73 



been sent to England from Japan, the higk prices now 

 ruling having attracted supplies of iron from distant coun- 

 tries. 



Finished bar iron is produced at the present time in 

 countries where labour is cheap and charcoal plentiful at an 

 exceedingly low price as compared with present values in 

 England. The specimens now exhibited cost only £6 per 

 ton for the bloom and £8 per ton for the finished bar. The 

 sizes of the bars are however verv small, but it is a remark- 

 able fact that on so small a scale iron of the very highest 

 quality can be made and sold at half the price of English 

 bars made on the largest scale with all the advantages of 

 our modern machinery and appliances. It is believed that 

 this iron is made by a similar process to that followed by 

 the Romans in Britain, the remains of furnaces or " bloom- 

 eries" on Ennerdale lake being of this class. 



The President said that he had made another observa- 

 tion of the position of the freezing point in the thermometer 

 used in making the observations recorded in the Proceed- 

 ings for April 16, 1867, and February 22, 1870. The gradual 

 rise of the zero during twenty-nine years will be se6n by 

 the adjoining diagram, the ordinates representing divisions 

 etched on the glass stem each corresponding to ~iir^- of a 

 degree Fahrenheit. 







