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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the requisite skill cast cannon and mortars, and the iron ammu- 

 nition for the same, for that army which controlled them for the 

 time being. One of the most notable events connected with the 

 manufacture of iron during these years was the making of the 

 great iron chain which in 1778 was stretched across the Hudson 

 River at West Point to prevent the passage of British vessels. 

 Lossing, in his Field Book of the Revolution, gives a very inter- 

 esting account of this work, of which we can quote only the lead- 

 ing facts. " The iron of which this chain was constructed was 

 wrought from ore of equal parts from the Sterling and Long 

 mines in Orange County. The chain was manufactured by Peter 

 Tuwnsend, of Chester, at the Sterling Iron Works in the same 

 county, which were situated about twenty-five miles back of West 

 Point. The chain was completed about the middle of April, 1778, 

 and on the 1st of May it was stretched across the river and 

 secured. It was fixed to huge blocks on each shore, and under 

 cover of batteries on both sides of the river." " It is buoyed up," 

 says Dr. Thacher, writing in 1780, " by very large logs of about 

 sixteen feet long, pointed at the ends, to lessen their opposition to 

 the force of the current at flood and ebb tide. The logs are placed 

 at short distances from each other, the chain carried over them, 

 and made fast to each by staples. There are also a number of 

 anchors dropped at proper distances, with cables made fast to the 

 chain to give it greater stability." The total weight of this chain 

 was one hundred and eighty tons. Mr. Lossing visited West 

 Point in 1848, and saw a portion of this famous chain, and he 

 tells us that " there are twelve links, two clevises, and a portion 

 of a link remaining. The links are made of iron bars, two and a 

 half inches square, and average in length a little over two feet, 

 and weigh about one hundred pounds each." 



The manufacture of nails was one of the household industries 

 of New England during a large part of the eighteenth century. 

 James M. Swank, in Iron in All Ages, quotes from Nehemiah 

 Bennet's description of the Town of Middleborough, Plymouth 

 County, Massachusetts (1793) : " Nailing, or the business of mak- 

 ing nails, is carried on largely in the winters, by farmers and 

 young men, who have little other business at that season of the 

 year." Speaking of the early attempts to manufacture tacks, 

 the same authority gives the following from the Furniture and 

 Trade Journal : "In the queer-shaped, homely farm-houses, or 

 the little contracted shops of certain New England villages, 

 the industrious and frugal descendants of the Pilgrims toiled 

 providently through the long winter months at beating into 

 shape the little nails which play so useful a part in modern in- 

 dustry. A small anvil served to beat the wire or strip of iron 

 into shape and point it ; a vise worked by the foot clutched it 



