146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The first mention of the existence of iron-ore on this continent 

 was by Thomas Harriot, " the geographer " of the second expedi- 

 tion to Virginia. This expedition effected a settlement on Roa- 

 noke Island, and Harriot in his history of the colony says : " In 

 two places of the countrey specially, one about fonre score and 

 the other six score miles from the fort or place where wee dwelt, 

 wee foimde neere the water side the ground to be rockie, which, 

 by the triall of a minerall man was founde to hold iron richly. It- 

 is founde in manie places of the countrey else. I know nothing to 

 the contrarie but that it maie bee allowed for a good marchant- 

 able commoditie, considering there the small charge for the labour 

 and feeding of men ; the infinite store of wood ; the want of wood 

 and the deerenesse thereof in England ; and the necessity of bal- 

 asting of shfppes." Nothing seems to have come of this discov- 

 ery ; and the colony, being menaced by the Indians, became dis- 

 couraged and returned to England in 1586. 



We next read of American iron-ore in the history of the col- 

 ony which located at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. We are told 

 that "on the 10th of April, 1608, the company's ship sailed from 

 Jamestown, loaded with iron ore, sassafras, cedar posts, and wal- 

 nut boards." Seventeen tons of iron made from this ore in Eng- 

 land was sold to the East India Company for 4 per ton. This 

 was without doubt the first sale of iron made from American 

 ores. An attempt was made in the years 1620 to 1622 to erect 

 iron-works on Falling Creek, a branch of the James River, about 

 sixty-six miles above Jamestown, but on the 10th of March, 1622, 

 the buildings were burned by the Indians and 317 persons were 

 killed ; thus ending in fire and blood the first attempt to make 

 iron on a manufacturing scale on this continent. 



We have no account of the actual form of the furnaces or 

 other apparatus, nor any description of the methods of smelting 

 employed in the earliest iron-works of this country, but from the 

 evidence accessible we are quite safe in assuming that the early 

 American metallurgists were in no great degree wiser than their 

 European instructors ; and, when we consider the difficulties of 

 every kind that must have surrounded all attempts to manufact- 

 ure iron in a new country, it seems highly probable that our early 

 iron masters would have adopted the simplest and most inexpen- 

 sive methods known to be capable of accomplishing the desired 



Vaughan Merrick and James Moore, of Philadelphia, I have received information in re- 

 gard to the early use of the Nasmyth steam hammer in the United States. I am also 

 indebted to Oliver Williams, Esq., President of the Catasauqua Manufacturing Company, 

 of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, for information relative to the manufacture of anthracite 

 iron at that place. I also acknowledge with pleasure the kind offices of W. H. Wahl, 

 Ph. D., Secretary of the Franklin Institute, and James Gayley, Esq., Superintendent of 

 Furnaces at the Edgar Thomson Steel Works. 



