170 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The "hammer" was undoubtedly the first tool invented by 

 man, and it is still not only the simplest but positively the most 

 important tool in use ; without its pioneering blows other tools 

 could not have been fashioned, and the materials of which they 

 are composed would have lain dormant in the earth's crust for- 

 ever ; for the ringing of anvils under the beating of hammers was 

 the absolutely essential overture to the grand opera of the civiliza- 

 tion of the human race. 



If it was intended that the metal be drawn out on an anvil by 

 " hand-hammers " and " sledges," the soft mass of iron, as it was 

 taken from the " blomary-fire " or other furnace in which it was 

 reduced from the ore, was cut by means of a hatchet (as shown 

 at M N, Fig. 13) into parts not too cumbrous to be handled by or- 

 dinary smiths' tools ; these pieces were then heated in a fire of 

 larger size, blown by more powerful bellows than were commonly 

 used by a blacksmith. One of these enlarged smiths' fires is 

 shown in Fig. 15 (taken from Swedenborg's De Ferro), and the 

 tools used are shown scattered about the floor. It will be noted 

 that there are two bellows, and that these are operated by a 

 water-wheel. 



When, as was usually the case, the purpose was to make from 

 the iron bars and rods for the general purposes of trade, the 

 bloom resulting from shingling (as before described) the spongy 

 mass of crude iron was reheated and drawn into the desired 

 shape under the blows of a ponderous piece of machinery called 

 a trip-hammer. This, although of the same name, was quite 

 different in construction from that already described as having 

 been used for shingling the crude iron. One of these forge trip- 

 hammers is shown in Fig. 1G, in which H is the head of the 

 hammer ; this was sometimes made of wrought iron, but more 

 often was cast of the proper form and provided with an aperture 

 through which the wooden beam forming the "helve" was passed 

 and secured by wedges. W is the anvil, and a the "bloom," whose 

 movements are guided and controlled by the "hammer-man" (3) ; 

 while his assistant (2) determines the rapidity and force of the 

 blows, by varying the amount of water supplied to the water- 

 wheel which actuates the hammer. The clumsy, heavily iron- 

 hooped, wooden shaft Y, of the water-wheel, was in this instance 

 placed parallel with the helve of the hammer. Fastened in the 

 circumference of this shaft were a number of round wooden pins, 

 which, as they successively came in contact with the under side 

 of the helve, forcibly threw it up against the spring-beam, 13, 

 whose recoil increased the velocity of descent of the hammer and 

 consequently the force of the blow. 



Unless the bars made were of very great thickness, only a 

 part of the bloom could be drawn out before it became too cold 



