1 10 2 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/4692dedf896cb0210862294e3e56a083.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=t%7E9v54Ey8aVI1-XaQ0sk-EGZFR%7Eok4bCChHkXOVh3BfnziGS7oWcYV3kJBIJsYZ9UdqNtEKVFIiDCMIW7WMNoxMZv9s%7EYaYY7EBn-Mt6Tmk6IDgNAYEmktujGA23R5mRmfjlP2%7EBxO2mkqazNfxS4T1IbKEC5y-GY8CdVwC1gIm87X0O7dUf4PltPVz3e4zpIYJgqMD2pcrhO7GvR6XcY4yJdrz8hk-z74aRh4IKtrNWe0oFrimG0OC3vYGNyJIIu1b1Ks1FcTwMZHdAKuPyCDJ6aPqER0KcLDm0%7EPYD7QxzU7QmAcm7v8LpyvjOwFVNcVzRgPZv59nQG8OWuMvJOw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 95719a07d2702718c80b54a109149463 PDF Text Text ON THE PAST AND PEESENT OF IRON SMELTING. BY ST. JOHN VINCENT DAY, C.E., F.R.S.E., FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH SOCIETY OF ARTS, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF ENGINEERS IN SCOTLAND, MEMBER OF THE IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE, HON. LIBRARIAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. From the “Proceedings'” of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, Communicated April 23, 1873. EDINBURGH: EDMONSTON AND 1873. DOUGLAS. ��ON THE PAST AND PRESENT OF IRON SMELTING. Part I. (a.) Preliminary Remarks. As to the importance of the position which pig iron occupies in the list of our manufactures, it were idle to urge anything in expla­ nation to a society located in Glasgow. When we consider that in 1871 no less than 16,859,063 tons of iron ores were smelted in Great Britain alone, from which was produced 6,627,179 tons of pig iron, representing a money value at the works of £16,667,947, * and which for the corresponding period we have just passed through, must by reason of an unprecedented demand for the material itself, and at unprecedented prices, be greatly increased; it will, I venture to hope, be readily admitted that our time may be profitably spent in considering the steps by which a manufacture, in former years carried on very much in the dark, has at length been reduced by the conjoint labour of many to almost a scientific exactitude. To say that iron smelting has yet been completely reduced to a science would be nothing other than pretence; nevertheless, that with a given furnace, ore, fuel, flux, and blast, we can estimate within tolerably narrow limits the quality and quantity of the product. Yet there are numerous points in the true understanding of what takes place in the blast furnace which are still enshrined in the region of uncertainty. Within the last forty years, it may be said that iron smelting has been becoming by slow degrees to be scientifically understood, since Mushet and Clark in our own country, as well as several French and German physicists, have devoted their energies to the solution of various inquiries wherewith the subject is entangled; but since 1846, when the first furnace was built at the Walker Works, by Mineral Statistics, 1871. �4 Preliminary Remarks. Mr. I. Lowthian Bell, for smelting the Cleveland iron-stone, and * several more iron-making districts, with furnaces of colossal dimen­ sions, have sprung up, the most important investigations, so far at least as our own country is concerned, have been canned out, the general results of which have led to improvements in practice, whereby the fuel required for smelting has been reduced by about 30 per cent.—this being directly due to operating with a larger bulk a,nd higher column of materials at a time; utilizing the waste gases for heating the blast and generating steam for the blowing engines; and to a greatly elevated blast temperature. No argument can be necessary to shew why it is important, in dealing with the subject of this investigation, to attack it at the very foundation; for that must be self-evident to any one whom it may concern to understand it, and as certain special reasons which, I trust, will clearly appear in the sequel, seem to render it desirable to consider briefly some information which comes to us from remote past ages, it may not, I hope, be considered tedious nor out of place if, at the commencement of this record, I dwell somewhat briefly on a few features in the history of the subject. Any attempt at elucidating the course through which the modern gigantic operations of iron-smelting have been reached involves at once the history of the manufacture of cast iron—and it is not too much to say that recent investigations into that subject, if they prove anything at all, prove, amongst other things, that the true history of cast-iron still remains an unwritten chapter. How­ ever interesting, as well as useful it might prove, to probe the ultimate depths of that history, yet it is not proposed as a feature of this paper to attempt what must at present be so unfathom­ able a task. Before entering into the deeper points to which the subject before us will probably be found to reach, I may remark that, whereas by some researches,! made a few years since, I was enabled toprove, from a variety of consentaneous evidence, that malleable iron was well known and used at least as far back as 4,000 years ago, and almost certainly much earlier still, I was thereby, and of necessity, led to doubt whether the usually accepted assertion as to cast iron having been invented within the last three or four hundred years only, rested on an entirely stable and reliable basis. The sequel will shew the results of the doubt so raised in my own mind. * Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting, Preface. + Vide Proc. Phil. Soc., Glasgow, Vol. vii., p. 476. �The Beginning of Iron Smelting. 5 (&.) The Origin of the Blast Furnace. Not unlike many other discoveries made at periods remote from the present age, and which have had in varied degrees incalculable influence upon the condition and destinies of mankind, does it at a first view appear out of keeping with an almost constant order, that the place and date, no less than the names, of the first makers of cast iron are not absolutely known. When, however, we reflect upon that which we really do know, as being reliably ascertained concerning early methods of making iron and steel, weigh carefully the precise nature of the conditions involved under those methods, and seek out the results inevitably accruing through them, as explained by the guiding light of modern chemistry, it would appear that the blast furnace as a distinct apparatus could scarcely at any time have consisted in a definite or sudden departure from an existing order of things; by saying which, I mean to explain, that in all probability, there never was in the development of iron smelting an immediate complete change made from the method of reducing ore at once to malleable metal (the direct method) to that of first making pig or sow metal (or the indirect method of the blast furnace as we practise it to-day); rather, on the contrary, the evidence which has been collected goes to shew that the blast furnace was ultimately reached as a definite and distinct apparatus for reducing iron ore quickly, and producing an easily fusible compound of iron, partly by its accidental production occasionally when reducing easily fusible ores in the air or blast bloomeries, or other formerly used types of low furnaces, in which the product sought to be obtained was malleable iron or steel This probability, indeed, appears to rest on conclusive grounds; and the tendency of the evidence is further to shew that the blast furnace, as an apparatus having as a distinct object the production of cast iron, was at last arrived at through very gradual accessions to the height of the ancient types of low furnaces. Where we are to look for the earliest traces of the practice of reducing iron to the form of a carburet or as cast iron, I cannot suppose that at the present time any one would venture to assert; * but as the employment of steel in fashioning the stones used in the monuments of Proto-Egypt, India, Greece, and elsewhere, has been shewn, that almost seems to imply the acquaintance of those ancient nations with the fusion of iron, and leads us to expect that to the East and not the West must we look for the beginnings of the art. In so far as our own country has yet given testimony, the oldest �6 The Oldest British Blast Furnaces. blast furnaces yet recorded are those of which the ruins formerly existed, and may, for aught I know, still exist, in the Forest of Dean, and the age of which Mr. Mushet has computed as belonging to the commencement of the seventeenth century. * * In his “Papers on Iron and Steel,” Mr. Mushet supplies us with the follow­ ing instructive remarksI have examined the sites of many old charcoal blast furnaces, with a view of determining their age, by the quantity of slags with which they were surrounded. Here, however, another difficulty has been, in every case but one, interposed. The manufacture of black bottles has, I think, been traced as far back as the fifteenth century. At what time the manu­ facture was introduced into this country, I am uncertain; but it is not improbable that in early times, as in the last century, the slags or cinders of the charcoal blast furnace have entered into the composition of black bottles, and created a consumption of that sort of waste which otherwise would have remained in the vicinity of the furnaces. The superior quality of the Bristol black bottles has been attributed to the immemorial use of a portion of the slags of the charcoal furnaces from the neighbourhood of Dean Forest. The consequence of this long-standing practice has been to carry from the furnaces not only the old slags, but those currently made. In one instance only have I found from this source data for calculation. Before the civil commotions of the seventeenth century, the Kings of England were possessed of two blast furnaces in the Forest of Dean, when the cord-wood of the Forest and the king’s share of the mines were used for the purpose of iron-making. Soon after the commencement of the struggle between Charles the First and his Parlia­ ment, these furnaces ceased working, and at no period since have they been in blast. About fourteen years ago, I first saw the ruins of one of these furnaces situated below York Lodge, and surrounded by a large heap of the slag or scoria that is produced in making pig iron. As the situation of this furnace was remote from roads, and must at one time have been deemed nearly inaccessible, it had all the appearance, at the time of my survey, of having remained in the same state for nearly two centuries. There existed no trace of any sort of machinery, which rendered it highly probable that no part of the slags had been ground (the usual practice) and carried off, but that the entire produce of the furnace in slags remained undisturbed. “The quantity I computed at from 8,000 to 10,000 tons; a quantity which, however great it may appear for the minor operations of an early period, would yet in our times be produced from a coke furnace in less than two years. If it is assumed that the furnace made annually 200 tons of pig iron; and further, assuming the result which has been obtained with ores richer than the Boman cinders, and ores used at that time in Dean Forest, that the quantity of slag run from the furnace was equal to one-half of the quantity of iron made (in modem times the quantity of cinder from the coke furnace is double the weight of the iron), we shall have 100 tons annually for a period of from 80 to 100 years. If the abandonment of this furnace took place about the year 1640, the nommenoe. ment of its smeltings must be assigned to a period between the years 1540 and 1560. Mushet, from this computation, assigns the mean period or 1550 as the most probable period for the commencement of smelting operations with this furnace. In a note, however, at the end of the paper from which the previous �The Oldest British Blast Furnaces. 7 It is desirable, ere proceeding too far in the paths of research which for the present occupy our attention, in order to avoid any extract is taken, he says, “the calculation of age, which proceeded on the assumption of a certain weight of cinder being obtained in the production of a given weight of iron, and which with so rich ore may be correct; yet, on further consideration of the subject, and taking into account the calcareous nature of the iron ores of Dean Forest requiring a considerable portion of argillaceous schist to neutralize the lime, it is more than probable that the furnace would necessarily, from this circumstance, and from the inferior pro­ duce of the ores, produce fully as much cinder as pig iron, and that in place of only being one-half the weight, it would probably be of equal weight with the iron. Taking the calculation in this way, we should not reach an older period than the commencement of the 17th century for the introduction of the blast furnace into Dean Forest.’ . . . The local history of Tintern Abbey assigns a later period (the early years of James the First) for the erection of that furnace. The opportunity afforded of examining both the slags and the iron produced in that early period abundantly proves that the furnace in Dean Forest above mentioned was one of the earliest efforts in the art of making pig iron. Small masses or shots of iron are found enveloped in the slags, specimens of iron in a malleable state, though rarely, more frequently rough nodules of large grained steel, resembling blistered steel, and others of a more dense fracture, but of a similar quality. The more fusible reguli of white, mottled and grey iron are found' in great abundance, all of them possessing forms and appearances of fusion more or less perfect, according to the quantities of carbon with which they are united; and it is but justice to the memory of the fathers of this art to add, that the specimens of grey cast iron are more abundant than those of the other sorts. “This furnace seems to have been erected upon the spoils of former ages of iron-making; and probably the situation was in the first instance determined by the numerous bloomeries that existed in the neighbourhood—the scoria of which has in after ages been worked to so much advantage in the blast furnace; and though, as a blast furnace, possessed of no great antiquity, yet, as the site of the ancient bloomery, entitled to be considered as the remains of an extensive manufactory of iron in ages more remote. “ Upon the whole, several circumstances incline me to the opinion, that the blast furnace must have been known in some of the then iron-making districts of England before it was introduced into Dean Forest. The oldest casting I have met with in Dean Forest is dated 1620. “ The great infusibility and difficulty attending the management of calcareous ores, such as those belonging to Dean Forest, is another circumstance that inclines me to think that the art of making pig iron did not originate in that quarter, and probably did not succeed entirely till the practice of increasing their fusibility by the addition of the bloomery cinder became known and established. These conjectures are confirmed by reference to a paper in my possession, professing to be an account of all the blast furnaces in England previous to the manufacture of pig iron from pit-coal—probably about the year 1720 or 1730; in which, however, the blast furnace of Tintern Abbey is omitted, and possibly others. At that period there were in all England 59 furnaces, �8 High Furnace not Essential to Produce Cast Iron. necessity for raising the question hereafter, once and for all to point out, that, it is not a consequence, because we are unable to assign an earlier positive date for the blast furnace than that above given, that cast iron was unknown before that period; indeed, from what we do glean from the historical records, they assure us that it was in considerable use at a much more remote age. And whereas this knowledge might lead some persons to conclude that as the blast furnace constitutes the first step taken in the manufacture of cast iron to-day, it was necessarily the first step taken in ages long past; still, a candid consideration of certain features of history, coupled with a consideration of what chemistry now teaches, are more than sufficient to convince us that the high or blast furnace is not indispensable to the production of that carburet, however much it is essential, under our. current knowledge at the present period, in order to comply with modern demands for the metal at paying prices. To but briefly, indeed, indicate how much more ancient cast iron may really be than, so far as I have ascertained, has been noticed during the last quarter of a century,—a period unprecedented in the issue from the press of a metallurgical literature of extreme value,—I may mention a process of making steel- used by the making annually 17,350 tons, or little more than 5 tons of pig iron a week for each furnace. “ Should it appear that there have been since the invention of blast furnaces iron-making districts in England in which a greater number of furnaces have been established than in Dean Forest, then to that quarter I should be inclined to look for information on the history, rise, and progress of the blast furnace. Brecon, Glamorgan,. Carmarthen, Cheshire, . Denbigh, Derby, . . . . . . 2 2 1 3 2 4 Gloucester, Hereford, . Hampshire, Kent, . Monmouth, Nottingham, . . . . . . 6 3 1 4 2 1 Salop, . Stafford, Worcester, . Sussex, Warwick, . York, . . 6 . 2 . 2 . 10 . 2 . 6 “It would appear from this account, that the counties of Sussex and Kent alone contained, in the early part of the eighteenth century, 14 blast furnaces; and as it is probable that the woodlands in the vicinity of the metropolis would sooner disappear than in the more distant counties, it is equally probable that a century before the number of blast furnaces might have been considerably greater in that district. The only other iron-making district that will at the time now spoken of bear a comparison with Sussex and Kent, is that of Dean Forest, in which I include the Furnace of Tintern Abbey, in Monmouthshire, not included in the list; Gloucestershire 6, and Herefordshire 3,—making in all 10 blast furnaces.” �Molten Iron known to the Greeks. 9 Greeks, and recorded in the writings of no less an authority than Aristotle, and to which I have, on a previous occasion, directed * attention. Where it is stated:— “ Wrought iron itself may be cast so as to be made liquid, and to harden again." Somewhat obscure as the Aristotleian account of Greek-steel manufacture unquestionably is, nevertheless, when the terms of the fragment are analyzed, and it is placed in juxta-position with other accounts of steel-making appertaining to times long subsequent, it is even sufficient to assure us that such iron, although it may not have been specially employed in the art of making castings, but produced for the purpose of converting bars of wrought iron into steel, by a process of cementation in a bath of metal surcharged with carbon, was known to and practised by the Greeks at least as early as 400 years before our era. Indeed, we may venture further still—for recent discoveries in India, and the impossibility of explaining Egyptian sculpture in granite, porphyry, diorite, &c., without the use of steel tools, hold out much to hope for towards the increasing of our acquaintance with the metallurgy of the ancient eastern world, by further special researches into the storehouses of information yet waiting there to be opened up. For, after the discovery of the Kutub Minar Laht,t near Delhi, as well as the -huge iron beams in the Temple of - Kanaruc,J and the coming to light of numerous other testimonies, proving beyond doubt the extremely high acquaintance with manu­ facturing art, which some persons at least possessed in the East in ages long past, the cautious observer is compelled to pause ere risk­ ing to pronounce, whether, as it even yet is generally asserted, Western civilization has in all respects exceeded all previous civil­ ization, or questioning, whether we have attained in some respects the position in certain of the manufactures most important to man at one time reached in the old world; for, whilst the rate of production has increased as a necessary sequence of the growth of population, and novel as well as wider fields of application, yet it is notorious that in many instances high quality is not main­ tained. There is much to be met with in the remains of the Proto-Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Chinese nations to assure us that we have not—while to Central Asia, Asia Minor, and Persia we must look hopefully for further light in this respect. * Vide Proc. Phil. Soc., Glasgow, vol. viii., p. 244. + Trans. Asiatic Soc., Bengal, 1864. J Illust. Ancient Architecture of Hindustan, p. 28, Pl. iii., 1848. �10 Early Accounts of Molten Iron. With this much of digression from the immediate subject in hand, purposely introduced too as a forewarning signal to us that at this time we have no sufficient facts to warrant us in assigning any approximate period even for the origin of the indirect method of reducing iron ores (the prevalent system of this age), we may with advantage return to the question of producing cast iron without the blast furnace; in order to satisfy ourselves that, whilst all the very old examples of iron which we do find are malleable, and appear from more than one point of view to have been produced from ores reduced without fusion; and when inquiring still further into the most ancient practice of reduction, no country so far affords con­ clusive evidence of cast iron having been an established man nfa.ctured product—in the sense we find malleable iron to have been therein—yet the collateral evidence as to an extremely early method of making steel, in the production of which cast iron was a sine qua non, convinces us of the necessity for exercising extreme caution ere drawing a conclusion. The next early intelligible account that we have of steel-making throws equal light over cast iron making, and this is to be found in a work entitled “De la Pirotechniaf published at Venice in 1540, by Vanoccio Biringuccio; and in the somewhat later, but better known writings of Agricola—« De re Metallica ”—published about 1561. Both these authors describe a process of converting bars of malleable iron into steel by keeping the bars immersed for a con­ siderable time in molten cast iron. The process as described by the earlier author has been translated by Mr. Panizzi, of the British Museum; and I here quote an * extract from that translation, shewing how the cast iron was produced. “ Steel is nothing but iron well purified by means of art, and through much liquefaction by fire brought to a more perfect ad­ mixture and quality than it had before. By the attraction of some suitable substances in the things which are added to it, its natural aridity is mollified by somewhat of moisture, and it is made whiter and denser, so that it seems to be almost removed from its original nature; and at last, when its pores are well dilated and mollified with much fire, and when the heat is driven out of them by the extreme coldness of the water, they contract, and so the iron is converted into a hard substance, which from its hardness becomes brittle. This may be done with every kind of iron, and so steel * Metallurgy, Iron and Steel. By John Percy, M.D., F.R.S., London, 1864 Murray, p. 807, et seq. �Early Accounts of Molten Iron. 11 may be made of all kinds of iron. It is true, indeed, that it is made better from one kind than from another, and with one sort of charcoal than another, and it is also made better according to the skill of the masters. The best iron to make it good is, however, that which, being by its nature free from the corruption of any other metal, is more easy to melt, and which is to a certain extent harder than other kinds. With this iron is put some pounded marble or other fusible stones, in order to melt them together. By these it is purged, and they have, as it were, the power of taking away its ferruginosity, of constricting its porosity, and of making it dense and free from cleavage. Now, to conclude, when the masters wish to do this work, they take of that iron passed through the furnace or otherwise as much as they wish to convert into steel, and they break it into little bits; then they prepare before the aperture of the forge a circular receptacle, about a foot or more in diameter, made of one-third clay and two-thirds small coal (carbonigia), well beaten together with a hammer, well mixed, and moistened with so much water as will make them keep together when squeezed in the hand; and when this receptacle is thus made in the same way as they make a hearth (ceneraccio), but deeper, the aperture is prepared in the midst, which should have a little of the nose turned down, so that the wind may strike in the midst of the receptacle. Then, when all the space is filled with charcoal, they, moreover, make round about it a circle of stones or soft rock to keep in the broken iron and the additional charcoal which they put upon it, and so they fill it up and make a heap of charcoal over it. Then, when they see that the whole is on fire, and well kindled, especially the receptacle, the masters begin to set the bellows to work, and to put on some of that crushed iron mingled with saliup marble and with pounded slag, or with other fusible and not earthy stones; and so melting this composition by little and little, they fill up the receptacle so far as they think fit; and having first formed with the hammer three or four lumps of the same iron, each weighing 30 or 40 lbs., they put them hot into that bath of melted iron, which bath is called by the masters of this art the art of iron; and they keep them thus in the midst of this melted matter with a great fire about four or six hours, often turning them about with a rod as cooks do victuals, and so they keep them there, turning them again and again, in order that all that solid iron may receive through its porosity those subtle substances which are found to be within that melted iron, by virtue of which the gross substances which are in the lumps are consumed and dilated, and the lumps �12 Early Accounts of Molten Iron. become softened, and like a paste. When they are seen thus by the experienced masters, they judge that that subtle virtue of which we have spoken has thoroughly penetrated; and taking out one of the lumps which appears best from their experience in testing, and bringing it under the hammer, they beat it out, and then throwing it suddenly as hot as they can into the water, they temper it, and being tempered, they break it, and look to see if the whole of it has in every particle so changed its nature as to have no small layer of iron within it; and finding that it has arrived at that point of perfection which they desire, they take out the lumps with a large pair of pincers, or by the ends left on them, and cut them into small pieces of seven or eight each, and they return them to the same bath to get hot again, adding to it some pounded marble and iron for melting to refresh the bath and increase it, and also to restore to it what the fire may have consumed, and also that that which [is to become steel may, by being immersed in that bath, be the better refined; and so at last, when these are well heated, they go and take them out piece by piece with a pair of pincers, and they carry them to the hammer to be beaten out, and they make rods of them as you see. And when this is done, being very hot, and almost of a white colour from the heat, they cast them all at once into a stream of water as cold as possibly can be had, of which a reservoir has been made, in order that the rods may be suddenly cooled, and by this means get the hardness which the common people call temper, and thus it is changed into a material which hardly resembles that which it was before it was tempered. For' then it was only like a lump of lead or wax, and by tempering it, it is made.so very hard as almost to surpass all other hard things; and it is also made very white, much more so than is the nature of its iron, even almost like silver, and that which has its grain white, and most minute and fixed, is of the best sort. Among those kinds which I know of, that of Flanders, and in Italy that of Valcamonica, in the territory of Brescia, are very much praised; and out of Christendom, that of Damascus, that of Caramenia and Lazzimino (?), as well as that of the Agiambi (?).” The same process is described by Agricola; but it is worthy of remark, as stated on the authority of the elder Mushet, that “ no­ where does he describe a process by which cast iron was obtained and applied to foundry purposes.” * In India, near Trincomalee, steel (wootz) is still made in the same manner, its manufacture being confined to a few families in that * Papers on Iron and Steel, London, 1840, p. 380. �Early English Gast Iron. 13 neighbourhood, and altogether unknown to the common steelmakers of Salem, a distance of only 70 miles. The cast iron used in this case is obtained from “ a small blast furnace, about 8 feet high, and tapering from 18 inches diameter at the bottom to 9 inches at the top. The iron flows out of a grey quality, but without perfect separation, as the cinders produced contain a good deal of iron. With regard, then, to the production of cast iron in the most ancient low furnaces, that was practicable with ores not difficult to fuse when in presence of large quantities of flux and a great excess of charcoal—the former of which would preserve the metal from oxidation, whilst it was allowed to remain a sufficient time in con­ tact, to take up a maximum quantity of carbon from the latter; but as the temperature in such furnaces was low, the slag of necessity contained a large proportion of the iron, and, except with the most easily fusible ores, the process was very slow; indeed, with the more difficult fusible ores, almost impossible. With this certainty before us, however, of the possibility of producing cast iron even in the oldest known types of furnaces, coupled also with the well-ascertained fact of the use of iron and steel by Greeks, Indians, ancient Egyptians, and Assyrians, f it is impossible to say how far back we may carry the date of the discovery of cast iron. But it is not, as I have already pointed out, to be inferred that the blast furnace has any claim at all to antiquity; on the contrary, I have collected together the foregoing evidence with the one object, amongst others, of avoiding any misapprehension on that point. Percy, J remarking on a quotation from Lower’s Contributions to Literature, &c., says,— “ The date of the discovery of cast iron has not, so far as I am aware, been precisely ascertained, though it is a point of great archaeological interest. Lower has published the following remark­ able statement, which would lead to the conclusion that cast iron was made and applied in England 500 years ago. A curious specimen of the iron manufacture of the fourteenth century, and, as far as my own observation extends, the oldest existing article produced by our foundries, occurs in Burwash church (Sussex). It is a cast iron slab, with an ornamental cross, and an inscription in relief. In the opinion of several eminent antiquaries, it may be * Papers on Iron and Steel, London, 1840, p. 673. t Proceedings Phil. Soc., Glasgow, vol. vi., 1871; also Trans. Devon. Assocn., 1868. + Percy’s Metal; Iron and Steel, p. 878. �14 Early Dutch Cast Iron. regarded as unique for the style and period. The inscription is much injured by long exposure to the attrition of human feet. The letters are Longobardic, and the legend appears, on a careful examination, to be,— ‘ Obate P. Annema Jhone Coline, (or Colins). ‘ Pray for the soul of Joan Collins.’ Of the identity of the individual thus commemorated I have been unable to glean any particulars. In all probability she was a member of the ancient Sussex family of Collins, subsequently seated at Locknersh, in the adjacent parish of Brightling, where, in com­ pany with many of the neighbouring gentry, they carried on the manufacture of iron at a place still known as Locknersh Furnace.” M. Verlit says that cast iron was known in Holland in the thirteenth century, and that stoves were made from it at Elass, in 1400, a.d. ; and, according to Lower, the first cannon of cast iron * were manufactured at Buxteed, in Sussex, by Ralphe Hogge, in 1543. It is recorded, however, by others that the first iron guns cast in England were made in London, in 1547, by Owen; and in 1595 the art of iron casting was so well understood that John Johnson and his son Thomas had by that time “ made forty-two cast pieces of great ordnance of iron for the Earl of Cumberland, weighing 6,000 pounds, or three tons a-piece.” Agricola, too, who died in 1494 a.d., seems to have been acquainted with cast iron; for he Writes,—“ Iron melted from ironstone is easily fusible, and can be tapped off; ” so that although he does not appear to say anything as to the method by which such cast iron was produced, it nevertheless is evident, when we consider the large extent to which cast iron was probably then employed for guns, and doubtless other purposes, that the blast furnace was at that time in existence, though on a very small scale, grown out of the Catalan, and through the Blaseofen, or Osmund, f to the German Stiickofen, in which cast or malleable iron * Mushet’s Papers on Iron and Steel, p. 391. + Percy says {Iron and Steel, pi 320),—“ Between the Luppenfeuer, or Catalan furnace, and the Stiickofen, German metallurgists place a furnace of inter­ mediate height, which they designate Blaseofen and Bauernofen. This furnace was formerly employed in Norway, Sweden, and other parts of Europe; and although a century may have elapsed since it became extinct in the first two countries mentioned, yet to this day it continues in operation in Finland.” “ Osmund” is the Swedish word for the bloom produced in this particular kind of furnace, of which the annexed woodcuts (Figs. 1 and 2) are a plan and vertical section, respectively, shewing the outside as consisting of a timber casing, �The Osmund Furnace. 15 was produced as required, by varying the proportions of the materials constituting the charge. “ Osmund” Furnace. Fig. 1.—Plan. As the Stiickofen would appear to be the last stage of transition from the low to the high furnace, into which it ultimately became ‘ ‘ Osmund ” Furnace. Fig. 2.—Section. merged altogether, when the discovery was made that the ore was more completely reduced, and the variety of purposes to which and the inner part a lining of refractory stone, the space between them being filled with earth. The Osmund furnace is used for reducing the hydrated sesquinoxide ores (lake or bog iron ores) found in the lakes and rivers of some parts of Northern Europe, and in Finland is stated at the present day to be working side by side with the modern blast furnace. �16 The “ Stuck ” or “ Wulf ” Oven. the pig or sow metal could be applied increased the demand for cast iron to such an extent as to induce the indirect ^method of reduction to be carried out on a large scale, it will be unnecessaryin this paper, which deals with cast iron and the blast furnace as its principal subjects, to refer further to the pre-existing low furnaces. Regarding the Stiickofen, then, or high bloomery furnace, it has been correctly described by writers on metallurgy as a Catalan or low furnace, extended upwards in the form of either a circular or quadrangular shaft. In Germany this furnace is also known as Wulfsofen, the reduced metallic mass resulting from the opera­ tions being designated “ Stuck ” or “ Wulfhence the Stiick or Wulf oven—Salamander furnace—for the following particulars of * which I am indebted to Professor Osborne’s treatise,f and who, in a paragraph preceding the extract, significantly terms this the “ transition furnace,” which might be used for the production of cast iron or malleable iron at will, by varying the constituents of the charge and the intensity of the blast. Osborne says,— “ This kind of furnace is at present very little in use. A few are still in operation in Hungary and The “Stiickofen. ’ Spain. At one time they were very common in Europe. The iron produced in the Stuck oven has always been of a superior kind favourable for the manu­ facture of steel; but the manipu­ lation which this oven requires is so expensive that it has been superseded. Fig. 3 shews a cross section of a Stuck oven; its inside has the form of a double crucible. This furnace is generally from 10 to 16 feet high, 24 inches wide at bottom and top, and measures Fig. 3.—Section. at its widest part about 5 feet. • “ Salamander is the term now given to the mass of half-pure iron, which results when the molten mass of a furnace chills before it can be regularly tapped off into pigs. It is difficult to melt, and is sometimes largely malleable iron. The present may have originated from the earlier use of the word as applied to this furnace. + The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel, Theoretical and Practical, in all its branches, �The “Stuck ” or “ Wulf" Oven. 17 There are generally two tuyeres [tw^-er, allied to tuyaw, a pipe], * a a, and at least two bellows and nozzles, both on the same side. The breast, &, is open, but during the smelting operation it is shut by bricks; this opening is generally 2 feet square. The furnace must be heated before the breast is closed; after which charcoal and ore are thrown in. The blast is then turned into the furnace. As soon as the ore passes the tuyere, iron is deposited at the bottom of the hearth; when the cinder rises to the tuyere, a por­ tion is suffered to escape through a hole in the dam, 6. The tuyeres are generally kept low upon the surface of the melted iron, which thus becomes whitened. As the iron rises the tuyeres are raised. In about 24 hours one ton of iron is deposited at the bottom of the furnace. This may be ascertained by the ore put in the furnace. If a quantity of ore is charged sufficient to make the necessary amount of iron for one cast, a few dead or coal charges may then be thrown in. The blast is then stopped, the breast wall removed, and the iron, which is in a solid mass, in the form of a salamander or “stuck-wulff as the Germans call it, is lifted loose from the bottom by crowbars, taken by a pair of strong tongs, which are fastened on chains suspended on a swing-crane, and then removed to an anvil, where it is flattened by a tilt hammer into 4-inch thick slabs, cut into blooms, and finally stretched into bar iron by small hammers. Meanwhile the furnace is charged anew with ore and coal, and the same process is renewed. “ By this method good iron as well as steel may be furnished. In fact, the salamander consists of a mixture of iron and steel— of the latter, skilful workmen may save a considerable amount. The blooms are a mixture of fibrous iron, steel, and cast iron. The latter flows into the bottom of the forge fire, in which the blooms are re-heated, and is then converted into bar iron by the same method adopted to convert common pig iron. If the steel is not sufficiently separated, it is worked along with the iron. This would be a very desirable process, on account of the good quality of iron which it furnishes, if the loss of ore and waste of fuel it occasions were compensated by the price of bar iron. Poor ores, coke, or anthracite coal, cannot be employed in this process. Charcoal made from hardwood, and the rich magnetic, specular, and sparry ores are almost exclusively used.” It is obvious that the conditions necessary to the production of edited by H. S. Osborne, LL.D., Professor of Mining and Metallurgy in Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania. Triibner & Co., London, 1869. * One tuyere, however, is frequently used.—S. J.V.D. �18 The, “Blauofen. cast iron—viz., a column of materials which gradually become increased in temperature during their descent, exposed to reducing gases, and latterly, prolonged contact in the reduced state to carbon­ izing matter, obtained in this furnace; and the result frequently was that, when intending to produce malleable iron at once, the lump was so much carbonized, owing to excess of carbonizing materials, that it had to be submitted to a decarbonizing process before it could be hammered. Experience in working the Stiickofen proved it to be extremely wasteful of fuel; and about 1840 it was to a great extent abandoned in Carniola, Carnithia, and Styria, although still worked in Germany and Hungary to a limited extent (Karsten). In some cases a throat was added to the furnace, of a gradually widening form: this gave facility in charging. The tuyere was placed about a foot above the hearth bottom; but as the furnace continued in operation this distance became increased, by reason of the disintegration or wear of the hearth (silicious conglomerate), which we learn influenced the yield and quality of the iron as well as the quantity of charcoal consumed. Besides being made of the form shewn at fig. 3, the Stiickofen sometimes increased with a regular taper throughout' the entire height of the shaft, being broadest at the bottom, and both rectangular as well as circular in horizontal section. The tuyeres were sometimes made of clay, at others of copper, situated at different parts of the furnace; and when in the breast, the bellows had to be removed before the lump of reduced iron could be withdrawn. As the demand for cast iron increased, the Stiickofen was gradually replaced by the Blauofen, in which * cast iron was produced alone; but it still retained its place for the direct production of malleable iron—and indeed malleable iron was also produced in the Blauofen, which at first, it would appear, was simply a tall Stiickofen, eventually becoming increased in height to from 20 to 25 feet, in which case it was capable of producing cast iron only. In working these furnaces for the production of malleable iron, the slag was allowed a constant escape, so that the lump of metal in the hearth might be exposed to the action of the blast, which prevented it from becom­ ing carbonized to excess; at other times the slag was allowed to . accumulate, thus protecting the metal from the decarbonizing action of the blast, after it had become carbonized in passing through the lower part of the furnace, and therefore producing •By some authors termed “blue furnace.” Fr. “ Fournean blue,” “blue oven. �The “Blauofen. 19 carbonized or cast iron. The Blauofen, as in common use on the continent, is represented in vertical section at fig. 4, wherein a is the breast, b the tuyere. This furnace may be kept in blast for three to six months, or even longer, when the hearth widens and interferes with successful operations. In working with this furnace, the practice is to heat it by a fire, The “ Blauofen.” after which the breast previously open is closed; it is then filled to the top with coal and iron ore, which are renewed as the charge sinks. The tuyeres are about 14 inches above the hearth, which slopes towards the breast. This furnace requires rich ores and a plentiful supply of charcoal, and produces good pig iron, as well as a metal specially suitable for steel, sometimes called “ steel metal,”* and said to be that from Fig. 4. Section. which German steel (shear steel) is made. The management of the Blauofen is simple—generally and where sparry carbonates are plentiful—and the furnace is cheaply constructed. From the preceding remarks we have become familiar with the earliest known form of the blast furnace, which originating in the Stuckofen, or high bloomery, of some’95 cubic feet capacity, passed into the Blauofen of some 500 to 600 cubic feet; and without following its progressive development minutely through the fur­ naces in the Hartz, Silesia, Prussia, Sweden, Great Britain, and America—all of which has been already done, and so excellently in the Treatises of Percy, Osborne, and others—we may at once come down to our own age, and now find furnaces in the Cleveland district of the enormous capacity of 20,000 to 30,000 cubic feet, or about 280 times that of an early Blauofen. * Osborne’s Metallurgy, p. 294. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. 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Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource On the past and present of iron smelting. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Day, John Vincent Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Edinburgh Collation: 19 p. ill. (figs.) ; 24 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From the 'proceedings' of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, communicated April 23, 1873. Inscription on front cover: From the Author. Includes bibliographical references. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Edmonston and Douglas Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1873 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5273 Subject The topic of the resource Engineering Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (On the past and present of iron smelting.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Engineering Iron https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/dd5128f26d01a08c418a43d42efdbbd6.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=Hkx%7EKPaSXhymutoANaM4RwTpWGVWPBk6Rr-VYZNk7JKepikrkZ-B35B04noV55jDgeZPyXY2cowCj1HHmvlqpOqZDK-T8dOxD56uARe6lyS%7EPR9uGYDEhofxTu6m1ALyd5v3CFqoopZ-S5FsTuyLuliSKY3wUE8nzhaFGhltFCLxhgwy5jDQB78Eul7vt11LXBfs9Df2tDC531iDwGEGkr37OLrjZIpfKo-ZsvaHJmhgqz8sU6Fgzhu0BYcqNlBoghj%7ErVCKy1%7ENal10OP7tsSzoGhW9DIJsg87msfyMCsU7WJKOaIrrGfPjzoU9%7EZIQ-SMS7MtytqU6k7wItkEXNg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM daba3a788f1a4237c54f99cdd2eda3a2 PDF Text Text ON SOME EVIDENCES AS TO THE VERY EARLY USE OF IRON, AND ON CERTAIN OLD BITS OF IRON IN PARTICULAR. BY ST. JOHN VINCENT DAY, C.E., F.R.S.E., t ' FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH SOCIETY OF ARTS, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF ENGINEERS IN SCOTLAND, HON. LIBRARIAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. Read before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, April 12, 1871. EDINBURGH: EDMONSTON AND 1871. DOUGLAS. ��ON SOME EVIDENCES AS TO THE VERY EABLY USE OF IBON, ETC. The object of this paper is to show that a considerably remoter archaeology can be claimed for the employment by man of iron than has hitherto been generally accepted. That iron was amongst the very earliest, if not in fact the earliest, of the metals with which man was acquainted, we have abundant literary evidence. Until lately, however, that has stood alone, unconfirmed by any cotem­ porary testimony. Now, however, we are in a position to shew, from two kinds of cotemporary proof, that iron was well known to man, in some parts of this earth at least, during the very remotest ages which it is possible with any degree of certainty to reach. The two kinds of evidence to which I allude are— 1st. That of the hieroglyphs. 2nd. Certain material specimens. These two evidences appear now not only to confirm each other, but what is more important still, establish the solid truth of that literary testimony which in these latter days has come to be doubted; and although not yet complete, a further confirmation of the extremely ancient uses of iron may confidently be expected ere long as one result, of researches into traditions and the com­ parison of myths,—the inquirers therein engaged having already so well succeeded in evoking little grains of truth out of whole mountains of myth. When examining the works of those authors who have writtenon the history of iron, I have frequently noticed the scantiness of their attempts to indicate what is until now absolutely ascertained, as dis­ tinct from that which is handed down as tradition concerning the use of that metal in pre-historic ages; and I am disposed to believe such defect merely as a result of the trust which those authors appear to have placed in the teachings of a certain modern school, which, going dead against all literary testimony, declares for, and only for, the ex­ tremely high antiquity of copper and its alloys. When, too, certain researchers into the “Antiquity of Man”—supposing him to have been evolved by successive spontaneous efforts from an extremely low type of organic existence—claim that the appearance of iron �4 Iron Used by Egyptians before Persian Invasion. on the scene marks so decided a step on the road to a higher civilization, it is strange, indeed, that their inquiries into the remotest limit of time, when man became an iron-using animal, bear no stamp upon them indicative of having been directed into the earliest ages of which, and in countries where, we have positive cotemporary testimony—actual cotemporary fact to rest upon— rather than that a continued trust should be vouchsafed to the very uncertain records and theories as concerning other countries and still later ages, but founded only on mere probabilities. Writers on what has hitherto been defined as the early history of iron we have had in abundance, since the time when Layard de­ posited in our British Museum the metallurgical trophies of his excavations in that Interamnian plain where once stood the As­ syrian Nineveh and Babylon; or since Rhind, after exploring the tomb of Sebau, wherein he is reported to have discovered, “on the massive doors of the inner repositories, hasps and nails, still as lustrous and as pliant as on the day they left the forge,”* contended that iron was extensively used in Greece between the epoch of the Homeric poems (from 900 B.c. to 1000 B.c.) and the full historic period of Greece, and that within about the same interval, if not pro­ bably with an earlier commencement, the same metal was more or less completely displacing bronze in Egypt. It is inferred by Rhind—at least so I gather from Dr Percy’s remarks—that Sebau was born about b.c. 68, and died B.c. 9 ; but we shall hereafter see that iron was known to and used by the Egyptians many centuries earlier, also that, before the time of the Persian invasion under Cambyses, there was enough iron in the country, as Belzoni has pointed out, to make instruments of agriculture with. Plate I. is a full-sized picture of a sickle + found by Belzoni under * Metallurgy: Iron and Steel. By John Percy, F.R.S. London. 1864. i* Extract from Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia, etc., etc. By G. Belzoni, a.d. 1821. Published by Murray. “ Two other articles were found in this excavation, of which one is a tomb­ stone, and the other an iron sickle” (p. 162)................... ‘ ‘ But the iron sickle, to which I would call the attention, was found under the feet of one of the sphinxes on its removal. I was present; one of the men took it up and gave it to me. It was broken into three pieces, and so decayed that the rust had eaten even to the centre. It was rather thicker than the sickles of the present time, but exactly of the common shape and size of ours. It is now in the possession of Mr. Salt. The question is, At what time were these statues placed there ? They could not have been deposited subsequently to the age of the Ptolemies ; for it appears that since the time of Cambyses, who �Philological Conclusions in Error. 5 the feet of one of the sphinxes at Karnak,—a sufficient proof that, at about B.c. 600, the blacksmith’s art was well understood and practised in Upper Egypt; so that whilst the testimony I hope to adduce may be no refutation of Rhind’s view in regard to iron displacing bronze at the particular time he mentions—for it is quite within the limits of probability that when alloys were discovered iron may have for a time fallen into disuse—yet the evidence to be hereafter dealt with will, I venture to believe, shew that to Egypt, and not Greece, must our attention be addressed for the solution of all problems bearing on the most ancient metallurgy. By the distinguished leader in another branch of modern investi­ gation the true history of iron has had a thick veil cast over it. I allude to what Professor Max Müller, who, reasoning on a purely philological basis, has propounded; but on examining his great work, the Science of Language, it is easy to see that he has been largely influenced by M. Morlot’s conclusions, for he quotes M. Morlot extensively; and from the use of certain words in the Odyssey, concludes that the Greek language was spoken before the discovery of iron, and that iron certainly was not known previous to the breaking up of the Aryan family. But Professor Max Müller has overlooked apparently what may be gathered as to the early use of iron from another great branch of the human family—-namely, the Semitic—to which branch both modern Coptic and ancient Egyptian belong, as indeed he himself has pointed out. * The testimony of the ancient Egyptian language, as well as modern Coptic, have of late thrown a flood of light on the subject of this inquiry. Yet, before passing on from Professor Max Müller, I wish to bring to your notice—for I should fail in my duty were I to omit doing so—another still more remarkable error into which he has fallen, by trusting it would seem, too exclusively to language­ science. This error occurs in the following sentence :—“ In the Homeric poems, knives, spear-points, and armour were still made destroyed the gods of Egypt, the country has never been invaded, so as to compel the people to conceal their idols; and it is evident that these statues had been hidden in a hurry, from the irregular and confused manner in which they lie. Now, as the sickle was found under the statue above mentioned, I think it a sufficient proof that there was iron in the country long before the invasion of the Persians, since the Egyptians had enough to make instruments of agriculture with. Sickles of the same form are to be seen in many agricultural representations in the tombs,” etc., etc. (p. 163). * Lectures on the Science of Language (p. 316). London, 1866. First Series. Longmans. �6 Stone, Bronze and Iron Dogma- of copper; and we can hardly doubt that the ancients knew a process of hardening that pliant metal, most likely by repeated smelting and immersion in water.”* Now, what exactly the phrase “repeated smelting” may mean, as used in this connection, it is difficult to assert; but as smelting involves heating, I conclude that the phrase should rather be “ re­ peated heating.” But whether I am correct or not in that inference is of no consequence ; for, as a pure matter of certainty, it is well known that, unlike iron, copper is not hardened by immersion or cooling in water, but', on the contrary, it is softened thereby; indeed, it is the constant practice of coppersmiths and other craftsmen, when desiring to soften that metal or its alloys, to heat it and cool it in water, whilst it is hardened by rolling, beating, or pressing ; and one of these latter operations was doubtless not unknown to the Greek makers of knives and spear­ heads in copper. The paucity of researches bearing on the knowledge and use of iron in pre-historic ages can, as I have already hinted at, be scarcely any other than the direct outcome of that dogma propounded by the Danish and Swedish antiquaries—Nillson, Steenstrup, Forchammer, Worsaâe, and others—which teaches that men began to use tools of stone, then bronze, and lastly iron. As to the beginnings of man, in some parts of the world at least, to do his work with stones, it is no business of ours just now to enter upon, nor, indeed, does there seem occasion to do so, for the conclusions in that connection appear, so far as an incomplete testimony can go, well founded. But concerning the further question, as to whether bronze and iron came universally to be employed in the order of succession assigned to them by the progressive developists, amongst each of the sections of mankind now grouped according to the character of their language into the Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian families, we have, I believe, sufficient grounds to question. It is asserted, as I have already mentioned, that the appearance of iron on the scene is an index to certain guides of our own times, that a higher civilization prevailed than where bronze is present, as may be gathered from the following passage of Sir Charles Lyell’s writings, when quoting M. Morlot,+ he says:—“The next stage of improvement that is manifested by the substitution of * Lectures on the Science of Language (p. 230). London, 1868, Second Series. Longmans. t Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, tom. vi., p. 292. �Proto-Egyptian Evidence. 7 iron for bronze indicates another stride in the progress of the art. Iron never presents itself except in meteorites in a native state; so that to recognize its ores, and then to separate the metal from the matrix, demands no small exercise of the power of observation and invention.”* To the metallurgist, however, who is conversant with the art and science of extracting metals from the ores, and of com­ pounding them together as alloys, the picture at once presents a different view; and it is indeed some satisfaction to know that the bronze and iron order of succession does not receive the assent of our leading living metallurgist, Dr. Percy. That school, however, which claims the higher antiquity for the alloy bronze seems to infer that because no iron specimens are pointed out so old by centuries, perhaps by thousands of years, as this spear­ head, that chisel, this bowl, or that hatchet (and I am not aware that any one has yet proved that an iron specimen has been found in the whole world which could be pronounced even so old, not to mention older, than any one of the many bronze relics of which such a legion exist; indeed, when we reflect upon a certain peculiarity inherent to the metal iron, and, for our present considerations, practically absent from the alloy bronze, it does appear scarcely possible that a specimen of metallic iron should be found belonging to nearly so early an age as that to which even tolerably late bronze specimens belong; for we need only to be reminded that iron, when exposed to the action of the air or moisture, even in a very few years, becomes converted into an oxide, and so entirely, that it is often not possible to recognize whether it had previously been reduced to the metallic condition or not), iron could not have been previously used. The Proto-Egyptian remains, monuments, etc., in Lower Egypt are allowed by all men of all creeds to be the oldest extant relics of the works of the human race, (some of them not only the most stupendous, but the most perfect in mechanical excellence that we can ascertain to have at any time been erected on this earth, and but for which inherent quality they would long since have passed out of the reach of our eye-witness—as many others of a lower order of mechanical construction, and of far later date, have passed away, even so that their place can nowhere now be found), and confronting these primeval structures with the bronze and iron succession dogma, as educed more especially from Scandi­ navian philosophy—how does the dogma fit the facts before us * The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, &c., by Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., F.R.S. London, 1863. �8 Malleable Iron from the Great Pyramid. in respect of Proto-Egyptian testimony. Methinks I hear the sup­ porters of that dogma re-echo, “Exactly;” “for bronze, it has been said, was compounded of such proportions of the two metals that the resulting alloy was so hard that it would cut stone just as well as the steel chisels and jumpers of to-day; and therefore it must have been used in those extremely early erections.” This is, how­ ever, I am disposed to believe, rather a begging of the question, and specially illogical. For we may surely in all fairness ask, that since bronze is so slowly oxidizable, if it really was used in Lower Egypt, on these the very earliest works of man on the earth, should we not find some specimens of it in or about these said monuments? Yet, so far as I have been able to ascertain, not a single bronze relic has been found throughout the whole Nile valley which can with certainty be pronounced so old as either the material or hieroglyphic testimony which we now possess regarding iron. Biit, to turn again to the question of the priority of iron, how does the investigation result? Not, as we should expect, from the bronze and iron succession doctrine, but precisely the reverse of that; for not only are iron instruments depicted in the tomb pictures of the 4th dynasty at Memphis, but at Memphis itself: among the monuments there metallic iron has been found, and is now in this country of ours. Not only is metallic iron found in that very locality to-day, but remarkably so, it has been found in the very oldest building of all there—by universal accord the very oldest building in the whole earth; not in that particular building either, in such a way as to have been placed there by accident or intention, at a time subsequent to the erection, but in such a way that it could have been placed there when and only when the structure was in course of erection. Now, it may perhaps appear startling to be told that, after a lump of malleable iron was removed by blasting it out from the solid masonry of the Great Pyramid by Col. Howard Vyse, thirty-five years ago, and which has been ever since deposited in the British Museum, I have altogether failed to meet with an allusion to it by any writer on the history of metallurgy. This piece of iron to which I refer was not dug up amongst any rubbish or concreted mass of matter at the foundations of the Pyramid which have there accumulated, but near the top of the building, as the following passage and certificates, quoted from Howard Vyse’s Pyramids of Gizeh testify. “ Mr. Hill discovered a piece of iron in an inner joint, near the mouth of the southern air-channel, which is probably the oldest �Malleable Iron from the Great Pyramid. 9 piece of wrought iron known. * It has been sent to the British Museum, with the following certificates:”— “This is to certify, that the piece of iron found by me near the mouth of the air-passage in the southern side of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, on Friday, May 26th, was taken out by me from an inner joint, after having removed, by blasting, the two outer tiers of the stones of the present surface of the Pyramid ; and that no joint or opening of any sort was connected with the above-mentioned joint, by which the iron could have been placed in it after the original building of the Pyramid. I also shewed the exact spot to Mr. Perring on Saturday, June 24th. “J. R. HILL. “Cairo, June 25th, 1837.” “To the above certificate of Mr. Hill I can add, that since I saw the spot at the commencement of the blasting, there have been two tiers of stones removed, and that if the piece of iron was found in the joint pointed out to me by Mr. Hill, and which was covered by a large stone, partly remaining, it is impossible it could have been placed there since the building of the Pyramid. “J. S. PEPPING, C.E. “Cairo, June21th. 1837.” “We hereby certify that we examined the place whence the iron in question was taken by Mr. Hill, and we are of opinion that the iron must have been left in the joint during the building of the Pyramid, and that it could not have been inserted afterwards. “ED. S. ANDREWS. JAMES MASH, C.E.” “ The mouth of this air-channel had not been forced—it measured 8§ inches wide by 9| inches high—and had been effectually screened from the sands of the desert by a projecting stone above it.” Since then, the Great Pyramid is absolutely the oldest building on every testimony, both that of Herodotus, the hieroglyphs, and astronomy, as proven by the researches of Lepsius, Wilkinson, Fergusson, Herschel, and Smyth; and whereas iron is found there and bronze is not; and whereas it is doubtful whether any bronze relics found near Jeezeh are so old as the Pyramid, I think the proof is clear to the most obstinate, that for iron we must claim an antiquity far higher than that hitherto assigned to it. Yet some will doubtless object to such a conclusion, seeing that it is only a single specimen which, so far, has been found. It must not, however, be forgotten that had not this specimen been in the * Lord Prudhoe is said to have brought from Egypt an ancient iron instru­ ment ; and I thought that I had perceived the remains of an iron fastening in the chamber containing the sideboard or shelf in the great temple at Abou SimbaL In fact, stone could not have been quarried without metal, which must, therefore, have been in use in the earliest times. The smelting of metals seems to have been an antediluvian art. �10 Nile, Mud Excavations. position which the certificates I have read to you point out. that is, walled in, removed from contact with the corroding action of the atmosphere and moisture, but in an exposed position, even it could not have come down to our day; so that if, as doubtless there may have been, numerous tools of iron, or perhaps, nay, almost certainly steel, left in that locality by the Pyramid builders, it is beyond doubt that unless enclosed, as the specimen under notice was, not one of them would have lasted until now, even in that driest of climates—Egypt. Before, however, we do, from the evidence afforded by this particular specimen of iron from the Great Pyramid, commit our­ selves to certaiiily assigning it to be of cotemporary date with that monument’s erection, we have, in order to act fairly towards all parties, to ask ourselves whether it is not probable that it may have been surreptitiously dropped into the place by some wily Arab worker, just after the stones surrounding its site were blasted away—for some persons will doubtless be found sceptical on that head—when remembering the cunning with which modern Arabs are reported to drop fragments of pottery and burnt brick into Nile mud excavations, on purpose to find them afterwards, so as to entitle them to baksheesh from the exploring parties. If this Pyramid piece of iron had been found so recently as the times when the Nile mud excavations were carried on, wherein Arab sagacity was evoked to practical wrong-doing in the prospect of reward, I for one should be disposed to place little trust indeed in its testimony; but whereas it was removed from the Pyramid some twenty years before the time when Hekekyan Bey and Mr. Leonard Horner began sinking pits and boring in the Delta, and in whose day it would appear that the Arab trick was developed; and whereas the finding of metallic specimens in the Pyramid was no part of Howard Vyse’s inquiry, as the finding of pottery specimens in the Delta was of the later investigators,—it does not look in any way reasonable to suppose that the iron found its way there so surreptitiously; and as a positive argument against the validity of that suggestion, the very condition of the piece of iron itself may be noticed, as shewn by figs. 1 and 2, Plate II. —namely, * * This Plate, as well as Plate I., show the iron specimens full size, and have been copied from photographs specially prepared to illustrate this paper. My friend, W. Petrie, has been kind enough to spend much time, at my request, in the examination of this piece of iron from the Great Pyramid; and in writing me lately regarding it, he says,—“Thickness originally, probably | inch. In some parts it is now L including the scale of rust, and in other parts it thins off to nothing. The side^having the label upon it is much �Iron Reduced without Fusion. 11 the fact of its having pieces of nummulite limestone—indeed, the trace of a nummulite itself—of which very stone the Pyramid is built, still adhering to it; and this condition of the piece of iron certainly looks like valid evidence of its having been built into the Pyramid, and therefore cotemporary with the erection of that monument. Yet we still require evidence from other sources to ratify our conclusions, and which is happily forthcoming. But, before speaking of that further evidence, I wish to consider another matter. It is asserted by many persons now-a-days, who, it would appear, are but little versed in metallurgic science, that iron indicates a further acquaintance with metallurgic art than bronze indicates. This, I believe, is a conclusion not only erroneous, but one which no practical metallurgist would assent to. Looking broadly at the face of metallurgic science, it is scarcely possible to point out a simpler and more readily occurring result, than the reduction of iron ores to the metallic condition, in the manner wherein that was effected prior to the modern invention of cast iron. We must remember that there is not a tissue of evidence that cast iron was known to the ancients, although certain writers, and amongst them a well known member of this Society, Mr. James Napier, has written, that the reduction of iron ore is performed by mixing the oxide of the metal “with coal or other carbonaceous matters, and subjecting them to a heat of sufficient intensity to fuse them! * Now, it is well ascertained, as the result of a very long experience, that iron may be reduced from the oxides to the metallic state without fusion; indeed, in the most perfect blast furnace operations, the iron is reduced by carbonic oxide before the charge reaches that portion of the furnace where fusion takes place (the smelting zone of Scheerer). When fusion does take place, we get from the rougher than the other side; and on this side is a trace of a nummulite, in lighter colour than the iron, concreted on it; and there is also a nodule of stone, A inch diameter, projecting from the surface, and sinking into the rusty mass. Judging from general appearances and weight, not more than half of what now remains of it consists of rust, the remainder is probably yet metallic. The colour of the rust is the usual dark-brown or blackish, not reddish ; and it is a very hard and solid kind of rust, like the magnetic iron ore. It has evidently been flexible, tough wrought-iron. ” * Ancient Workers and Artificers in Metal. By James Napier, F.C.S., &c. London, 1856. P. 132. And Sir Charles Lyell, as if borrowing his information from Mr. Napier, goes somewhat farther, when he writes—“To fuse the ore requires an intense heat, not to be obtained without artificial appliances, such as pipes inflated by the human breath, or bellows, or some other suitable machinery.” �12 Iron at least Coeval with Bronze. furnace either cast iron or crude steel, the iron being combined with a portion of the carbon of the charge. From what we know of the most ancient methods of reduction, the fusion of the metal was by them impossible. Hence the attempts in modern times to extol the difficulty of iron-making, by supposing its fusion to have been necessary, and therefore raising it high above the state of knowledge requisite for the more complex operations of forming an alloy out of two dissimilar metals, are not only incorrect but extremely misleading. The same author, to whom I have already referred, even goes so far as to say that “ the smelting and manu­ facture of iron is surrounded with so many difficulties, and needs so many requirements and such skill, that we would expect it to have been amongst the last of the metals that were brought into use.” Now, from what has been said, and from what follows, it will, I believe, be admitted. that not only is iron the very first metal which we should expect to find brought into use, merely on account of the simplicity by which it is reduced from its ores—namely, by heating the oxides in contact with carbon, and maintaining that contact for a length of time sufficient to allow the carbon, by a process analogous to that of cementation, to attack the oxygen to the innermost parts of the lumps of ore, resulting finally in a mass of malleable iron or a crude steel, ready to be re-heated and hammered into any shape desired. Whilst I have been thus led to point out the tendency towards erroneous conclusions to which Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Napier have helped us, yet I must, in due courtesy, acknowledge that the latter gentleman upsets his own conclusions by showing, from literary and monumental proof, that the use of iron was at least coeval with bronze, if not anterior to it; and in so far he has helped much those who reason from the metallurgist’s point of view; for, quoting Sir Gardner Wilkinson, Mr. Napier says‘‘Iron and copper mines are found in the Egyptian desert, which were worked in old times; and the monu­ ments of Thebes, and some of the towns about Memphis, dating more than 4,000 years ago, represent butchers sharpening their knives on a round bar of metal attached to their aprons, which, from its blue colour, can only be steel.”* Sir Gardner Wilkinson himself, too, as late as 1847, when the third edition of his famous five volume work-j- was published, has written— “ The most remote point to which we can see opens with a nation * “ The Ancient Workers in Metal ” (p. 133). London, 1856. + “ The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,” p. viii., Preface. London, 1847. �Sir Gardner Wilkinson and Mr. Basil H. Cooper. 13 possessing all the arts of civilized life already matured.” Which pas­ sage contrasts strikingly with another in the same volume (p. 59),— “ It was about the same period, b.c. 1406, that some suppose the use of iron to have been first discovered in Greece; but whether it * was already known in Egypt or no, is a question hitherto unanswered. We are surprised at the execution of hieroglyphics cut in hard granite and basaltic stone, to the depth of two inches, and naturally enquire, what means were employed—what tools were used? If the art of tempering steel was unknown to them, how much more must our wonder increase? and the difficulty of imagining any mode of applying copper to this purpose adds to our perplexity.” It is singu­ lar that so faithful and fair-dealing an author as Sir Gardner Wil­ kinson, one, too, so pre-eminently versed, after his long residence in Egypt, as to the facts relating to its history, and writing, too, so many years after the deposit of the Great Pyramid iron specimen in the British Museum, and being in general so exact a scholar in the hieroglyphs, should assert that “ whether iron was already known in Egypt or no, is a question hitherto unanswered.” Since, however, Wilkinson, Lyell, Morlot, and certain Swedes and Danes have published their views to the world, Egyptological research has not stood still; on the contrary, it has been prosecuted with continued energy, resulting, in so far as our present purpose is concerned, with some striking corroborations of the use of iron, not only so early as the Great Pyramid age, but much earlier still; for we find, as it has been so learnedly set forth by Mr. Basil H. Cooper,f that there is well ascertained hieroglyphic evidence of iron being known in Egypt even so early as the sixth or seventh monarch of the first dynasty. Mr. Cooper says,—li It must, I think, be conceded . . . that supposing iron to have been known to the Egyptians ... its employment in the construction of those Titanic erections, the Pyramids, ... is far more probable than the hypothesis that none but bronze tools were used. And this, I venture to think, can be satisfactorily demonstrated. “ The proof is based on the extremely significant Coptic word for iron, as illustrated and explained by the mode in which it is written * “Hesiod fin his Opera et Dies) makes the use of iron a much later dis­ covery. In Theseus’ time, who ascended the throne of Athens in 1235 b. c., iron is conjectured not to have been known, as he was found buried with a brass sword and spear. Homer generally speaks of brass arms, though he mentions iron.” Trans. Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Arts. 1868. �14 Hieroglyphic Testimony. in the hieroglypliical inscriptions, and on the occurrence of that word as a component element in the name of an Egyptian Pharaoh belonging to the first dynasty. The modern Egyptian word for iron is, in the Sahidic dialect, which is considered to be the purest Benipi, or, with a slight change in the final vowel, Benipe. In the hieroglyphical form of the language it is the same. . . . Its first element is BA or BE (in the Coptic BO), meaning ‘ hard-wood,’ or ‘ stone;’ and the two letters which spell the word are often accom­ panied in the hieroglyphical inscriptions by a picture of the squared stone, such as those of which the pyramids were built. At other times, as if to remind us that the word originally meant ‘ hard-wood,’ and that it was only in process of time that it came to denote 1 hard­ ware’ in general, including such stone hardware as was going in very early times, the picture illustrating the spelt word was a branch or sprig. The middle syllable in the word Benipe consists of the letters NI, with a very short vowel. It is a preposition, answering to the English ‘ of.’ The last element in the composite word is the syllable PE, which is the Coptic word for heaven, or the sky. And that this is really its signification here is proved incontrovertibly by the pictures with which this syllable is wont to be accompanied in the hieroglyphical orthography of the word Benipe ; for it is the picture invariably used to denote the heaven, or the sky, and is employed for no other purpose. Properly, it represents the ceiling of a temple, which was regarded as itself a representation of the sky, the true ceiling of the true and original temple; and the picture is accordingly wont to be emblazoned with stars. Hence,” says Mr. Cooper, “ the signification of the entire word Benipe, . . . although it could not for some time be conceived why the Egyptians should have called iron by so singular a name as ‘ stone of heaven,’ ‘ stone of the sky,’ ‘ sky-stone.’ ” “ Some time afterwards, however, it occurred to me that this was the very name which would naturally be given to the only iron with which men were likely to meet in a natural state. There is but one exception to the rule that iron is never found native, like gold and some other of the metals; that exception is in the instance of meteoric iron, which might surely be called with propriety “ the stone of heaven, or of the sky.” “ Moreover—and I have to thank my friend Mr. Pengelly for reminding me of the fact, and so materially helping me to shape out my crude speculation—meteoric iron needs no preparatory process, as does that procured from ores, to render it workable. In short, we may be sure, especially with the light thrown on the matter by this invaluable Egyptian word, �Hieroglyphic and Material Testimony Congruous. 15 bright with the radiance of that heaven which enters into its com­ position, that with this wondrous matter from another sphere than our own the working of iron began.” Whether Mr. Basil Cooper be right or not in his final conclusion, that meteoric iron was the first used, I think we scarcely have suffi­ cient evidence to convince us, although it looks extremely probable ; but that the hieroglyphic testimony is at one with all the other evidence, no one, I should suppose, would now dispute , and espe­ cially when we find that in Lower Egypt, in the very earliest times, the inhabitants worked so perfectly in granite, diorite, and others of the very hardest stones, for which copper or bronze tools would be useless, the result of all the testimony which I have adduced is to add another link to the completion of that chain of evidence which in Lower Egypt pre-eminently proves the extremely high intellectuality of man in the earliest ages which we are able, with certainty, to fathom. In conclusion, I have to record my obligations to the Directors of the British Museum; and especially to the keeper there of the Oriental Antiquities, the learned Dr. Birch, for affording me the opportunity of having photographed, under Dr. Birch’s super­ intendence, the specimens of iron referred to in this communication ; and to my friend W. Petrie I am much indebted for frequent visits to the British Museum, and for personally applying to the Directors, and procuring their permission to photograph the iron relics. BELL AND BAIN, PRINTERS, 41 MITCHELL STREET, GLASGOW. ����PLATE II- Showing one side with the descriptive label m 0 ol. Howar d Vy s e* s han dwnt l n g. TECE of IKON removed by blasting from the solid masonry of the Great pyramid Copied, from a Photograph ■ FIG. 2. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource On some evidences as to the very early uses of iron, and old bits of iron in particular Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Day, John Vincent Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Edinburgh Collation: 15 p. : ill. (2 folded plates) ; 24 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. 'Read before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, April 12, 1871'. Includes bibliographical references. Printed by Bell and Bain, Glasgow. Inscription on title page: 'From the Author'. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Edmonston and Douglas Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1871 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5272 G5274 Subject The topic of the resource Engineering Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (On some evidences as to the very early uses of iron, and old bits of iron in particular), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Industrial Archaeology Iron