458 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



per-Cochrane Stove * is conveyed by Fig. 37, in which, the burn- 

 ing gases intensely heat the reticulated mass of fire-bricks B B, 

 which in turn heat the air of the blast. All the fire-brick stoves 

 are of such huge proportions that a modern furnace plant sug- 

 gests a hot-blast apparatus with an attached furnace, rather than 

 a furnace with hot-blast stoves. 



Raw bituminous coal has been used to some considerable ex- 

 tent as a blast-furnace fuel since 1845, near the end of which year 

 Mr. David Himrod (late of Youngstown, Ohio) used raw coal for a 



time with success in a 

 furnace on Anderson's 

 Run, Mercer County, 

 Pa. This furnace had 

 been " blown in " with 

 charcoal, but the avail- 

 able quantity of this 

 fuel being insufficient, 

 some coke was mixed 

 with it, and later raw 

 coal was substituted 

 for the coke ; and we 

 are told that " the fur- 

 nace worked well and 

 produced a fair quality 

 of metal." The first 

 furnace in America 

 built with the inten- 

 tion of using raw bi- 

 tuminous coal as fuel 

 was built in 1845 for 

 Messrs. Wilkinson, 

 Wilkes & Co., at Low- 

 ell, Mahoning County, 

 Ohio. This furnace was 

 successfully blown in 

 with raw coal on the 

 8th of August, 1846, by 

 John Crowther, an Eng- 

 lishman, who came to the United States in 1844, previous to which 

 he had been the manager of seven furnaces in Staffordshire. Mr. 

 Crowther adapted many furnaces in Ohio to the use of bituminous 

 coal, and instructed his three sons, Joshua, Joseph J., and Benja- 

 min, in their management. He died April 15, 1861, in England. 

 The successful blowing in of the furnace at Lowell may be fairly 



Fig. 37. 



-The Siemens-Cowper-Cochrane Hot-blast 

 Stove. 



Invented by Dr. C. W. Siemens, Edward W. Cowper, and Charles Cochrane. 



