Ironmaster

“ Now in the series of operations, the blast-furnace, puddling and crucible processes, through which the iron passes from the state of ore to that of crucible tool steel, it is so difficult to detect just which are the conditions essential to excellence in the final product that, once a given procedure has been found to yield excellent steel, every one of its details is adhered to by the more cautious ironmasters, often with surprising conservatism. ”

“ Through their want of intelligent direction the great “Trust” of American ironmasters, a gang of energetic, narrow-minded furnace owners, had smelted far more iron than the whole world had any demand for. (In those days there existed no means of estimating any need of that sort beforehand.) ”

“ Thomas Murphy the timekeeper.”
“Exactly,” said Uncle John.
“Mr. Murphy,” Billy went on, “says that iron moves the world.”
“I should say,” said Uncle John, deliberately, “that power generally has to be put into an iron harness before anything can move; but Mr. Murphy evidently knows what he is talking about.”
“He says,” continued Billy, “that iron mills are very important places; and that, for his part, he’s glad that he works in an iron mill.”
“That’s the way every man ought to feel about his work,” said Uncle John; “all the work in the world has to be done by somebody.” ”

“ Prescott, “just remember three things: fuel, blast, and hammer—power, of course, behind the hammer. It’s the different variations that men have been making on those three things that have brought iron where it is to-day.
“Iron ore has so many things besides iron in it that the problem has always been how to get the impurities out.
“The old blacksmiths used to put it in the fire and hammer it; put it back in the fire and hammer again, until they worked most of the other things out. They made what is called forge iron. ”

“ The multifarious use of iron in our day has given its name to the age. We have got far beyond the primitive applications of that metal—every day it is supplanting some other substance, and there is no saying where the wide-spread and varied service we exact from it will stop. The invention of the steam-engine, and the improvement of manufacturing machines, would be comparatively valueless, unless we had at command a cheap and abundant supply of iron for their construction. ”

“ While I write, iron is doubtless flowing from blast furnaces in England, Wales, and Scotland; while I write, ingots of white-hot Bessemer steel are being dealt with under the steam-hammer or in the rolling-mills; while I write, horse-shoes are being forged, and, at each moment, in one way or another, pieces of iron of every temperature could be found, from those which are as cold as the iron apparatus used by Sir James Dewar in his experiments in the liquefaction of air, up to the glittering melted steel which is poured from the tilted converter. ”

“ Billy, my lad!” said Uncle John, but this time he said it with a smile.
“He was wishing,” said Billy when they overtook the others, “that he could make an iron gate.”
“I’ll confess, here and now,” said Mr. Prescott, “that I myself have had aspirations of that sort.”
“Is iron-work coming in again?” asked Dr. Crandon. “It seems to me that, just lately, I have seen some very beautiful gates.”
“I think so,” answered Mr. Prescott. “There are a few men who seem to have caught the spirit of the old smiths, and to have seen the possibilities in wrought iron. The man who made that gate is one of them. ”

“ You see that a man who works in iron must be both an artist and a smith—he must blow the forge and use the hammer. That gate in cast iron would be almost ugly. In the Swedish wrought iron, it is truly beautiful.
“The old fellows knew much more about the artistic side of iron than we do. Look at the old French locks—even a French king prided himself on his ability to make locks.
“There was a time when an apprentice to a locksmith had to make a masterpiece lock before he could become a master. It usually took him two years to do it, for he had to chase and chisel it from the solid. ”

“ Crandon.
“He roars!” added John Bradford.
“And,” said Mr. Prescott, “even if he could be moved, he’s rather too valuable for a circus manager to buy, for he cost a million dollars. I really think he’s the most fearful thing ever made by man. The Germans, though, did a great thing for iron when they evolved the blast furnace.”
“Makes our cupola,” said John Bradford, as they stopped before the tall iron stack, “look very small.”
“Ours,” said Mr. Prescott, “is only a dwarf, but he does something like the same work; only here they put in iron ore instead of pig iron. Blast furnaces make pig iron.” ”

“ Thus, when combined with carbon, in varying proportions, substances are produced, so different, but each so valuable, that they might almost be regarded in the light of distinct metals,—such, for example, as cast-iron, and cast and bar steel; the various qualities of iron enabling it to be used for purposes so opposite as a steel pen and a railroad, the needle of a mariner's compass and an Armstrong gun, a surgeon's lancet and a steam engine, the mainspring of a watch and an iron ship, a pair of scissors and a Nasmyth hammer, a lady's earrings and a tubular bridge. ”

“ Pig-iron contains silicon, sulphur and phosphorus, and these impurities make it brittle so that a cast iron teakettle will break at a blow, like a china cup. Armor of this kind would have been no good for our iron-clad ancestors. When a knight in iron clothes tried to whip a leather-clad peasant, the peasant could have cracked him with a stone and his clothes would have fallen off like plaster from the ceiling. So those early iron workers learned to puddle forge iron and make it into wrought iron which is tough and leathery and can not be broken by a blow. ”

“ Iron and its uses historically described should form no unimportant part to the history of the Ironmongers’ Company, but as it is not our intention now to give the thousand-and-one notes which would form a most interesting and valuable compendium to the general account of the City Guild, it is sufficient for us if we so condense our large store of material and give such an epitome as will assist the reader to comprehend the origin of the trade of which the company bears the name.
A well-known writer justly observes that no one should fail to consider the origin, history, and value of iron ”

“ Manufactured irons differ very greatly amongst themselves. For one kind is tenacious in its nature, and this is the best; one is of medium quality: another is brittle, and this is the worst. Sometimes the iron, by reason of the excellency of the ore, is wrought into steel, as to-day in Noricum. From the finest iron, too, well wrought and purged from all dross, or by being plunged in water after heating, there issues what the Greeks call στόμωμα; the Latins acies; others aciarium, such as was at times called Syrian, Parthian, Noric, Comese, Spanish ”

“ Billy looked at him questioningly.
“That was rather technical, wasn’t it, Billy? You see, I was talking to a technical man. Just between you and me, meteoric iron comes down from the sky, from what we call shooting stars. Sometimes large pieces are found. I suppose that much of it falls into the sea. It is the purest iron that has ever been found.”
“What about magnetic iron?” asked Dr. Crandon. “Where does that come from?”
“At the present time,” answered Mr. Prescott, “most of it comes from Sweden and Norway. It makes the best kind of steel. ”

“ It was only after the next great advance that we found man utilizing iron for his purposes of civilization. This metal, which with us is so common, was in those days very expensive, so much so that it could be used only for purposes of war and as the gifts of kings.
But the world was traveling fast and it was not long before the iron-carbon alloy, steel, was produced. Even so, many hundreds of years elapsed before the present wonderful age was ushered in through the great inventions of Henry Bessemer and the Siemens brothers. ”

“ If enemies stand around in groups, they make the iron easy to break.
“When we want steel for chisels, for example, we invite Tungsten to come in; when we want certain parts for automobiles we call in some Vanadium pygmies.”
“So,” said Mr. Prescott, “while we need the giants to make the pig iron, the real value of the iron and steel depends on the pygmies.”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Mr. Farnsworth.
“Anything the trouble with you, young chap?” asked Dr. Crandon. “You haven’t spoken for ten minutes. Feel bad anywhere?”
“No,” answered Billy. ”

“ Iron-filings, (for this Steel-dust is nothing more than pure iron reduced into small particles by filing or some other method,) when free from rust, and not mixed with any impurities, answer very well; but fire-work [36] makers generally prefer cast-iron reduced to powder, by beating thin plates of it on a cast-iron anvil with a heavy hammer, and sifting the broken particles through sieves of brass or iron wire, of different degrees of fineness, so as to separate the particles into grains of various sizes, according to the magnitude of the pieces. ”

“ When seen partially lit up by the glowing masses of white-hot iron, with only the rays of bright sunshine gleaming through the holes in the roof, and the dark, black, smoky vaults in which the cumbrous machinery was heard rumbling away in the distance—while the moving parts were dimly seen through the murky atmosphere, mixed with the sounds of escaping steam and rushes of water; with the half-naked men darting about with masses of red-hot iron and ladles full of molten cast-iron—it made a powerful impression upon the mind. ”

“ The hold of the ship, emptied of its burden, was already beginning to close.
“Beginning to believe in giants, aren’t you?” said Mr. Prescott, as Billy stepped into the car.
“The next giant will be a hungry fellow, and he is very, very tall; so he eats a great deal.”
“An iron-eater, is he?” queried Dr. Crandon.
“We ourselves will have something to eat before we visit him,” said Mr. Prescott, ordering Joseph to drive back to the hotel.
“Mr. Prescott,” said Dr. Crandon, as they sat at table, “is iron ever found in a pure state, like gold, for instance?” ”

“ Some of them can be moved about like a portable sawmill.
“Up in Sweden, where the ores are among the purest in the world, they use electric smelters and make steel direct from the ore.”
“Any more giants?” asked Billy.
“You’ll think so,” answered Mr. Prescott, “before I am through with them; but we’ve seen enough for to-day. Next time I’ll show you giants that have done something more than to make iron, for they have really reduced the size of the world.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Dr. Crandon.
“Before that,” said Mr. Prescott, “I am going to introduce you to some pygmies.” ”

“ Crandon, “from fishing ore with tongs.”
“We’ve moved along a great way since that time,” said John Bradford, “and most of our progress has been due to iron.”
“Giants don’t do all the work even now,” said Mr. Prescott. “They make short work of iron mountains and surface deposits, but most of them are too large to work underground; though we mustn’t forget that Giant Electricity works down there with the men.
“Giant Gravity helps too, for, when they work below the deposit, he caves the ore down. ”

“ The great ladle swung forward, for a moment, on its tilting gear, and the men bore away their ladles filled with iron that the great dragon had changed from its own dull gray to the brilliant yellow of gold.
The molds, as they were filled, smoked from all their venting places, till, to his picture, Billy added a place for a battle-field.
By the time that the last molds were filled, some of the men began to take off the wooden frames, and there the iron was, gray again, but, this time, shaped for the use of man.
“See,” said Uncle John, coming to the window, “there are our corn cutters. ”

“ Prescott. “Heat expands iron. If we didn’t keep it cool, the screw wouldn’t be the right size when it is done.
“Cold naturally works the other way. Ever hear about the iron bridge where the parts wouldn’t quite come together, so they put ice on to do the job?” he asked, but he kept right on, without waiting for Billy to answer.
Billy saw other machines boring holes and rounding corners. It seemed as if iron could cut iron into any shape that anybody wanted. ”

“ Then we can have that talk about iron.”
Much as he wanted to be with Uncle John, Billy really was anxious to hear what Thomas Murphy had to say about iron. So he answered:
“I think, Mr. Murphy, that that would be a good plan.”
When Billy came back, Thomas Murphy, eager of his opportunity, was putting the cover on his own pail.
Then, sitting up straight in his chair, and swelling with oratorical pride, he began:
“William, I told you that iron is a large subject. The more a man thinks about it, the larger it gets.
“Here,” he said, waving his left hand, “is our mill. What do we make? ”

“ Iron is now employed in almost every part of a war-ship, the masts themselves being in many cases of iron—hollow tubes through which the running rigging may be let down when there is danger of its being damaged by the enemy’s fire. The majority of modern ironclads are built in compartments, with this advantage that, if damage is sustained in one part of the vessel, and the water rush in through the gap made by shot or any other cause, the ship will still float until the water can be let out again. ”