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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the " blomary fires " could be easily and cheaply smelted, and at 

 the same time furnish larger masses of f orgeable metal than the 

 process in common use could supply. 



This demand led to the invention of the " Osmund * furnace " 

 and the " Stuckofen." f Both of these furnaces are of German 

 origin, but it is not absolutely certain which is the older ; for, 

 although we hear of the " Stuckofen " as early as the year 1000, 

 we find no mention of the " Osmund furnace " (by that name) 

 until early in the eighteenth century, though furnaces of simi- 

 lar size and construction (called " Blaseofen " and Bauernofen) 

 had been in use in Germany for several hundred years ; and as 

 the natural course of development of all mechanisms and appara- 

 tus is from the smaller to the larger, or from the less to the more 

 efficient, it is extremely probable that the " Osmund furnace " was 

 the immediate successor of the "blomary " and that the " Stuck- 

 ofen" (a much larger and loftier construction) followed pretty 

 closely in point of time after it. 



Fig. 13. An Osmund Furnace. 



The general construction and equipment of an " Osmund fur- 

 nace " are represented in Fig. 13. This engraving is a copy of one 

 given by Percy \ as a reproduction of a drawing accompanying a 

 report of a Swedish mining surveyor to the Royal Board of Iron 

 Trade in 1732. A similar engraving (but three times the size) is 

 contained in the work of Swedenborg, who gives in addition a 



* From the German " One" ring, and " Mund" mouth, 

 f From the German " Stuck," bloom (piece), and " Ofen," furnace. 

 X Metallurgy of Iron and Steel. By John Percy, M. D., F. R. S. 

 p. 321. 



London, 1864, 



