OF ANTHRACITE CAST IRON. jak 
furnace, and its adaptation to purposes where a 
great heating power is required. This description 
of coal, although well known for many years to 
the miners and iron manufacturers of South 
Wales, has, nevertheless, been much neglected, 
and its valuable, as well as economical properties 
almost entirely overlooked by them, from the 
circumstance of their inability to burn it. 
Mr. Martin, in 1804, made the first attempt to 
use anthracite for the fusion of iron ore, but with- 
out any satisfactory results; twenty years after- 
wards, other trials were made to form a conglo- 
merate coke, composed of anthracite and bitumi- 
nous coal, but these, like the former, were unsuc- 
cessful. Mr. Crane, of the Yniscedwyn iron 
works, was the first to introduce, exclusively, 
anthracite for the purpose of smelting; first by 
its introduction to the cupola, and subsequently 
to the smelting furnace, by the use of the hot 
blast. Mr. Price of Neath Abbey, also made 
several experiments on this mineral, and found 
that about 8 ewt. of bituminous coal, coked in 
ovens, mixed with 25 ewt. of anthracite, gave one 
ton of iron; effecting a saving greater than any- 
thing yet accomplished by the hot blast, and the 
common coal. 
