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When we consider that the greater part of the iron thus produced is left in a rough and crude state, merely extracted from its ores and made ready for the use of the blacksmith, the machinist, and the engineer, when we remember that human labor multiplies by hundreds and by thousands the value of the raw material, that a bar of iron which costs five dollars will make three thousand dollars' worth of penknife-blades and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of watch-springs, we begin to understand the importance of the iron-manufacture, as an element of national wealth, independence, and power.
The invention of the hot blast, in conjunction with the discovery of the Black Band ironstone, has had an extra ordinary effect upon the development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland. The coals of that country are generally unfit for coking, and lose as much as 55 per cent. in the process.
The great importance of the iron-manufacture, as a branch of industry, in this country, is clearly demonstrated by this very complete catalogue. It shows that in the year 1856 there were nearly twelve hundred active iron-factories in the United States, and that they produced about eight hundred and fifty thousand tons of iron, worth fifty millions of dollars.
People living where coal-fields are discovered become colliers; Cornishmen take to mining because Cornwall is metalliferous; and the iron-manufacture is the dominant industry where ironstone is plentiful.
From the introduction of this process the extraordinary development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland may be said to date; and we accordingly propose to devote the present chapter to an account of its meritorious inventor. James Beaumont Neilson was born at Shettleston, a roadside village about three miles eastward of Glasgow, on the 22nd of June, 1792. His parents belonged to the working class.
The Dublin iron-manufacture was ruined in the same way; not through any local disadvantages, but solely by the prohibitory regulations enforced by the workmen of the Trades Unions.
We regret the more this unnecessary introduction of comparatively irrelevant matters, when we find, at the close of the volume, that the unexpected length of the discussion of the ores has prevented the publication of several chapters on the machinery now in use, the hot-blast and anthracite coal, the efforts to obtain malleable iron directly from the ore, and the history and present condition of the iron-manufacture in America.
Mushet published the results of his laborious investigations in a series of papers in the Philosophical Magazine, afterwards reprinted in a collected form in 1840 under the title of "Papers on Iron and Steel." These papers are among the most valuable original contributions to the literature of the iron-manufacture that have yet been given to the world.
It would he interesting to know the number of men employed in the iron-manufacture throughout the country, and it would not seem difficult for the Association to add this fact to the very valuable statistics which they have already collected. The descriptions of abandoned works are not all printed in small type. If this rule is adopted in the directory, it should be uniformly adhered to.
Hence the skill and ingenuity displayed in the invention of rifled guns and artillery, and iron-sided ships and batteries, the fabrication of which would be impossible but for the extraordinary development of the iron-manufacture, and the marvellous power and precision of our tool-making machines, as described in preceding chapters. "Our strength, wealth, and commerce," said Mr.
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