240 
heat and intensity of the blast, that much caution is required in 
arriving at any fixed opinion on the nature of a process so com- 
plicated as that of iron smelting. 
I may here observe that the cubic capacity of the old Maryport 
furnace is about 2700 feet, and of the furnaces erected of late 
years at Maryport by the Solway Iron Co., 13,000 cubic feet. 
Estimating the produce of the old furnace at 500 tons per 
annum, and of each of the Solway Co.’s furnaces at only 500 tons 
per week, or 26,000 tons per annum, and applying that figure to 
the ten furnaces at Maryport, we may estimate the whole of the 
present furnaces as capable of producing 260,000 tons of pig iron 
per annum, or 520 times more than the old furnace—a quantity 
which if converted into a continuous length of ordinary railway 
bars would reach from Maryport to the centre of the earth. 
I will now give some information relative to the quantity of 
pig iron produced in the country during the period that the old 
furnace was in operation, compared with the produce of subsequent 
years, kindly sent to me by Mr. R. Hunt, F.R.S., Keeper of the 
Mining Records at the Museum of Practical Geology. 
The quantity of pig iron made in England and Wales and 
Scotland in the following years, will serve to show the progress 
which has been made between 1740 and 1854, the first year in 
which statistics were collected by the Mining Record Office, and 
the year 1876 :— 
TONS 
1740 Charcoal Pig Iron” - - - 17,350 
1788 Charcoal Pig Iron 13,100 \ ; 
» Coke Pig Iron 48,200 61,300 
»» Charcoal and Coke Furnaces in Scotland —_7,000 
otek caene and Wales fee \ ot Gea 
1806 Great Britain - - - - 258,206 
1830 * S - - 678,417 
1839 9 - - - - 1,248,781 
1847 » : : ; - 1,999,608 
1852 26 - - - - 2,701,000 
1854 ” : : 5 - 3,069,838 
1876 * : - = 6,555:977 
