AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 449 



brought together within the covers of the Bible. What matters 

 it that those who incorporated the Creation lore of Babylonia and 

 other Oriental nations into the sacred books of the Hebrews, 

 mixed it with their own conceptions and deductions ? What 

 matters it that Darwin changed the whole aspect of our Creation 

 myths ; that Lyell and his compeers placed the Hebrew story of 

 Creation and of the Deluge of Noah among legends ; that Coper- 

 nicus put an end to the literal acceptance of the standing still 

 of the sun for Joshua ; that Halley, in promulgating his law of 

 comets, put an end to the doctrine of signs and wonders ; that 

 Pinel, in showing that all insanity is physical disease, relegated 

 to the realm of mythology the witch of Endor and all stories of 

 demoniacal possession ; that the Rev. Dr. Schaff, and a multi- 

 tude of recent Christian travelers in Palestine, have put into the 

 realm of legend the story of Lot's wife transformed into a pillar 

 of salt ; that the anthropologists, by showing how man has risen 

 everywhere from low and brutal beginnings, have destroyed the 

 whole theological theory of " the fall of man " ? Our great body 

 of sacred literature is thereby only made more and more valuable 

 to us : more and more we see how long and patiently the forces in 

 the universe which make for righteousness have been acting in 

 and upon mankind through the only agencies fitted for such work 

 in the earliest ages of the world through myth, legend, parable, 

 and poem. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 



SINCE COLUMBUS. 



III. IRON-SMELTING BY MODERN METHODS. 

 Br WILLIAM F. DUBFEE, Engineer. 



THUS far in these papers we have dealt only with iron smelted 

 by charcoal, and, in fact, up to the year 1830, there had been 

 no attempt whatever to utilize either anthracite or bituminous coal 

 for the purpose. In regard to the use of mineral coal Swank quotes 

 as follows from a letter dated March 18, 1825, from the acting com- 

 mittee of the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal 

 Improvements to William Strikeland, who was its European agent : 

 " No improvements have been made here in it [the manufacture of 

 iron] within the last thirty years, and the use of bituminous and 

 anthracite coal in our furnaces is absolutely and entirely unknown. 

 Attempts, and of the most costly kind, have been made to use the 

 coal of the western part of our State in the production of iron. 

 Furnaces have been constructed according to the plan said to be 

 adopted in Wales and elsewhere ; persons claiming experience in 

 the business have been employed ; but all has been unsuccessful." 



VOL. XXXVIII. 31 



