Chambers. — New Zealand Ironsands. 223 



Aet. XXIV. — New Zealand Ironsands : an Historical Account of an 

 Attempt to Smelt Ironsands at Onehunga in 1883. 



By J. M. Chambers. 



Communicated by Mr. Evan Parry. 



[Read before the Technological Section of the Wellington Philosophical Society, 13th Jane, 

 1917 ; received by Editors, 31st December, 1917 ; issued separately, 17th June, 191s. | 



It is extremely difficult after a lapse of nearly thirty-five years to obtain 

 a complete history of this undertaking, as the directors of the New Zealand 

 Iron and Steel Company (Limited) are all dead — in fact, almost everybody 

 who had any connection with it. Its records have been lost or destroyed, 

 and the only data I have have been obtained from a private letter-book 

 and a few odd documents which I found amongst my father's papers. 



In 1866 Mr. John Chambers arrived in New Zealand, and soon after- 

 wards saw the ironsand on the beaches of Taranaki. He was much im- 

 pressed with it as a valuable asset, if the material could be converted into 

 marketable iron. From some early settlers he learnt that 100 tons of sand 

 had been sent to Staffordshire, where it was manufactured into iron by 

 David Hipkins, who wrote that he smelted and puddled the sand into bars, 

 sheets, hoops, boiler-plates, and fencing-rods, afterwards making it into 

 horse-shoes, chain, &c. All were tested and pronounced equal to any of 

 the Staffordshire irons ; but owing to cost of manipulation he would not 

 recommend his principals to obtain further supplies or establish a works 

 in New Zealand. 



Later, in 1876, Mr. Chambers took a parcel of ironsand to England and 

 the United States. He interviewed many ironmasters, but could get none 

 sufficiently interested to experiment seriously with the samples, excepting 

 in laboratories, where a few pounds of iron and steel were produced in 

 crucibles. 



In 1886 I attended the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, where there were 

 exhibited a parcel of sand and some iron manufactured by the above com- 

 pany. While in London I was introduced to W. T. Jeans, Price Williams, 

 and Sir Henry Bessemer, all of whom were interested in the sands of New 

 Zealand and Canada. Arrangements were made with Sir Henry Bessemer 

 to carry out a series of experiments. His report was unsatisfactory, for, 

 although he claimed that the best-quality iron and steel could be produced, 

 it would require a great deal of research work, and he was too old to go on 

 with it. 



Just before Sir William Siemens died, in 1883, he stated that his atten- 

 tion had been called to the ironsand in New Zealand and Canada, contain- 

 ing about 50 per cent, of metallic iron, and he demonstrated with a patent 

 rotating furnace that he could manufacture iron from the ironsand of 

 Canada, producing iron balls in four hours, which were then treated in 

 the open-hearth furnace and converted into mild steel. At that time his 

 process was tried in Pittsburgh, but unfortunately it did not prove a 

 commercial success, on account of cost. 



Mr. John Chambers visited the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876, and 

 there tried to induce men in the iron and steel trade to test the ironsand ; 

 but nothing could be arranged, as all the ironmasters of America were fully 

 occupied in building additional works to handle the trade which they could 



