AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 739 



England, the 



ingots 



of steel were drawn into bars of various 



sizes and shapes, under quick-working " tilt-hammers," and this 

 operation was called "tilting the steel"; the "filter" sat in a sus- 

 pended seat, and moved his body to and from the anvil by his feet, 

 while his eyes were fully occupied in watching the size and form 

 of the bar, and his hands in turning it upon the anvil. The Eng- 

 lish machinery and practice were copied in this country, in the 



__"^>7V?>ff/./VJ^- 



Fig. 53. "Teeming" an Ingot of Steel. 



early steel works, and a plant of steel " tilting-hammers " is shown 

 in Fig. 54. No small part of the expense of maintaining such a 

 plant was the cost of timber for the wooden " helves " of the ham- 

 mers, which, notwithstanding the heavy bands of iron encom- 

 passing them, required frequent renewal, owing to the shattering 

 effect of the heavy and constantly repeated blows to which they 

 were subjected. At the present time all " cast steel r is drawn 

 under steam hammers, whose construction is a modified form ot 

 that invented by Nasmyth, already described. 



The first step toward the production of steel in such large 



