MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 75 







Its qualities have proved identical with those of the native compound. In 

 addition it is more ductile and has more tenacity than pure iron, and is not so 

 liable to rust or oxidize. Possessing such qualities, meteoric iron is certain to 

 become a branch of national industry. A mixture of ninety-eight parts of 

 iron and two of nickel has ah 1 the peculiarities of best meteoric iron. A few 

 years ago an ore of sulphuret of nickel, devoid of arsenic, was found in 

 Inverary, in Scotland, and by its means meteoric iron has been made of the 

 best quality. London Engineer. 



It is stated, as a curious fact in the iron manufacture, that within the last 

 twelve or fifteen years cast-iron contracts less by one-half than it did for- 

 merly. Experts are disposed to attribute this to a difference in the mode of 

 manufacturing iron employed in the present day from that which formerly 

 prevailed. Editor. 



PRESENT POSITION OF THE IRON MANUFACTURE. 



From a paper recently read before the Society of Arts, by Mr. J. K. Black- 

 well, " Qn the present position of the iron manufacture," we derive the fol- 

 lowing extracts: 



Mr. Blackwell sets the total annual production of pig or crude iron at 

 6,000,000 tons, of which Great Britain produces 3,000,000, France 750,000, 

 the United States 750,000, Prussia 300,000, Austria 250,000, Belgium 200.000, 

 Russia 200,000, Sweden 150,000, the smaller German States 100,000, and 

 other countries 300,000. 



Mr. Blackwell thinks that in Great Britain the most favorable localities 

 for the iron industry are already fully occupied, but that in Ireland there 

 exist immense deposits of clay carbonate of excellent quality, which are now 

 entirely unworked, and he suggests it as a very important subject for inquiry 

 whether the immense resources of vegetable fuel in the form of peat with 

 which Ireland abounds, might not be advantageously applied to the produc- 

 tion of first-rate iron from them. He enforces this suggestion by stating that 

 pig iron is smelted with carbonized peat hi Bohemia. 



The iron produced in France is smelted in nearly equal proportion with 

 coke and charcoal ; that a large proportion of the charcoal pig iron is subse- 

 quently converted into bar iron solely with charcoal ; and that the charcoal 

 pig iron is for the most part made in close proximity to some of the most 

 important coal fields in France. This latter consideration points, in Mr. 

 Blackwell's opinion, to an early transformation in the French iron industry. 

 From the limited extent of Belgium he anticipates that the production of iron 

 will remain nearly stationary there ; whereas in Prussia he states that it is 

 rapidly increasing, the chief obstacles being the nature of her widely spread, 

 ill connected territories, and the want of facilities of intercommunication and 

 of access to markets. The latter class of drawbacks he notices as restricting 

 the production in Styria, Carinthia, and Bohemia : and from similar causes, 

 and the absence of mineral fuel, he anticipates that the iron manufacture in 

 Russia and Sweden neither of which countries possesses mineral fuel con- 

 veniently situated will long remain comparatively stationary. 



The iron industry of the United States is already highly important, and 



