out and very slightly ham- mered, to free it from the adhering scoriae : it is then returned to the fur- nace, and placed in a corner out of the way of the blast, and well covered with charcoal ; where it remains till by further gradual cooling it becomes sufficiently compact to bear the tilt-hammer. Here it is well beaten till the scoriae are forced out ; and it is then divided into several pieces, which by a repe- tition of heating and hammering are drawn into bars, and in this state is ready for sale. The proportion of pig-iron obtained from a given quantity of ore is subject to considerable variation, from a difference in the metallic contents of different parcels of ore, and other circumstances ; but the amount of bar-iron that a given weight of pig-metal is expected to yield is regulated very strictly, the workmen being expected to furnish four parts of the former for five parts of the latter; so that the loss does not exceed 20 per cent."

The two processes of smelting and refining have been common in some form to every age and country, from the earliest period till the latter end of the last century ; and the methods described are those still followed by most nations, except Great Britain, America, and a few French and Belgian iron-works. With these exceptions, the fuel used is and always has been charcoal. But from this exception has arisen the peculiar character as well as the great advance of the British iron-trade. In consequence of our advance in population, the scarcity of wood soon began to be felt in England. So early as ELIZABETH, an act of Parlia- ment was passed (1558) enacting that " no timber of the breadth of one foot square at the stub," and growing within a fixed distance of water-carriage, should be " converted into coal or fuel for the making of iron"; except in certain parts of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. This act does not seem to have bad much effect, for in 1581 and in 1588 two other laws were passed forbidding the erection of fresh iron-works in certain counties adjacent to London ; the avowed cause of the enactment being the scarcity of timber for fuel, as well as "for building and other uses," which " doth daily decay and become scant." Some persons also were alarmed for the navigation of the kingdom : but the first to feel the prac- tical difficulties were the iron-makers, who began to suffer from the scarcity of fuel. Various attempts, during the seventeenth and the earlier part of the eighteenth century, were made to retard the threatened decay of the trade by the use of pit-coal; but without much effect. According to DUDLEY, an iron-master and projector who wrote in the reign of CHARLES the Second, there were in his youth " near 20,000 smiths of all sorts within ten miles of Dudley Castle, and many iron-works within that circle, decayed for want of wood ; yet formerly a mighty woodland country." He, however, estimated the furnaces existing when he wrote, at 300; but towards the middle of the eighteenth century the number had diminished to 59 ; their total annual produce being only 17,350 tons. In 1672, according to Sir WILLIAM PETTY, there were 1,000 tons of iron made in Ireland ; which gave employment to 2,000 men and women, and to 6,000 smiths' forges or upwards, in which were employed more than 20,000 persons. In despite, however, of acts of the Irish Parliament to prevent waste and enforce plant- ing, and similar enactments in England against the exportation. of wood, Nature was too strong for Legislation ; which, after thirty or forty years, gave up the unequal contest.

" The manufacture of iron was thus lost to Ireland; and, with a single ex- ception, no attempt has been made to revive it. A furnace was erected about fifty or sixty years since by a family of the name of O'Reilly, and was worked by them, and also since on two or three occasions. An English company called the Arigna Company took this property, and added a new furnace: no works, however, are at present going on."

Science, however, came to the rescue of one of Great Britain's staple manufactures. In substituting coal or coke for charcoal, a great difficulty appears to have been to acquire a sufficiency of blast, (for with charcoal the iron-masters were more disposed to complain of an over than an under blast.) The simple hand- worked bellows, or the more powerful water-movement which sufficed for charcoal, had little effect upon coal; so that the produce under equal conditions was much less from a coal than a charcoal fire,

The gradual use of steam-engines for draining mines, and the eon- segment. improvement in machinery, between 1700 and 1750 enabled additional blast-power to be gradually obtained. In 1760, &WELTON erected a cylinder machine for the celebrated Carron Company, to impel the blast or current of air ; the result of which, after ex- perience had suggested some improvements and facilitated its working, was to enable the same furnace that formerly yielded only ten and twelve tons weekly to produce forty. Shortly after this, Wierr's improvement of the steam-engine, and its appli- cation to iron-works, not only revived the iron-trade, but enabled it to distance all foreign competitors. Ores that formerly could not be worked with profit, either from their inherent intractable- ness or from the small proportion of ore which they contained, were now advantageously submitted to the furnaeeyand more meta/ was extracted from the richest ores. Various• improvements also took place in the manufacture of bar-iron, by the substitution of hammering-machinery for hand-labour, &c. Among the more im- portant of these was Mr. Coirr's invention of " puddling," the great distinction of coal-made iron ; which is thus performed. After the pigs are broken up, mixed according to their degree of carbonization, so as to produce the desired character of metal, and passed through fire to get rid of as much scoriae as possible, "A common reverberatory furnace, heated by coal, is charged with about two-and. a-half hundredweight of this half-refined gray iron. In a little more than half an hour the metal will be found to be nearly melted : at this period the flame is turned off, a little water is sprinkled over it, and a work- man, by introducing an iron bar or an instrument shaped. like a hoe through a hole in the side of the furnace, begins to stir the half fluid mass, and divide it into email pieces. In the course of about they minutes from the commence- ment of the process, the iron will have been reduced by constant stirring to the consistence of small gravel, and will be considerably cooled. The flame is then turned on again, the workman continuing to stir the metal; and in three minutes' time the whole mass becomes soft and semi-fluid; upon which the flame is again turned off. The hottest part of the iron now begins to heave and swell, and emit a deep blue lambent flame—which appearance is called fer- mentation ; the heaving motion and accompanying flame soon spread over the whole, and the heat of the metal seems to be rather increased than diminished for the next quarter of an hour : after this period the temperature again falls, the blue flame is less vigorous, and in a little more than a quarter of an hour the metal is cooled tea dull red, and the jets of flame are rare and faint. During the whole of the fermentation the stirring is continued ; by which the iron is at length brought to the consistency of sand; it also approaches nearer to the malleable state, and in consequence adheres less than at first to the tool with which it is stirred. During the next half-hour the flame is turned off and on several times ; a stronger fermentation takes place; the lambent flame also becomes of a clearer and lighter blue, the metal begins to clot, and be- comes much less fusible and more tenacious than at first ; the fermentation then, by degees, subsides, the emission of blue flame nearly ceases, the iron is gathered into lumps, and beaten with a heavy-headed tooL Finally, the tools are with- drawn, the apertures through which they were worked ace closed, and the flame is again turned on in full force for six or eight minutes. The pieces being thus brought to a high welding heat, are withdrawn and shingled; after this they are again heated, and passed through grooved rollers, by which the scoriae are separated; and the bars thus forcibly compressed acquire a high degree of tenacity."

In the process of puddling, various improvements have been made at various times. At first the loss by transmutation of pig- iron into bar-iron was one-half. When the process became better understood, it still required from 30 to 35 hundredweight of pigs to make a ton of bars ; at present the waste is not above 6 or 7 hundredweight to a ton.

Great extension of course took place in the size of the iron-works when the steam-engine and machinery placed such immense powers at the disposal of the manufacturers. Various improvements were also made in the form of the furnaces, some the result of slow ob- servation and designed experiment, but one of the greatest the effect of pure accident. It had been the usual custom to have the mouth of the furnace about three feet and a half diameter; but

" One of the Blendare Furnaces, near Pontypool, built as usual with a narrow top, carrying but little burden and making neither quantity nor qua- lity, by some chance gave way in the top so far as to widen the filling-place to nine or ten feet. This accident was immediately followed by a cooler top, a bet- ter quality of iron, and a greater weekly quantity ; sod this accidental alteration furnished a model for the construction of other furnaces at the same works. Changes of this kind are not brought about rapidly, by reasoning or knowledge of principle, but by a series of slow observations and chance circumstances. The subject is, however, now better understood ; and within the last five or six years the mouth or filling-place of the furnace has been very generally enlarged, and instead of 3, 3i, or 4 feet, are now from 8 to 11 feet, and in some few instances larger."

Another modern invention was the substitution of the hot for the cold blast, by artificially heating the currents of air impelled into the furnace. This discovery of Mr. NEILSON of Glasgow ope- rated by obtaining a larger quantity of iron with a less degree of fuel. In 1829, with cold air, it required 888 tons of coal to pro- cure 111 tons of iron : in 1833, with hot air, 554 tons of coal yielded 245 tons of iron,—or, reducing the quantities to equal proportions, 1 ton of' iron, made with cold air, consumed 8 tons 1 hundred- weight of coal; with hot air, only 2 tons 5 hundredweight. The nature both of the coal and the ore, however, seems to have much to do with this discovery, as in England the gain in the consump- tion of fuel was not nearly so great ; and a prejudice exists among the English masters against the quality of the hot-blast iron. The result of these various improvements presents some of the most extraordinary facts in the history of manufactures, ex- cepting, perhaps, the cotton-trade. - In 1740 the quantity of iron made in England and Wales had sunk to 17,350 tons ; in 1788, after the cylinder invention, the total produce was 61,300 tons, giving an annual average increase from each furnace of 25/ tons. By 1796, the total produce was 108,973 tons, or including Scotland, of 125,079; the iron-trade of Scotland having more than doubted in eight years. in 1806, the annual quantity had increased to 258,206 tons: in 1825 this had grown to 581,367 tons; and in 1828 to 703,184 tons, so rapidly was the trade advancing. But this was nothing to its progress in the next dbcade ; the total make in 1839 having been 1,347,790 tons. When the mind com- pares this with the scanty produce of 17,000 tons of a century earlier, the benefits which a great genius by his own inventions and the stimulus he imparts to others can bestow upon a country are made tangible. But it is not the iron-trade only that is in- debted to WATT ; the extension of the cotton-trade is almost equally attributable to him, by the powerful effect he gave to the discoveries of ARKIVEIGHT and HARGREAVES.

In comparing the cost of products in different countries, a very exact comparison cannot be reached, owing to their different cir- cumstances. An idea, however, can be formed of the respective costs of iron made from coal or charcoal, by the fact that when iron in France sold at 26/. 10s. per ton, in England the price was only 101. All our improvements, however, have ended in greater quan- tities and greater cheapness ; the higher quality is gone. For the manufacture of steel we are compelled to import Swedish iron made from charcoal; and for a particular iron, some English fur- naces use wood as well as coals. Nay, the rude smelter of Hin.doa- tan, to whose steel Mr. WILKINSON attributes the quality of the Damascus blade, furnished the metal of a weapon which modern art has not yet equalled, even as an experiment. And the secret of the Indian iron-maker, at all events, seems to have been, to smelt the best ore with the combustible naturally adapted to it, and. not to aim at using up alll the metal, but to be satisfied• with the kindest yield. So it is—quantity and quality cannot be both at- tained; and, whether iu the lowest mechanical process or the highest intellectual operation, those who determine to extract every thing from a subject will obtain a largo quantity of cheap and average matter, but high excellence will evade their grasp.